3

What with the garbage thief and insomnia, I didn’t stir until eleven o’clock the next morning. Sam had long since returned to Charles River Park, complaining that he hardly ever felt rested after a night at my place.

As I groggily crossed the hall, listening to a throbbing hum in my head and hoping the shower would ease it, the day’s mail hit the foyer floor with a thud.

Friday. Terrific. Time for another snapshot of little Miss Winchester. Well, she could wait till I’d washed up, eaten breakfast, lunch, or both, depending on the contents of the fridge. She could wait till I’d started my pursuit of the garbage snatcher.

How many light blue, or possible gray, late-model Firebirds had a four and an eight for their final two license-plate numbers? Was I sure it was a Massachusetts plate?

The thought almost drove me back under the covers. Instead I stood in the shower for ten minutes with the temperature at lobster-boil. Then I put in a full two minutes under ice water because somebody told me that cold water is better for rinsing conditioner out of your hair.

Dressed in jeans, sneakers, and a turquoise cotton sweater, I headed downstairs. I pass through the foyer on my way to the kitchen. No harm in stopping to take a peek, I decided. Give me an opportunity to bend over and shake out my wet hair, which I comb as infrequently as possible because it’s too thick and too curly and it hurts. I could view the day’s photo while chugging orange juice. No time wasted.

I sorted through the pile twice to make sure, but there was no blue envelope. I felt curiously deprived, as if I’d come to the end of a novel borrowed from the library and found the final chapter razored out.

The throb of my headache met its match in the smack of a hammer against a nearby nail.

“You like this here?” The voice came from an unlikely height. Perched on a chair, my tenant, Roz, had gained about a foot in stature. She’s short and I’m six-one. Our eyes were now on a level.

I said, “I thought you were going to check with me before you hung any more paintings on my walls.” To contrast with her fright-white hair, which she dyes more often than I shampoo, Roz was wearing skin-tight black pants and a redder-than-red T-shirt emblazoned with NINE OUT OF TEN MEN WHO’VE TRIED CAMELS PREFER WOMEN. I read it twice to make sure I’d gotten it right. I don’t know where Roz finds her enormous wardrobe of bizarre T-shirts. Maybe secret admirers send them. She has a body, particularly in the T-shirt slogan area, that earns much admiration.

She plucked a nail from between her teeth. “I thought you meant just with offensive stuff.”

“This is not offensive?”

“What? You’re with the National Endowment for the Arts?”

“Just because it has vegetables in it doesn’t make it a still life,” I said. “What the hell is that man doing with that carrot?”

“You don’t like it?”

“Roz, this is not only my home, it’s my office. Clients come here. People who might otherwise consider hiring me.”

“Hang it someplace else, huh?”

I nodded my heartfelt agreement.

“Should I yank the other nail out, or try a different painting?”

“Depends on the painting.”

“I’ve got more vegetables. Acrylics really groove with vegetables.”

Whenever Roz needs subject matter, her first target is my refrigerator.

The telephone interrupted a promising aesthetic argument.

“Should I answer it?” she asked.

I nodded. “Stall while I get orange juice.”

I grabbed the carton from the fridge and raced back in time to hear Roz, in the nasal twang she deems secretarial, report that I was currently taking a foreign call on another line.

“It’s okay,” I said. “Geneva hung up.”

She glared at me. “Ms. Carlyle will be right with you.”

“Speaking,” I said crisply.

“Hi. Maybe you remember me. I’m the psychiatrist in the brown triple-decker two doors down.”

“Sure,” I said, “um—”

“Keith Donovan.”

Maybe he’d had his trash stolen too. Maybe he wanted me to trace it for him. “What can I do for you?”

“You’ve been receiving photos in the mail.”

“Baby pictures. Kid pictures. Yes.”

I could hear him breathing. I wondered what he was waiting for. He exhaled again, inhaled. “I have a patient who’s been sending them. I’m sorry. I’d mentioned your name—as someone who wouldn’t be, um, a threatening presence, if she decided to investigate a certain matter …”

“And?”

“She’s having trouble making a decision, and she thought she’d—I don’t know—prepare you in some way, in case she decided to seek your counsel.”

“Is she in your office now?”

“Yes,” he said. “She knows I’m speaking to you.”

“Does she want to see me, make an appointment or something?”

“Can you hang on a minute?”

“Sure.”

I could hear indistinct muffled voices. I couldn’t make out individual words. I tried to remember what he looked like, this Keith Donovan. I remembered the name from some Homeowners Association meeting. Was he the pudgy guy who always complained about the neighborhood dogs? The area I live in, within spitting distance of Harvard Square, is thick with psychiatrists.

“Ms. Carlyle?”

“Yes.”

“She—my patient—wonders if you might see her now? I would come along.”

“I don’t usually have a consulting shrink present.”

“Is it out of the question?”

I reviewed my caseload. Tracking down the garbage thief was not going to earn me a fee.

“Come on by,” I said.

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