Fall Guy by Carol Lea Benjamin

pictures of rocks. But then I spotted the shelf. And now I didn’t want to wait. I took one of the kitchen chairs, carried it over to the closet and climbed up. There were no clothes on this shelf. There was, instead, a sort of shrine, maybe one hundred tiny objects spread out in what seemed like, but I was sure wasn’t, random order: the skulls of tiny creatures and the claws of others, bits of marble, like steles, standing between them; a tiny American flag; feathers, rocks and tiny figures, some human, some not, grouped together or standing singly, as if in prayer. There was hair there, too. I didn’t know the nature of the creature it had come from. There were coins, some foreign, one gold. There were beads and thread and string that had unevenly placed knots in it, a woman’s antique pearl ring. I ran my finger on the shelf between the objects. No dust. Someone took good care of his shrine.
    I closed the closet door, trying to figure out if there was a way I could get Parker’s things to him without having him come here. Things were starting to add up in a way that made me want to avoid him.
    Of course, I could simply empty the second closet and pack it up. Even if everything in it wasn’t his, I was sure he wouldn’t refuse anything. Did I have an obligation to let him come and pick and choose what he wanted to take, even if some of what he picked and chose wasn’t his in the first place? I thought of calling Brody, not to ask him to be here, but to ask him what he thought. Getting Brody to talk? That might be as easy as threading a rabbit through the eye of a needle. So I didn’t call. I went back to work.
    It was hazy, hot and humid out, but not in O’Fallon’s apartment. With the air conditioner humming, I couldn’t hear any street noises, nor was it too warm. The shutters were the way I found them, closed on the bottom and partly open on top, letting the late-afternoon light filter gently into the room.
    I tried the cabinets under the bookshelves next and found them locked. No matter, I thought, you could open those locks with a nail file. Instead, I went back to the desk to look for a key, not finding it. I sat in O’Fallon’s chair, trying to slip inside the man who used to sit there. Wasn’t it James Thurber who said, “I hate women because they always know where things are”? Hands flat on the desk, eyes closed, like a fortune-teller minus the crystal ball and the weird outfit, I dowsed for keys. Nothing. I looked over at the bookshelf nearest the closet door, scanning the shelves for something that might hold keys, though, Lord knows, a cop should know better. It was on the highest shelf I could reach, a little tan honey pot with a lid. I took it down, feeling the heft of it, and put it on the desk. Then I took off the lid and found it was filled to the top with sets of keys. The key to the cabinets, one key fits all, were on a ring with the rest of O’Fallon’s keys, one of which was no longer viable now that the locks had been changed. I had two sets of the new keys. I thought I’d give one to Brody, if he had any use for it. If Maggie wanted a set, I’d have mine copied for her. I could ask her at lunch.
    There were papers in some of the cabinets, notebooks with notes from old cases. I checkedthe dates. There were ten years’ worth of notebooks, stopping a year earlier. I would have loved to read every word, but couldn’t do that now. I thought I’d keep those, if Maggie didn’t want them. The next cabinet had records and CDs. O’Fallon had a couple of movies, too, ones he’d taped from the TV, Red River and Dog Day Afternoon, The Godfather and Star Wars, a small, odd collection. There wasn’t any porn, nor any porn magazines. Not so far.
    The next cabinet held the liquor. Again I thought about how easy these locks would be to pick. Unless Parker had found the honey pot with the keys as readily as I