Not One Clue_ A Mystery - Lois Greiman [41]
“Why do you think there are drugs involved?” He shrugged, heavy shoulders lifting and falling. “There was some erratic behavior reported concerning the girl.”
“Erratic?”
“Friends say she was doing great for weeks. Happy. Good grades. Then one day she became aggressive. Thought everyone was out to get her. The next morning she was dead.”
“Did she have a history of drug abuse?”
“Not that anyone knew of.”
“Lots of kids are good at hiding their addictions.”
He nodded and backed away so I could close the door. “Well, call me if you hear anything, will you?”
I agreed.
“Or if you change your mind about that backseat,” he said, and I drove away, squirming a little.
* * *
By the time I got home, I was dreading seeing Solberg, but the house was notably sans irritation.
Laney smiled as she took a casserole from the oven. Domesticity in blue jeans. “How was your day?”
“Weird,” I said. “Where’s Solberg?”
“I didn’t think you’d feel too neglected if he ran a few errands while we ate.”
“I’ll try to survive.”
She had the table neatly set. The pile of reading material I usually keep atop the place mats was M.I.A. Every woman should have a wife.
We were eating in a matter of minutes. The casserole was something involving broccoli. Which normally would be a bad thing, but there was cheese and crunchy onions and some kind of noodles.
“Solberg made this?” I asked.
“Full of surprises, isn’t he?” she asked.
“I hope not,” I said, and finished off my plate. “I’ve been thinking about those letters.”
She scowled. “You shouldn’t have to worry about that.”
“I wish we had copies.”
“And you assume we don’t?”
I gave her the eye. “You’ve kept copies?”
“Mac, seriously, did you think I wouldn’t know an obsessive-compulsive like you would need to pore over them?”
“You think I’m obsessive?”
“And compulsive.”
“Oh,” I said, and helped myself to a second serving. But just a little one since I was on a low-broccoli diet.
* * *
“So the length of each letter hardly varies at all,” I said.
“Two or three are a few sentences longer.” Elaine was standing upright, gazing at the letters laid out in chronological order across her mattress. Hers had been a better option than mine, as it didn’t look as if a humpbacked monster were lurking beneath the scattered covers.
“And each begins with Dearest Ms. Ruocco. Your stage name.” I scowled. “Very formal.”
“So maybe he’s an older man,” Laney said.
“But not so old that he’s shaky. The words are extremely well formed.”
“His speech is quite proper, so I would guess he’s educated.”
“And it’s written with …” I leaned down, putting my face close to the papers. “A fountain pen?”
She shrugged. “Maybe. Does that mean he’s … Catholic?”
Even though Elaine is decidedly un-Catholic, we had attended Holy Name Catholic School together for more years than I care to remember. The nuns there thought ballpoint pens were instruments of the devil. “Or he just really likes fountain pens.”
“He must have some resources,” she said.
I nodded. “Either he followed you here to L.A. or he lived here in the first place and traveled to Idaho.”
“Every loop is approximately the same size as the last. And the spacing between the words is uniform. He’s very careful.”
“So he wants to impress you,” I said, and scowled. Laney had never met a man who didn’t hope to make an impact in one way or another. I wasn’t surprised one would finally stoop to penmanship. More than a few had tried poetry. Several had sung ballads. Three love-struck fellows had tattooed her name on some part of their anatomy and one particularly inventive chap had christened his prize-winning bull after her. Butterfield wasn’t really that bad a name for a dairy animal.
“His letters are narrow and vertical,” she said. “Suggesting a need to control.”
I looked at her.
She looked back. “I was paying attention during Murder, She Wrote.”
“Seriously?”
“Are you saying I’m wrong?”
“It’s bound to happen once.” I scowled. “But I think the fact that you believe Solberg to be Homo sapiens has covered that eventuality.” I was chewing my lip. We were both staring at