School Days - By Robert B. Parker Page 0,49

went to the kitchen for a refill. Pearl had lost all interest in me, and was asleep now on her couch. I sat back on my stool at the counter and felt the scotch move through me happily.

So, Beth Ann and Royce were spending nights together. So what? What Beth Ann was telling me about Jared didn't jibe with what everyone else was telling me about Jared. So what?

I wondered if the romance with Garner was surreptitious. I wondered if Garner were married. Someone had greeted him at the door when he went home. I wondered what it all had to do with Jared, if anything. I sipped my scotch. Susan's home was built in the nineteenth century. It had high ceilings and wide hallways. Her office was downstairs. Her self was everywhere. If I weren't so autonomous and self-reliant, I would have missed her like a bastard.

"Being a seasoned investigator," I said to Pearl, "I have found that when there's stuff you don't know in a case, it's best to find it out."

Pearl was on her back, her head lolled off the couch, and she looked at me upside down. I finished my drink.

"Tomorrow," I said.

I got up and went to Susan's bedroom and cleared space among the pillows and went to bed. Pearl joined me later in the night.

Chapter 49

I HAD RETURNED my Camry. Pearl was off to the woods with the woman Susan insisted on calling Pearl's personal trainer. I sat in my office with coffee, going through the scrapbook of press clippings that Lily Ellsworth had given me when I first met her. I thought I remembered something, and I was right. There was a picture of Royce Garner with Mrs. Garner beside him, talking to a group of parents during the crisis. She looked like an answer to the question Why does Mr. Garner fool around? Of course, she might be a wonderful human being. But unless the camera lied flagrantly, no one would mistake her for pretty.

So it was surreptitious. Garner was cheating on his wife with Beth Ann. Why Beth Ann would wish to cheat on anyone with Royce Garner was imponderable. So I didn't ponder it. Instead, I pondered what I could do with what I had learned. After a while, I decided on B&E, with blackmail a fallback position, and took my coffee, got my gym bag of tools, went to my car, and headed out to Beth Ann's condo to implement my plan.

It was mid-morning when I got there. The sun was bright. The weather was cool. The condo parking lot was half empty. A guy in a white sleeveless undershirt was rolling a big blue trash barrel across the lot. He set it down at the far edge of the lot, beside another one, and turned and went back around the building. After he disappeared, I drove around behind the building and down a slight grade. At the basement level, a big door stood open. The guy in the undershirt came out with another big blue barrel. He had a wreath tattooed around the biceps of his left arm. I parked in a guest overflow slot near the basement door. The guy in the undershirt ignored me, and when he was out of sight, I left my car, took my small gym bag with me, and walked into the basement. I was in an open area where there were at least ten more of the big blue barrels. Ahead of me was a corridor. I went down it. There was a boiler room to the left, and at the far end, two elevators. I got in one. I punched the button for the lobby and went up.

In the lobby, I opened the front door of the building. I used my tool bag to keep it from closing, went out, found Beth Ann's name on the directory. 417. I went back in, picked up my gym bag, and took the elevator to the fourth floor.

Number 417 was at the far end of the corridor, on the left, which probably meant Beth Ann paid less for it and didn't get to look at the lake. I put my gym bag down and knocked. No answer. Breaking into a place isn't very hard if you don't mind people knowing you were there. Tossing a place and having no one know it was a little trickier. I didn't care if Beth Ann knew someone had burgled her. So with a lender pry bar