Chapter 6: The Closet

On Monday night Maura's phone buzzed on my mother's kitchen table, and she read the screen twice before she spoke.

"A friend on the house staff," she said. "Lena's housekeeper has been told to box everything of yours by eight tomorrow morning."

"Box it for what?"

"A charity truck."

I put down my fork.

"My father's tool chest is in that garage."

Peggy, at the sink, turned around with a dish towel in her hand.

"Forty years old," she said quietly. "He built the drawers himself."

"Then we go tonight," Maura said.

"I have a restraining order."

"You have a restraining order against Lena," she said. "You don't have one against a chest of drawers."

My mother put the towel down and went to the hall closet.

She came back with a dark knit hat and pressed it into my hands.

"Bring it home," she said. "And don't get arrested."

We landed in Los Angeles at ten p.m., and by eleven-thirty we were parked two blocks below the house in the hills.

Lena was at a late radio taping in Burbank until one.

Maura had checked that three times.

"The garage code," she said. "Do you know it?"

"It's her birthday. It's always been her birthday."

"Did she change it after Friday?"

"She's never changed anything in seven years," I said. "She was sure I'd never use it against her."

The garage door rose on the first try.

It was the whole garage, empty of cars, lit by one yellow bulb.

Along the back wall stood a row of cardboard boxes in a housekeeper's neat handwriting.

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