Early Graves Read Online Free PDF Page B

times painted white. On the panes of the upstairs windows was lettered DREW DODGE ASSOCIATES .
    It was no trouble to find a parking space. Few cars lined Main Street. In the square across the way, rain dripped from seesaws and swings under big, dark, weeping trees. He pushed coins into a parking meter, turned up his collar, and looked for the door. It was down a side street, thick glass, DDA lettered on it. It wasn’t locked. He climbed a narrow, walled-in staircase. Under its thick new carpeting, old treads creaked. There was a smell of paint.
    At the top, instead of the narrow, dim hallways and brown office doors that must have been here once, he found a cheerful, open reception room under a ceiling of lighted panels. There were planters, bookshelves with clusters of pottery. Handsome chairs and couches. No one sat at the reception desk where a telephone burred and blinked small lights. A Rolodex sat next to it. He dug out reading glasses and standing, knees bent, riffled through the little cards. But he found no names that meant anything to him.
    “Anybody here?” He put the glasses away.
    The drawer of a file cabinet rolled closed somewhere, and a woman came from behind a partition. She wore a tight-waisted blousy sort of jumpsuit in a shiny black cotton fabric, with a wide belt that had a gold buckle. Her eyeglasses were very big, with round lenses tinted amber toward the tops. A heavy gold chain circled her throat. She was as trim and slim as Katherine Dodge but fifteen years older. Her throat was stringy. She brushed dust off her hands, whose nails were long and painted to match her amber glasses and the amber tint of her fluffy hair. She crouched and unplugged the telephone cord at the wall, stood again, smiled.
    “How can I help you?” she said.
    He gave his name, showed his license, said he didn’t want to interrupt but had a few questions. Who was she?
    “Judith Ober,” she said. “I manage the office. Did.”
    He shook her hand and put one of his cards into it. “Have you seen one of these before? Did Drew Dodge ever mention my name to you—or in your hearing?”
    She frowned at the card, looked up. “No. Why?”
    “Because when I found his body on my doorstep the other day, a card like that was on the bricks between his feet. Where did he get it? He was a stranger to me.”
    “Your doorstep? I didn’t know. How awful for you.”
    “But you did know he was killed. Yet you’re working. Why is that? They’re not working at the construction site.”
    “I’m not working. I came to get my belongings. I have a future, Mr. Brandstetter, but it isn’t in Rancho Vientos. Drew Dodge Associates was Drew Dodge—period. All by his clever, charming, handsome, devious self. Without him”—she lifted and let fall her hands—“all this will vanish.”
    “Where will you go?” Dave said.
    “North. Silicon Valley, I think. Don’t worry about me. I’m a treasure, and that’s the kind of money I make.” She laughed briefly, sadly. “I can’t get out of it now. It’s far too late. They printed statistics lately on us career gals over thirty-five. Nobody is going to marry us. I kissed the boys goodbye after college. I knew what I wanted. And I got it. And I loved it. And now I’m stuck with it. Forever. Which makes you think. Somebody ought to write a self-help book— Never Make Decisions When You’re Young .”
    “If you don’t,” Dave said, “someone will make them for you. That’s no good either. Will you get severance pay?”
    “Surely you jest,” she said. “I haven’t been paid in weeks. Cash flow. You know cash flow? Well, around Drew Dodge Associates, cash stopped flowing some time ago.”
    “Then it’s not out of respect for the boss’s memory that the construction workers aren’t out there today. It’s because they haven’t been paid.”
    “And he’s not around to con them into believing they’ll get their checks any day now. He could do that.” Her smile was mournful.