As a Favor Read Online Free Page A

the stoop. I rang the bell and waited. There was no answer. I rang again, scanning the door for signs of forced entry. There were none.
    Starting up the driveway, I checked the windows and the bushes under them. The foliage was thin and yellowed by the dry summer, but showed no signs of having been disturbed. Anne Spaulding’s flat was four steps up and the windows were higher than eye level. Curtains still covered them, on this side, too. Either Anne was very cautious or she hadn’t been home during the day.
    There was no garage at the end of the driveway. The two lanes of cement merely stopped at the property line; from there a macadam path cut between houses to the next street. Paths bisecting long blocks were not uncommon in Berkeley, but they normally went all the way from one street to the next; ending in a driveway was unusual.
    Anne’s backyard, to my right, was enclosed by a five-foot-high wooden fence. I glanced over the top, checking for occupants, pushed open the gate and made my way through ankle-deep weeds and ivy to the steps.
    The back door stood open.

Chapter 4
    I MOUNTED THE STEPS , calling Anne’s name. The kitchen was dark. Dirty dishes from a pile in the sink spilled onto the counter. Ahead there was a light on.
    “Anne!” I yelled. Still no reply. I hurried into the living room and stopped.
    Nat was right to be worried. A chair lay overturned. The bedroom door was half open. A shattered porcelain lamp lay on the floor before it, its pieces brown, bloodstained. Dried blood marked the wall.
    Involuntarily I swallowed, preparing myself for what I might find in the bedroom. Using a tissue to avoid smearing any possible fingerprints, I pushed back the door and walked inside, checking in the closet, the bathroom, and under a pile of bedclothes.
    The room was a shambles, but there was no body—no stench of death. At least that was a relief. I made my way back to the living room and called the dispatcher for a back-up unit and the lab crew.
    There was nothing to do till they arrived. I stood away from the stains, trying to picture what had happened, and the person it happened to. But as I searched my memory for an impression of Anne Spaulding, I realized that Nat had said very little about her (he had not met her till after we’d separated) and what ideas I did have came more from my reactions at the time than from facts. My best move would be to start from scratch.
    I looked around the living room. Drawn curtains blocked the windows, but the ceiling light had been left on. A leather loveseat stood opposite the fireplace; matching Barcelona chairs, one overturned, flanked it, and before it was a glass-on-chrome table partially covering a small oriental rug. By the kitchen an étagère held the stereo, albums, and a nine-inch television, but no books and no plants.
    Despite the predominance of brown, it was a cold room, more like a display model than a home.
    But the bedroom was just the opposite. This had to be where Anne did her living. Heaps of clothes littered the floor and the unmade bed. The walls were white, the bed and dresser had a Salvation Army look, and a third of the room had been made into a sort of gymnasium with dumbbells, exercycle, bust developer, sunlamp, and pulleys attached to a giant hook. The only decoration was a poster for “Theater on Wheels.”
    In the closet, stacked with care amidst a pile of lace nightgowns and soiled bikini pants, were two pairs of skis—downhill and cross country—and a Wilson tennis racquet endorsed by Chris Evert.
    This was the room of someone who viewed her body as one might a sportscar—a machine that, well maintained, will provide pleasure and excitement.
    The doorbell rang.
    “Jill,” Howard said as I pulled it open, “I was wondering what happened to you. I circled a block half a mile north of here—three times. I was just about to park when the call came through.”
    “Oh, sorry.” Howard’s thief had completely vanished from my mind.