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"Sure I’llout until you get home"

• • •

Ruthie had pulled her car into her garage while I parked ht frolove compartment, locked the car, and followed the back walk to the porch, doing a cursory visual survey in the unrelenting ht The house probably dated back to the early 1900s; a story and a half of wood fraht have lent it so all of the relevant elements, minus style, personality, and appeal I tapped at the door and she let ht before, I hadn’t been in the house in months, and I was struck by its shabbiness Pete hadn’t been blessed with handy, either Ruthie took care of it or it was left in its funky state Pete had also been averse to hiring outside help because his pride prevented his ad that even the simplest job was beyond his poor skills To spare hi In the kitchen , cracked wood putty had pulled away froone The vinyl tile flooring in the kitchen had buckled in places, as though water had seeped in and loosened the underlying mastic Now that Ruthie was alone, what difference did it one, so the house was tidier She’d also res in the downstairs hall and waxed the pale hardwood floors to a high shine

She’d removed a drawer and placed it on the counter, where she’d unloaded the contents She’d been sorting thethe discards in a wastebasket She’d bought drawer dividers to organize the salvageable items

"I’ll put some coffee on," she said "Don’t mind the ood idea," I said "Mind if I go ahead and look around?"

"Please"

I dropped ht in my back pocket while Ilatches, locks, and door hardware Ruthie had ht before and she’d sworn the house was secure, which did seem to be the case

I cli out of s as Ibathrooe This atedclothes, and seasonal items to the ten-by-twelve-foot space There were also short stacks of assorted cardboard boxes with scarcely room to walk in between The wallpaper was pink and blue, with tiny floral bouquets tied with ribbons, which suggested this ht have been a nursery once upon a time Noas essentially a closet jammed wall to ith articles better suited to a charity donation box We’d both faulted Pete for being disorganized when, in truth, this wasn’tout the , I couldn’t see any trees growing close enough to allow an intruder to shinny up and enter a second-story

I returned to the first floor The s in the downstairs hall, but I didn’t want to interrupt the search for a coffee break The front door was solid wood, not one of the flimsy hollow-core doors so popular in residential construction these days The back door was also solid wood, with lass The side door was fashioned along similar lines, with solid wood below and the top half lass The knob was sturdy and the lock was a double-keyed dead bolt In the interests of fire safety, the key had been left in the lock on the inside should a hasty exit be required

I unlocked the door and went outside No tool est that so the walk separated Ruth’s house froht and toured the exterior, looking for signs of a breach Like many California homes of this era, there was a crawl space below the house, but no base to shield the space from urban wildlife, but sections had been cheay A tuft of coarse hair was caught in the splintered here a beast had squeezed through the gap

I took outinto the space under the house I allowed the beaht to illuth and width The "floor" was rubble and exposed dirt with cinder block footers at irregular intervals Metal brackets secured plue furnace duct, wrapped in shiny insulation, shot across at an angle and disappeared into a large hole cut into a concrete wall