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See, I followed her to work. It wasn't even tricky. She trudged the same path, went in the same entrance to Harvard Yard, probably walked the same number of steps every morning. Her name was Marcia Heidegger and she was a secretary in the admissions office of the college of fine arts.
I got friendly with one of her co-workers.
There was this guy typing away like mad at a desk in her office. I could just see him from the side window. He had grad student written all over his face. Longish wispy hair. Gold-rimmed glasses. Serious. Given to deep sighs and bright velour V necks. Probably writing his thesis on 'Courtly Love and the Theories of Chretien de Troyes.'
I latched onto him at Bailey's the day after I'd tracked Lady Heidegger to her Harvard lair.
Too bad Roger was so short. Most short guys find it hard to believe that I'm really trying to pick them up. They look for ulterior motives. Not the Napoleon type of short guy; he assumes I've been waiting years for a chance to dance with a guy who doesn't have to bend to stare down my cleavage. But Roger was no Napoleon. So I had to engineer things a little.
I got into line ahead of him and ordered, after long deliberation, a BLT on toast. While the guy made it up and shoved it on a plate with three measly potato chips and a sliver of pickle you could barely see, I searched through my wallet, opened my change purse, counted out silver, got to $1.60 on the last five pe
Roger (I didn't know he was Roger then) smiled ruefully and passed over a quarter. I was effusive in my thanks. I sat at a table for two, and when he'd gotten his tray (ham-and-cheese and a strawberry ice cream soda), I motioned him into my extra chair.
He was a sweetie. Sitting down, he forgot the difference in our height, and decided I might be someone he could talk to. I encouraged him. I hung shamelessly on his every word. A Harvard man, imagine that. We got around slowly, ever so slowly, to his work at the admissions office. He wanted to duck it and talk about more important issues, but I persisted. I'd been thinking about getting a job at Harvard, possibly in admissions. What kind of people did he work with? Were they congenial? What was the atmosphere like? Was it a big office? How many people? Men? Women? Any soulmates? Readers? Or just, you know, office people?
According to him, every soul he worked with was brain dead. I interrupted a stream of complaint with "Gee, I know somebody who works for Harvard. I wonder if you know her."
"It's a big place," he said, hoping to avoid the whole endless business.
"I met her at a party. Always meant to look her up." I searched through my bag, found a scrap of paper and pretended to read Marcia Heidegger's name off it.
"Marcia? Geez, I work with Marcia. Same office."
"Do you think she likes her work? I mean I got some strange vibes from her," I said. I actually said 'strange vibes' and he didn't laugh his head off. People in the Square say things like that and other people take them seriously.
His face got conspiratorial, of all things, and he leaned closer to me.
"You want it, I bet you could get Marcia's job."
"You mean it?" What a compliment-a place for me among the brain dead.
"She's go
"Snap out of what?"
"It was bad enough working with her when she first came over. She's one of those crazy neat people, can't stand to see papers lying on a desktop, you know? She almost threw out the first chapter of my thesis!"
I made a suitably horrified noise and he went on.
"Well, you know, about Marcia, it's kind of tragic. She doesn't talk about it."
But he was dying to.
"Yes?" I said, as if he needed egging on.
He lowered his voice. "She used to work for Justin Thayler over at the law school, that guy in the news, whose wife got killed. You know, her work hasn't been worth shit since it happened. She's always on the phone, talking real soft, hanging up if anybody comes in the room. I mean, you'd think she was in love with the guy or something, the way she…"
I don't remember what I said. For all I know, I may have volunteered to type his thesis. But I got rid of him somehow and then I scooted around the corner of Church Street and found a pay phone and dialled Mooney.
"Don't tell me," he said. "Somebody mugged you, but they only took your trading stamps."
"I have just one question for you, Moon."
"I accept. A June wedding, but I'll have to break it to Mother gently."
"Tell me what kind of junk Justin Thayler collected."
I could hear him breathing into the phone.
"Just tell me," I said, "for curiosity's sake."
"You onto something, Carlotta?"
"I'm curious, Mooney. And you're not the only source of information in the world."
"Thayler collected Roman stuff. Antiques. And I mean old. Artifacts, statues-"
"Coins?"
"Whole mess of them,"
"Thanks."
"Carlotta-"
I never did find out what he was about to say because I hung up. Rude, I know. But I had things to do. And it was better Mooney shouldn't know what they were, because they came under the heading of illegal activities.
When I knocked at the front door of the Mason Terrace house at 10:00 A.M. the next day, I was dressed in dark slacks, a white blouse, and my old police department hat. I looked very much like the guy who reads your gas meter. I've never heard of anyone being arrested for impersonating the gasman. I've never heard of anyone really giving the gasman a second look. He fades into the background and that's exactly what I wanted to do.
I knew Marcia Heidegger wouldn't be home for hours. Old reliable had left for the Square at her usual time, precise to the minute. But I wasn't 100 percent sure Marcia lived alone. Hence the gasman. I could knock on the door and check it out.
Those Brookline neighbourhoods kill me. Act sneaky and the neighbours call the cops in twenty seconds, but walk right up to the front door, knock, talk to yourself while you're sticking a shim in the crack of the door, let yourself in, and nobody does a thing. Boldness is all.
The place wasn't bad. Three rooms, kitchen and bath, light and airy. Marcia was incredibly organised, obsessively neat, which meant I had to keep track of where everything was and put it back just so. There was no clutter in the woman's life. The smell of coffee and toast lingered, but if she'd eaten breakfast, she'd already washed, dried, and put away the dishes. The morning paper had been read and tossed in the trash. The mail was sorted in one of those plastic accordion files. I mean, she folded her underwear like origami.
Now coins are hard to look for. They're small; you can hide ' em anywhere. So this search took me one hell of a long time. Nine out of ten women hide things that are dear to them in the bedroom. They keep their finest jewellery closest to the bed, sometimes in the nightstand, sometimes right under the mattress. That's where I started.
Marcia had a jewellery box on top of her dresser. I felt like hiding it for her. She had some nice stuff and a burglar could have made quite a haul with no effort.
The next favourite place for women to stash valuables is the kitchen. I sifted through her flour. I removed every Kellogg's Rice Krispy from the giant economy-sized box-and returned it. I went through her place like no burglar ever will. When I say thorough, I mean thorough.
I found four odd things. A neatly squared pile of clippings from the «Globe» and the «Herald,» all the articles about the Thayler killing. A manila envelope containing five different safe-deposit-box keys. A Tupperware container full of superstitious junk, good luck charms mostly, the kind of stuff I'd never have associated with a straight-arrow like Marcia: rabbits' feet galore, a little leather bag on a string that looked like some kind of voodoo charm, a pendant in the shape of a cross surmounted by a hook, and, I swear to God, a pack of worn tarot cards. Oh, yes, and a.22 automatic, looking a lot less threatening stuck in an ice cube tray. I took the bullets; the unloaded gun threatened a defenceless box of Breyers' mint chocolate-chip ice cream.