He directed Witmark to roll video of the living room and sent Cooper upstairs. He asked us a few questions （directing them at Dad, although I was the one who had discovered the break-in） and jotted our answers down in a little notebook. He snapped the notebook closed, stuffed it in the inside pocket of his sportcoat, and hitched up his pants. “Obit thieves. Seen it a hundred times.”
“What are those?” I asked. Glancing at my dad, I could see he already knew. Maybe had from the moment he stepped in and looked around.
“When was his death notice in the paper?”
“Yesterday,” I said. “His physical therapist got the form for the newspaper pretty soon after he died and I helped her fill in the blanks.”
Gleason nodded. “Yup, yup, seen it a hundred times. These ghouls read the paper, find out when the services are going to be and the house’ll be empty. They break in, grab anything that looks valuable. You’ll want to look around, make a list of what’s missing, and bring it to the station.”
“What about fingerprints?” Dad asked.
Gleason shrugged. “They will have worn gloves. Everybody watches the cop shows these days, especially the perps. Cases like this, we usually don’t—”
“Lieutenant!” That was Cooper, from upstairs. “Got a safe up in the master bedroom.”
“Ah, well, now we’re talking,” Gleason said.
We went upstairs with Gleason leading the way. He went slowly, sort of hauling himself along by the bannister, and at the top he was puffing and flushed. He hitched his pants and went into Mr. Bowditch’s bedroom. There he bent to look at the safe. “Ah. Someone tried and failed.”
I could have told him that.
Witmark—the department’s resident cinematographer, I guess—came in and started rolling video.
“Dust it, Loot?” Cooper asked. He was already opening his little lunchbox.
“We might get lucky here,” the detective （I use the word with hesitation） told us. “The guy might have taken off his gloves to try the combo when he saw he couldn’t force it.”
Cooper dusted black powder over the front of the safe. Some stuck; more drifted to the floor. Another mess for me to clean up. Cooper looked at his handiwork, then stood aside so Gleason could look.
“Wiped clean,” he said, straightening up and giving his pants a particularly violent hitch. Of course it was wiped clean—I had done it myself after calling 911. The robber might have left his fingerprints, but even if he did they still had to go, because mine were there, too.
“Don’t suppose you know the combination, by any chance?” This was also directed to my father.
“I haven’t even been in this room before today. Ask Charlie. He was the old guy’s caretaker.”
Caretaker. The word was accurate enough, but it still struck me funny. I think because it was a word almost always applied to adults.
“No idea,” I said.
“Huh.” Gleason bent to the safe again, but briefly, as if it had ceased to interest him. “Whoever inherits this pile will have to get a locksmith in here. If that doesn’t work, a box-peeler who’s good with nitro. I know of a couple in the jug at Stateville.” He laughed. “Probably nothing much, old papers and maybe some cufflinks. Remember that big kerfuffle over Al Capone’s safe? Geraldo Rivera sure got egg on his face with that one. Oh well. Come down to the station and make a full report, Mr. Reade.”
Again talking to my dad. Sometimes I totally understood why women get pissed off.
4
I spent the night in our little guestroom on the ground floor. It was my mother’s home office and sewing room when she was alive and that was how it stayed during my dad’s drinking years, kind of like a museum. When he was sober six months or so, Dad turned it into a bedroom （with my help）。 Sometimes Lindy stayed over there, and a couple times newly sober guys Dad was working with, because that’s what AAs are supposed to do. I used it the night of Mr. Bowditch’s funeral and the break-in at his house so Radar wouldn’t have to try the stairs. I put down a blanket for her and she went to sleep at once, curled up nose to tail. I was awake longer, because the bed in there was too short for a guy six-feet-four, but also because I had a lot to think about.
Before I turned out the light I Googled Subscription Service of America. There was such a company, but it was Services, plural. Of course it was only one letter and Mrs. Richland might have made a mistake about that, but the one I found was a consolidation outfit, strictly online. No door-to-door salesmen. I considered the idea that the guy was a real obit thief, casing the neighborhood… except that didn’t work, because he had been carrying his sample bag around the neighborhood before Mr. Bowditch died.