Read The Dead Do Not Improve for Free Online Page B

alterations into Sarah’s routine gestures—her posture sagged, her speech slowed, the waistlines on her dresses crept up toward her ribs,her lipsticks reddened. In the body of a less graceful girl, such alterations might have read as affectations, but Sarah, as she did with most things, bludgeoned any doubts of authenticity with the certainty of her beauty. As he watched, Finch felt, not quite subconsciously, the pleasure of playing husband to a girl who looked like that. The slight pull—the straightened back, the confident swing of the arms—still satisfied the man in Finch, and, had he been able to logically sort and rank his feelings toward Sarah, the power to make him stand with better posture and walk steadily was what he loved most about his wife.
    Can any of us who have lived through love and found mostly ourselves at the end really ask for too much more?
    WHEN HE FINALLY walked into Parea, Sarah did not turn around. Finch wondered what she could possibly find interesting about the news anchor or the litany of numbers scrolling across the bottom of the screen. They owned no stocks or bonds or anything that might necessitate a familiarity with or even passing interest in the greater fiscal vocabulary.
    He sidled up next to her at the bar. Before she could turn to notice him, he asked, “How’s our money?”
    She turned her head, slowly, and smiled.
    “Didn’t expect to see you down here till later.”
    “Got some work in the neighborhood.”
    “How’s Jim?”
    “He’s a Jew today.”
    She paused and, with all of Hepburn’s theatrics, pursed her lips, pensively, before saying, “His nose is so tiny.”
    Finch laughed. She looked up at him. For a good second, her eyes softened.
    “I think he meant a fiscal Jew.”
    “I thought he just bought a Lexus.”
    “Nobody said he was right.”
    “Are you down here because of that old lady?”
    “Yeah.”
    “I saw something on the news.”
    “When?”
    “Couple hours ago.”
    “Goddammit.”
    “They didn’t say much. Just that she was, you know, dead.”
    “That’s it?”
    “More or less. They interviewed some old Mexican lady, but the translator was terrible.”
    “I think I know that guy.”
    “The translator?”
    “Yeah. He
is
awful.”
    “You want a drink?”
    “I’m straight.”
    “All right. What time are you getting home?”
    “Depends on the surf, I guess. Six or eight?”
    “I’ll pick up some bread from next door.”
    “Great.”
    FINCH DROVE A few blocks north of the housing projects on Valencia and parked his car in front of a corner Laundromat.
    Because his phone told him the tide was swamping out the surf and because he wasn’t hungry enough to take an early lunch, Finch sat down on a stoop across the street from the crime scene and took outhis notebook. He doodled randomly: a topless Carmen Miranda on a surfboard, plunger nipples stuck straight up in the air, a snail, a martini glass. Then, bored and a bit guilty, he stood up and crossed the street to go through some investigative motions.
    The yard was clean, as were both sidewalks, but in Dolores Stone’s mailbox, he found a package wrapped in unmarked brown paper. On the night of the murder, a beat cop had handed Finch an armful of supermarket ads, neighborhood coalition newsletters, and credit card offers, all addressed to Stone’s apartment. The exchange had been a bit strange—Finch had never seen this cop before, and although that in itself wasn’t too uncommon, the cop seemed nervous and shifty. And then there was the issue of what he had said when he handed over the mail: “Here, sir, the last letters to the deceased.” It was too formal a thing to say, too respectful. At the time, Finch had ascribed the beat cop’s irregular behavior to his youth and, perhaps, the whiteness of the victim.
    The package held a book with a plain brown cover that tried, unsuccessfully, to give the impression of leather. The title,
Mr. Brownstone
, was printed across the top in