Page 153 of Hello, Summer
“No dice,” Skelly said, turning to go.
Conley caught him by the arm. “Not so fast. Let’s check around back.”
He gave a martyred sigh. “You’re going to make me do something illegal, aren’t you?”
“You could just stay right here and be the lookout,” she said.
“If we get caught breaking and entering, that’s calledaiding and abetting.”
“You don’t remember our motto from when we were kids?” she asked.
“‘Drink all the beer, smoke all the cigs’?”
“That, plus ‘Don’t get caught.’”
The cat was barely more than a kitten, black with a white-tipped nose and handsome tuxedo markings. It was waiting for them at the screen door, rubbing its face against the screen. They could see the hook-and-eye latch.
“Hey, kitty,” Conley said. “I bet you’re missing your Buddy.”
“I bet she’s missing her dinner,” Skelly said, taking a step backward.
“Give me your credit card,” Conley said, holding out her hand.
“I’ve never handed over a credit card to a woman I wasn’t engaged to,” Skelly said.
She snapped her fingers impatiently. “Cut the comedy. The cops will be here soon.”
Conley slid the Visa card through the gap in the doorjamb and easily nudged the hook upward. They stepped inside the apartment, and the cat started yowling even louder, rubbing up against Conley’s legs.
They were standing in one main room, probably less than five hundred square feet, that had been divided up into areas for kitchen, living, and sleeping. The kitchen consisted of a tiny, two-burner stove and dorm-size refrigerator. There was a microwave and a sink. Everything was scrupulously clean.
The living room consisted of a sofa that looked like a curb rescue, and a small flat-screen television balanced on top of a plastic milk crate. There was a bed, which had been made, and a minuscule bathroom.
Three more milk crates and a medium-size suitcase were stacked in the middle of the room, along with a cat carrier. Two of the crates held record albums, the third held some books and papers.
She riffled through the albums. Santana, Allman Brothers, Linda Ronstadt, James Taylor. More albums from eighties and nineties. “Guess he didn’t think much of contemporary music,” she said. “The time machine stopped in 1998 for Buddy Bright.”
Conley knelt and unzipped the suitcase. All the clothes inside were black. “He was getting ready to run again,” she said with a stricken expression on her face. “But he didn’t get the chance.” The cat came back, mewing and rubbing against her legs.
She went into the kitchen and opened one of the cabinets.
“You can’t just ransack a man’s house, even if he’s dead,” Skelly protested. “Even if he’s a fugitive from the law.”
“This isn’t ransacking. I’m looking for the cat food,” she explained. The cupboards held little other than some canned soup, Kraft mac ’n’ cheese, and a package of ramen noodles. She opened the cupboard under the sink and found a bag of Friskies.
The cat’s bowl was beside the fridge. She poured in the food, and the cat pounced on it.
“Poor thing,” she said.
“Okay, you fed the cat—now can we leave?” Skelly asked.
She sat down on the floor near the milk crates and began removing a handful of file folders. “NowI’m ransacking,” she told her unwilling accomplice.
“I don’t like this,” Skelly said. He went to the window and looked out, expecting a caravan of armed police to come blazing up at any moment.
“Okay,” Conley said. “Go sit in the car. I’ll be out in, like, five minutes.”
“My mother warned me about girls like you,” he said.
