I didn’t get a clear picture of what Mrs. Frizell had ever done to merit the good neighbor sobriquet. Maybe it was just that she minded her own business. The conversation went from there to the selfishness of my generation, something I didn’t feel able to dispute, but how happy Mrs. Hellstrom was to find young people on the block who did embody the old neighborly values.
“Of course, I think it was wrong for those young people to put the dogs to sleep, but they did leap in to look after Hattie’s affairs. And it can’t be a lot of fun for them to take on a cranky old lady like her.”
“No, indeed,” I murmured. “I guess they’re kind of stymied, though, by the fact that they can’t find the title to Mrs. Frizell’s house.”
“Title to her house?” Mrs. Hellstrom asked sharply. “What do they want that for?”
I tried to look innocent, even naive. “I expect it’s for the hospital. They need to provide some kind of proof of her financial situation. They might even need to take out a mortgage, since it looks as though she’ll be laid up for quite a while.”
Mrs. Hellstrom shook her head helplessly. “What are we coming to as a country? Here’s an old lady who worked hard all her life and now maybe she has to give up her house just because of a little fall in her bathroom? It makes you scared to get old, it really does.”
I agreed. I’ll be forty in a year. It didn’t need Mr. Contreras to make me nervous about what happens to elderly, indigent private eyes.
“She didn’t give her private papers to you to look after, did she?”
“Oh, no. Hattie isn’t the kind to trust anyone with her valuables. The only thing of hers I have is her box of dog things—their pictures and pedigrees and stuff. I took it along when we found her that night, because I knew that was what she really cared about.”
“I wonder if I could take a look at it.” I tried to speak casually.
“Honey, if it’ll make you happy you can study every photo in it. It’s not much of anything, but she got herself the nicest little box to keep their papers in. Trust Hattie to pay more attention to something for the dogs than to her own records… More tea, honey?”
When I turned it down she bustled into the front of the house. She was back in a minute, carrying a black lacquer box about eighteen inches long by four deep. It was a beautiful piece, inlaid with a brightly painted picture of a dog resting its nose on the lap of a girl as the two sat under a pear tree. The workmanship was so good that the lid fit firmly inside the box but came out with only a gentle tug. I found myself staring at an out-of-focus portrait of Bruce.
“I want to get back out to my plants, honey. You can just leave it on the table when you’re done looking at it. And be sure to help yourself to more tea if you want some.”
I thanked her and carefully started pulling papers from the box. Underneath Bruce’s face was a group picture of the other four dogs standing at the back fence. She’d somehow persuaded them all to get up on their hind legs and put their paws on the railing. Although also out of focus, it was a pretty cute shot. Maybe it would cheer her up to have it next to her hospital bed. I put it to one side to take with me on my next visit.
A series of photos of what must have been earlier dogs lay below those two, along with Bruce’s Kennel Club paper and papers for other dogs long gone. A handful of yellow news clips told of Mrs. FrizelFs glory years when she’d shown black Labs and won prizes for them. No one had ever suggested that she’d done something that disciplined.
Finally, at the bottom of the box, I found a small bundle of personal papers. The title to the house. And three bonds, each with a face value of ten thousand dollars. Coupon bonds paying seventeen percent, issued by Diamond Head Motors.
Chapter 36 - A New Breed of Banker
I stared at the bonds for a long while, trying to will them to reveal something more than their face value. Or face valuelessness. In February Mrs. Frizell had closed her account at Lake View, transferred her funds to U.S. Met, and bought thirty thousand dollars of Diamond Head paper. Since her letter to Lake View explained that she was going to receive seventeen percent interest at U.S. Met, it seemed like a fair bet that the bank had sold her the bonds. And that meant… something so ugly I hoped it wasn’t true.
Mrs. Frizell’s private papers had been safe at the bottom of the lacquered box for some weeks, but I hesitated to leave them there. Since Mrs. Hellstrom thought Todd and Chrissie were sweet, helpful neighbors, she would surely show them the cache, too, if it dawned on them to ask her. I tucked the title and the bonds into my bag, arranged all the canine glory in its proper order, and carefully fit the lid back into its grooves. Just to add to my own reputation for sweet helpfulness, I rinsed the iced tea glasses and left them on the drainboard.
Mrs. Hellstrom was weeding on her hands and knees when I came back out of the kitchen. “You go through all that stuff, hon?”