Simple by Kathleen George Page B

posture was half of attractiveness, and she knew it. Once they watched some sort of award show together on TV and she pointed out how many women sank their chests in and rounded their shoulders, as if ashamed they had breasts even though their clothes hardly covered them. She pointed out how many men led with a paunch or a forward-thrusting head. She said, “Look at Cary Grant in his movies. The way he stood. The way he wore his clothes. Plumb line from the tip of his head to the heels of his feet.”
    In the car, she opened her notes to use as a plate beneath her.
    The area they were supposed to canvass consisted of similar small, modest brick houses with cement front porches, tiny front lawns, and awnings (mostly aluminum, some cloth); inside they all had living rooms, dining rooms, kitchens on the first floor, and two or three bedrooms on the second, everything sized by builders during the twenties and thirties—small squares, not at all spacious. The backyards would also be scaled to this modest idea of home ownership.
    â€œGod, I love a hot dog,” Colleen said. “You know what I read? Even Marcella Hazan loves a good hot dog. Can you believe it? So much for gourmet cooking, huh?”
    He finished his own with a flourish of crumpled napkin. “About done?”
    â€œUm, yeah.”
    â€œâ€™Cause here we are.”
    They consulted the list.
    Cal Hathaway had worked for three families on Dawson and also for the Orthodox church there. Four households on Parkview. One on Swinburne. Two on Child Street.
    They started with Dawson. These four jobs had all been painting work—outside windows and doors, mostly, some porch railings, in one case the porch cement; the other Dawson job was the inside walls in the basement social hall of the church. The first place the detectives visited had three screaming children and a woman who looked like she wanted to bag it and leave town. She said, “Yeah, he painted our stuff. I can’t get over letting a killer near my kids.” She appeared to stop to reconsider this. “I don’t want to be a broken record. You hear it all the time: ‘He didn’t seem the type.’ Well, he didn’t. So that just shows how you don’t know.”
    â€œDid you know the victim?” Colleen asked her.
    â€œNot at all.”
    â€œYou know anything about the accused?” Potocki had chosen his words carefully.
    â€œJust he told me he was partially deaf. I thought he was retarded when he didn’t hear me, but he wasn’t.”
    â€œHow long have you lived here?”
    â€œTwenty-five years.”
    The detectives moved on to a second house. There was nobody home.
    They went to a third. Husband and wife were both home and eager to talk about Cal. “Painted. He did real good,” the wife said. “And he was cheap.”
    They dittoed all that the first woman had said.
    â€œHow long have you lived here?”
    â€œJust three years.”
    â€œHow do you feel about living where a lot of students rent?”
    â€œThat part is hard. But we bought through the Own Oakland program. The price was unbeatable.”
    â€œWhat’s Own Oakland?”
    â€œOh. It’s like a clean-up-Oakland program. Get rid of slum landlords. Have real people live in the houses. Families. People who take care of their properties.”
    â€œI’ve heard of it,” Potocki said. He tried to come up with a name. “Who runs it?”
    â€œWell, there’s the real estate company we worked with. Paul Wesson Realty. They advertise they’re part of Own Oakland.”
    â€œThat’s it. Paul Wesson. Thanks.”
    They left and consulted their lists.
    â€œSwinburne?”
    â€œI want to see the church first,” Colleen said. “You think anybody will be there?”
    â€œLet’s give a holler.”
    It turned out to be easy. There were two women cleaning the church. The altar was as glorious as