Hildegarde Withers Makes the Scene Read Free Page A

the free literature of realtors and chambers of commerce out after the social security trade, were inclined to develop, after a while, a surfeit of serenity. Not, of course, that she didn’t find her personal sunset on the whole pleasurable. She had Talley, her standard poodle, for company. She had her neighbors and her African violets for diversion. She could pick her salads in her own yard. When she wished to resign herself to the prospect of being swallowed up in good time by the illimitable universe, which required more humility than she ordinarily had, she could sit on a rock and watch, like stout Cortez with eagle eye upon a peak in Darien, the immeasurable waters of the wide Pacific.
    Only it wasn’t, of course, Cortez. It was Balboa. Odd that a genius like Keats should have made such an egregious error. But perhaps it was an error no more egregious than the one she had made in swapping coasts. It would be nice, she thought sometimes, to divide each year equally between both. She had been sorely tempted lately to fly back East for a long visit with her old friend, Inspector Oscar Piper, in time to catch New York in fall and leave it again before winter.
    The phone inside continued to ring in long bursts with dogged tenacity. Suddenly she read into the sound a compelling urgency. Surely any casual friend with nothing more on her mind than a luncheon date or a committee meeting would have given up long ago. Leaving Talley in command of the yard, she hurried inside and snatched up the raucous instrument. A strange masculine voice asked her to identify herself, which she did breathlessly after her tardy dash from the yard, and then, immediately afterward, she was momentarily deprived by pleasure and excitement of what short breath she had. For in her ears, more beautifully golden than the remembered tenor of the not-so-late John McCormack, another Irishman, was the irascible bark of Oscar Piper.
    “Hildy?”
    “Oscar! Oscar Piper!”
    “Long time no see, Hildy. How are you and the angels getting along?”
    “I’m not quite ready for the angels yet, Oscar. All in good time. Meanwhile, you’ll have to be patient.”
    “Well, you were long enough getting to the phone. I was beginning to suspect that you’d already been snatched away. Where were you, anyhow? Out in the yard picking oranges?”
    “Not oranges, Oscar. Avocados.”
    “Imagine picking avocados in your own yard. Imagine, for that matter, picking avocados anywhere. Surely you don’t eat them?”
    “You always were a person of questionable tastes, Oscar. There is other food in the world than spaghetti, you know.”
    “Spaghetti!” The inspector’s voice was suddenly dreamy and a little sad, and Hildegarde Withers was acutely aware that it originated more than three thousand miles away. “It doesn’t taste the same somehow, Hildy, without you across the table. How would you like to have a big plate with me right now, with a bottle of Chianti to share?”
    “Shut up, Oscar! I’m far too old to cry.”
    “That’s an invitation.”
    “Don’t be rash. You may have me on the next jet.”
    “Well, to tell the truth, I wouldn’t want you to come that soon. I’ll need you where you are for a while yet.”
    “What do you mean, Oscar? Explain yourself.”
    “That’s my Hildy. You sound exactly like you were snapping at some elementary urchin in that school where you used to slave.”
    “ As if , Oscar. Like is a preposition or a verb. You shouldn’t use it as a conjunction.”
    “There you go. Correcting my grammar at God knows how much a minute. Anyhow, what’s good enough for Winston is good enough for me.”
    “Oscar, you’re being evasive. It’s apparent that this is not just a friendly call, and as much as I would like to think that you were motivated only by a longing to hear my voice, you had better come clean. What’s on your mind?”
    “Nothing much. Just a simple little job. It occurred to me that a superior compulsive snoop like