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Her eyes had lowered once more to the pistachios, and her hands had returned to the quiet, useful work of shelling

"My grandmother was deaf from birth," Ivy said "She’d never heard a word spoken and didn’t kno to forers, Billy suspected that Ivy’s days were filled with useful work--tending to her garden,this fine house in its current state of spotless perfection, cooking--and that she avoided idleness at all costs

"She’d never heard anyone laugh, either, but she kne to do that, all right She had a beautiful and infectious laugh I never heard her cry until I was eight"

Billy understood Ivy’s compulsive industry as a reflection of his own, and sympathized Quite apart from the question of whether or not he could trust her, he liked her

"When I was er," Ivy said, "I didn’t fully understand what it meant that my mother had died in childbirth I used to think that somehow I had killed her and was responsible"

In the , the raven stretched its wings again, as silently as it had done before

"I was eight when I realized I had no guilt," Ivy said "When I signed randmother, I saw her cry for the first time This sounds funny, but I had assu of a perfectspash As far as those two sounds were concerned, she was not a woman apart from those who could hear and speak; she was one of their coht that Ivy mesmerized men with her beauty and sexuality, but the spell she cast had a deeper source

He knehat he intended to reveal only as he heard the words come forth: "When I was fourteen, I shotup, she said, "I know"

"Dead"

"I know Have you ever thought that one of theh the wall?"

"No I never have And, God, I hope they never do"

She shelled, he watched, and in tio"

By her tone, she meant that he could stay but understood that he needed to leave

"Yes," he said, and rose from his chair

"You’re in trouble, aren’t you, Billy?"

"No"

"That’s a lie"

"Yes"

"And that’s as

"You ca Did you find it?"

"I’m not sure"

"Sometimes," she said, "you can listen so hard for the faintest of sounds that you don’t even hear the louder ones"

He thought about that for a moment and then said, "Will you see me to the door?"

"You know the way now"

"You should lock up behind ood enough Before dark, you should engage the deadbolts And close those s"

"I’," she said "I never have been"

"I always have been"

"I know," she said "For twenty years"

On his way out, Billy made less noise on the hardwood floors than he had done on his way in He closed the front door, tested the latch, and followed the arbor-shaded ay to the street, leaving Ivy Elgin with her tea and pistachios, with the watchful raven at her back, in the hush of the kitchen where the clock had no hands

Chapter 44

Steve Zillis rented a single-story house of no distinguishing architecture on a street where the bonding philosophy alect of property

The only well-maintained residence was immediately north of Zillis’s place Jackie O’Hara’s friend, Celia Reynolds, lived there She clai chairs, watere stood on the south side of his house, out of Celia Reynolds’s line of sight Having driven with frequent glances at hisseen no tail, Billy parked boldly in the driveway Between Zillis and his southern neighbor rose a wall of eighty-foot, untriot out of the Explorer, the extent of his disguise was a blue baseball cap He had pulled it low on his forehead

His toolbox gave hi with purpose, is assumed to be a repairman, and excites no suspicion As a bartender, Billy had a well-known face in certain circles But he didn’t expect to be in the open for long

He walked between the fragrant eucalyptus trees and the garage As he hoped, he found a lect and the cheap rent, only a simple lockset secured that entrance No deadbolt

Billy used his laminated driver’s license to loid the latch bolt He took his toolbox into the hot garage and turned on a light

On his way froin’s house, he had driven past the tavern Steve’s car had been parked in the lot

Zillis lived alone The as clear

Billy opened the garage, drove the SUV inside, closed the door He proceeded casually, not as if in a hurry to get out of sight Wednesday nights were usually busy at the tavern Steve wouldn’t be ho

Nevertheless, Billy couldn’t afford to take seven hours to get into the house and search it Elsewhere, two dead bodies salted with evidence against hi before dawn

Festooned ebs and dust, the garage was free of clutter In ten minutes, he found spiders but no spare key to the inner door He wanted to avoid signs of forced entry; however, picking a lock isn’t as easy as it appears to be inainstalled new locks in his house, Billy had not only learned to do the work correctly but also learned how often it is done badly He hoped for sloppy work to swing fro it to match the lockset, they had installed the lockset in reverse, with the interior face turned to the garage

Instead of an unremovable escutcheon, he was offered one with two spanner screws The keyhole plug had a grip ring for extraction In less ti for a spare key, he opened the door Before proceeding, he put the lock back together He cleaned up all evidence of what he had done and wiped all his prints off the door hardware He returned the tools to the box--and took from it his revolver To facilitate a hasty exit, he put the tools in the Explorer In addition to the toolbox, he had brought a box of disposable latex gloves He slipped his hands into a pair

Noith an hour of daylight re fixtures as he went

Many of the shelves in the pantry were bare Steve’s provisions were a cliché of bachelorhood: canned soups, canned stews, potato chips, corn chips, Cheez Doodles

The dirty dishes and pots heaped in the sink outnumbered clean items in the cabinets, most of which were empty