Читать книгу The Philatelist - D.H. Coop - Страница 7

Chapter 2

Fort Dearborn—issued May 25, 1933

Franklin Delano Roosevelt approved this stamp to commemorate the Century of Progress World Fair in Chicago.

August 2, 2001, at 3:27 p.m.—Oroville, California

It had taken quite a while for Deputy Hoff to take Stan’s statement of how he found Heidi’s body. The deputy took careful notes, asked a few more questions, and thanked Stan for his cooperation. Then the deputy entered the house. Stan paused and peered through the screen as the deputy looked around the living room. He watched the deputy touch the bookcase and examine the dust-free spot where the binder had been. Then Stan strode toward his car.

Stan’s white shirt now had large sweat stains under the arms and in the front and back, exposing his sleeveless undershirt. Starting the car, Stan stepped back out onto the driveway to allow the air-conditioning to cool the inside of the car. He pulled his sticky undershirt away from his chest and pushed the glasses up on his nose once more. Then he sighed and sat down on the car seat.

As he drove away, Stan wondered how long it was going to take to rent the house this time. Do I have to disclose the death to the next tenant? As he recalled, the law said you had to disclose a death when you sold a place, not when you rented one. But what if someone gets wind of this? People could be funny, and some might have a problem renting a house where someone had recently died. Damn, he thought, did she really have to go and die now when I already had another vacancy?

It was a good thing he had taken that album. What was she going to do with it anyway? She didn’t have any family that he knew of. And she owed him for the rent. He reached up with his fingers to push the glasses back into place.

The air-conditioning kicked into high gear, and he turned his face toward the blast of cool air coming from the vents. Then he put the car into drive and turned left onto Foothill Boulevard and headed toward town. He decided to stop by Ed’s Coin & Stamp on the way home to unload the album.

Detouring onto Montgomery Street, he headed straight for Fourth Street and was pleased to see a parking space right in the front of the store. At least something was going right. Stan sat in the car for a minute or two thinking about what he would tell Ed. Stan had learned that the best lies were the ones that made a connection for the person being lied to. The story had to have an element of personal truth—something that most people had experienced at some time in their lives. It was even better if that experience had a measure of guilt connected with it. Everyone had a grandmother or aunt they remembered, so Stan would pull out the grandmother’s story with the album. He got out of the car, opened the trunk, grabbed the album, and headed for the front door of the store, hoping it would be air-conditioned.