Backstab by Elaine Viets Page B

outside to wait for Lyle.
    He picked me up in front of the building in Sherman, his gigantic ’67 gold Chrysler. The car was as big as a living room. The first time I drove Sherm I thought there was something wrong with the gas gauge. It kept going down. Sherman was a gasaholic. He was also a magnificentvintage car. When he rumbled down the street, smaller vehicles got out of his way, and larger ones looked at him with respect. But the best thing about Sherman was his bench seats. I don’t know why they quit making car seats so you could snuggle up with the driver. I slid all the way over and kissed Lyle on the ear. He had the softest ears, like suede.
    “How are you?” he said, and one look told him I was taking my loss hard.
    “Poor Ralph,” Lyle said. “Poor you. This is awful.”
    It was. I knew it was bad, because I didn’t feel anything. Just an odd floating sensation, like I was watching myself outside myself, behind a glass wall.
    I told Lyle what I knew about Ralph’s death. By that time, we had turned onto Utah Place. I think Utah is one of the prettiest streets in the city. Handsome old houses line a wide grassy center parkway planted with graceful trees and gardens. The houses were built around 1904, the time of the St. Louis World’s Fair, when the city was at its zenith. There was talk about moving the nation’s capital out of that dismal swamp, Washington, D.C., to a successful city like St. Louis.
    The houses here were built for the city’s prosperous Germans—doctors, lawyers, and businessmen—and the brick-and-stone homes were as solid as their owners. European craftsmen had lavished their talents on the interiors. Some houses had hand-carved staircases and ten-footstained-glass windows. The one Ralph was working on had rich dark woodwork like black satin. He delighted in the home’s odd luxuries: a built-in dining room cabinet with art-glass side panels, a bedroom fireplace with dark green glazed tiles.
    “Ralph worked on that house,” I said, pointing to a big redbrick with a white stone porch.
    “Where’s his truck? Why isn’t it parked out front?” asked Lyle.
    “One of the neighbors got snippy about him parking it on Utah. She said it lowered property values.”
    “Why didn’t he tell her to go to hell?”
    “He thought she might hire him to rehab her place.”
    We turned the corner at Spring and headed for McDonald. It was a pleasant street, but nowhere near as grand. It was lined with plain brick homes and no-nonsense flats. I spotted Lucy, Ralph’s truck, immediately. I used to call Lucy his running joke. She did run, too, no matter how hot or cold the weather. But Lucy looked like a refugee from the wrecker. The paint was faded red dotted with gray primer patches. The radio antenna was a bent coat hanger. There was a crack in the windshield and a deep dent in the passenger door. The dented door didn’t shut properly, so Ralph had looped a rope around the handle.
    Now there seemed to be something else wrong. Lyle saw it first. “What’s with the window on the driver’s side?” he said. He parked Shermanand we walked over for a closer look. Someone had broken Lucy’s window. Ice-chips of glass glittered on the front seat.
    “Damn. They broke into Ralph’s truck,” I said. “That’s low, robbing a dead man.”
    “They didn’t get much,” said Lyle. “His radio is still there. Did he keep any money in the truck?”
    “Never. He wouldn’t even leave his tools in the truck.”
    It was hard to tell if the truck had been ransacked. I saw papers scattered all over, but Ralph wasn’t too neat. He used Lucy as his office, and kept her filled with order forms, contracts, and receipts that slid off the seat every time he slammed on the brakes. He also used the truck as his Dumpster. In with the office papers were old White Castle hamburger wrappers, Coke cans, and Lee’s fried chicken bags. Ralph’s truck was a rolling landfill.
    An older neighbor was peeping through