Jackpot (Nameless Dectective) by Bill Pronzini Read Free Book Online

safe-deposit box?”
    “Not that I ever knew about. I didn’t find any record of one.”
    “If he did take the money in cash, where might he have kept it?”
    “Not here. I’m sure of that.”
    “Anywhere else you can think of?”
    “No. No.”
    “Would he have entrusted Jerry Polhemus with it?”
    “God, no. David wasn’t that foolish. He knew how Jerry was about money.”
    I said, “I’d like to look through the rest of his things. Where would they be?”
    “In the bedroom. I’ll show you.”
    Without taking off her gloves, she led me into the bedroom. This was entirely her domain, everything feminine but without frills, done in whites and yellows. If David Burnett had put his stamp on it, left any little pieces of himself behind, she had removed them from sight.
    “The nightstand by the window was his,” she said. “And the bottom two drawers in the dresser. The rest of his stuff is in the closet.” She started out.
    “Don’t you want to stay while I look?”
    “No, it’s all right. I want to get the table stripped so I can sand it down.”
    That wasn’t it at all. She did not want to be present while I went through more of his things; she just wasn’t ready yet to deal with his leavings, even in the role of spectator. She wouldn’t be, I thought, until her anger had spent itself and she was ready to get on with her life.
    I went to the nightstand first. Nothing in there but a paperback sports biography and a Prince Albert tin containing half a dozen joints. Allyn Burnett had told me that her brother wasn’t on drugs. So maybe she was wrong. Or maybe she and her brother didn’t feel that smoking a little grass now and then constituted drug use; a lot of people don’t. Or maybe these joints belonged to Karen Salter and she smoked dope and David never had.
    I moved over to the dresser. On its top, next to Karen’s jewelry box, was a silver photograph-size frame that had been turned facedown. I picked it up. Head-and-shoulders color photo of a smiling young man with shaggy blond hair and bright blue eyes, signed on the bottom in a bold but childish hand: To Kittyhawk, Love and Kisses , David. Kittyhawk. Some sort of pet name. I put the photograph back as I had found it, facedown, and bent to the bottom two drawers.
    Shirts, sweaters, underwear, socks—all neatly folded. Her doing, I thought; he wouldn’t have been that neat. Nothing hidden under or between or inside any of the items.
    The closet was big, not quite a walk-in. His things were bunched on the left: half a dozen pairs of trousers, two sports jackets, a flowered vest, some pullovers and sports-type jerseys, a 49ers jacket and a Giants windbreaker. I went through pockets, found nothing of any interest until I got to the windbreaker. A thin piece of paper was tucked into one of the slash pockets. I fished it out—ordinary memo paper torn off a pad—and read what was on it.
    Manny. 2789 De Haro St.
    The handwriting was the same as on the photograph. I held on to the paper while I rummaged through the rest of his clothing, looked at the man’s shoes and sneakers on the closet floor, poked among the things piled on the single shelf above. Nothing. I shut the closet door and went back into the room where Karen Salter was.
    She was kneeling before the smoking table with her head bowed, in a posture that was almost one of prayer—as if the table had become an altar. Her eyes were shut, I saw as I moved over to the window. Again I felt like an intruder, not just on her living space but on her grief: they were both places I had no right to be. We were strangers; and grief, like lovemaking, is too personal to be shared properly with someone you hardly know.
    When I cleared my throat she jerked upright and blinked at me. “Oh,” she said, “I—”
    “It’s all right. I understand.”
    Her eyes were moist; she brushed at them with her forearm. “What did you find?”
    “Nothing except this.” I handed her the piece of paper. “Mean