The Scent of Murder by Barbara Block Page A

hit me. I’d been robbed.
    â€œI can’t believe it,” I told Zsa Zsa.
    She rubbed her head on my ankle. I gave her an absentminded pat, as I surveyed the kitchen. Nothing else seemed to be missing. I shivered. At first I thought it was just a reaction to having my house broken into, but then I realized I was feeling a blast of cold air on my back. I turned. The kitchen window—the one that had been painted shut, the one I hadn’t been able to pry open—was up. I immediately thought of Toon Town standing beneath the spruce tree and wondered if he could have been responsible for this, but then I dismissed the thought. He’d said he’d been looking for Amy and, given what I’d heard tonight, I had no reason to doubt his story. We’d had a fair number of break-ins in the area recently. This was probably one of those. I went into the living room to see what else was missing.
    The TV and the VCR were still there. That was good. I made a circuit of the room. At first glance, nothing seemed to be gone. I walked into the dining room. Everything seemed to be in place there, too. Maybe I’d be lucky. Maybe whoever had done this had just gotten as far as the kitchen before he left. But of course I wouldn’t know that until I checked out the rest of the house. Zsa Zsa ran ahead of me, as I climbed the stairs.
    â€œAnd what were you doing when this happened?” I asked her. She halted on the step in front of me and wagged her tail. I scratched her rump. “You know you’re supposed to protect this house, not hide under the bed.” She wagged her tail again. As a guard dog, she was hopeless. Maybe I should get a tape of a Rottweiler barking and hook it into the door bell.
    I paused at the door to my bedroom. The person, or persons, had been in here, too. My dresser drawers were open, as was the closet door. I checked my jewelry case. My Mexican silver jewelry was gone. So was the thirty dollars I’d left lying on my nightstand. Great. I turned and went into my study and the guest room. The rooms had been gone through, but nothing had been taken. Not that there really was anything to take—unless, of course, the thieves had a hard-on for sheets and blankets. I put a piece of gum in my mouth, went back to my bedroom, and called the police.
    Two uniforms came by, twenty minutes later.
    â€œProbably kids,” the first one told me, after he’d had a look around. “They’ve been really busy around here recently.”
    The second one opened up his evidence kit and began dusting the windowsill for prints. “Not that this will help much,” he said, as he worked. “These days everyone wears gloves.”
    â€œThen why bother?”
    He ignored me and kept on working.
    â€œYou should get an alarm system put in,” the first one said, when his partner was finished. By now both men had been in my house for about half an hour. “Here.” He handed me a paper with a number on it. “When you call your insurance agent, give him this.”
    They left, and I dragged myself off to bed. I fell asleep the moment my head touched the pillow. I was still sleeping when the alarm rang the next morning. I turned it off and lay in bed, too exhausted to get up. In the old days, I’d have swallowed a couple of uppers. Now, of course, I don’t do that anymore. I drink a pot of coffee instead. So now my brain isn’t messed up—my stomach is. Which, I suppose, is an improvement of sorts.
    As I studied the stain on the ceiling, and wondered where the leak in the roof was coming from and why the roofers couldn’t find it, I told myself I’d get up in five minutes. I fell back to sleep instead. I don’t think I would have gotten up at all, if Jamie hadn’t decided to sit on my chest and nibble on my chin. By then, it was nine o’clock and I panicked. I had to go to the bank before the store opened. I dashed into the