Jack’s gaze fell on a framed photo sitting on the second shelf of one of the built-ins. A happy couple in front of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame—the victim, with a slight young woman whose jet-black hair fell slightly past her shoulders. He had one arm around her; she had both of hers around him.
They were in the right place. Jack picked up the photo and held it toward the building manager woman. “This is him. Do you know him?”
She said no. “I mean, I’ve seen him coming and going, but I don’t know him personally. I don’t think I ever had a conversation with him.”
“What about her?”
She peered. “I’ve seen her around, too.”
“Does she live in this room? Or another unit?”
“I see them walking through the lobby. I don’t have any idea where they go.”
Jack went to the doorless closet. Flannel shirts, hoodies, but also two tops with sequins and plunging necklines, a sweater with flowers appliquéd on its sleeves, and a leather jacket with fringes, too small for even the victim to have worn. Add to that a bra strewn across the unmade bed, and Jack would bet that the girl in the picture lived in this unit whether she was on the lease or not.
“Thanks,” he told the pink-tipped woman. “We’ll take it from here.”
She looked around, uncertain.
“We will most likely be here for hours,” Riley told her, and she backed out with great reluctance, clearly not trusting them, yet also not able to spend her whole workday on the fourth floor.
Once she’d left, Jack and Riley could get down to work. Jack started at the wall with the bed and Riley moved into the bathroom, quickly and methodically moving, examining, replacing every item present. Who was Evan Harding, where had he come from, what was he doing/studying/active in, and who might have had a motive to kill him—all on the very outside chance that it had not been a random mugger?
Jack focused on these questions, more comfortable than the question of Rick Gardiner’s goals or what he might find.
The bed didn’t tell him anything except that the occupants felt making one was a waste of time and that they didn’t get too concerned about mixing dirty laundry with clean. The floor underneath it held some old magazines, boxes of supplies such as shampoo and macaroni, and more lost laundry. Jack pulled out a decorative wooden box and opened it to poke through an assortment of trinkets, a Chinese coin, a matchbook from a bar he’d never heard of, two plain gold bands, three bracelets made of round colored beads, a luggage tag from Carnival Cruise Lines, and a ticket stub from Playhouse Square. Jack couldn’t guess if the box belonged to the victim or his girlfriend.
But no weapons, no drugs, nothing that would make the guy a target. He moved on to the closet, finding only more clothes, clean ones hung up or stacked on the built-in shelves, with dirty items on the floor. A decently heavy parka made Jack wonder why the guy hadn’t been wearing it. Riley had finished in the bathroom and now moved into the kitchen. Jack took the desk, the only spot in the room still unexplored.
Cosmetics—both male and female varieties—magazines, charging cords for at least two different electronic items, and a bowl with the dregs of that morning’s cereal littered the surface. Two pens, one pencil, and one small spiral-bound notebook in the shallow drawer—the desk didn’t seem to be used for a lot of writing, or study.
“I’m thinking girlfriend lives here,” Jack said aloud.
“If she wanted her privacy secured, she should have put her name on the lease. I doubt it would make any difference to the price. Or she doesn’t live here but stays over a lot.”
In the desk drawer Jack found a worn envelope with money in it—Jack counted twenty-three dollars, some kind of petty cash fund.
Behind him, Riley opened and closed cabinets. “They’re not rich, but they’re not living on ramen. Fresh vegetables in the fridge, no alcohol, no TV dinners, organic chicken breasts in the freezer. Health nuts. So many kids are these days.”
“Either of your girls go vegan yet?” Jack asked. Riley had two daughters, somewhere in their middle school years. Jack could never remember their ages.
“Not yet, but I’m waiting. I’m sure Natalie will come up with all sorts of woo-woo things. Hannah, forget it. Hannah lives for bacon cheeseburgers and chicken wings.” He paused. “I hope she never changes.”
He sounded so wistful that Jack hoped so, too.
“No drugs, either,” Riley went on. “Not even prescription. You got anything?”
Jack said, “Nada. Not even what should be here—like textbooks, notebooks, homework. I’m wondering if they’re really students.”
“I would think they’d have to be to live here.”
“I would think so, too.”
“Kids do a lot online now. Assignments, projects, required supplies, it’s all posted on the school’s site by the teachers. And they’re going to e-books to avoid the weight and expense of textbooks—not that they cost any less. Could be these two carry an entire course around in their phone.”
“Could be.”
Riley said, “It also could be that they faked being students to get the low rent. Though that’s a notebook,” he added, pointing to the one in Jack’s hand.
“No subject I ever got a grade in.” He handed it over, watched as Riley paged through the columns of dates and numbers. No other information, not even a name on the front cover, only entries of numbers for an ever-increasing tally.
“Money?” Riley guessed.
“Or a video game score.”
“If it’s money, he—or she—has now accumulated close to, let’s see, nine hundred bucks. Hardly seems worth killing over. I know life is cheap in the big city, but I hope it’s not that cheap.”
Jack shrugged. “It would make me think he’s dealing, except there’s not a single baggie or pill or white dust or crumb of pot to be found.”
“If girlfriend knew he was dead, she might have cleaned up.”
“Then she did one hell of a job.”
“I found these in a drawer with the spoons.” Riley held out two slips of paper. They seemed to be perforated ends torn off some larger form, with a preprinted number across the top and sections below to be filled in. No section had, save one: Amount—$750.00. The second slip was similarly blank, with a different preprinted number at the top and amount of $525.00. But along the edge, in narrow, stylized script, a logo read A to Z Check Cashing.
Riley said, “So he’s got a job that requires a name tag, maybe makes a habit of cashing his paycheck at a check cashing place before walking home. A perfect target.”
“Maybe,” Jack said, giving the small apartment a frustrated, sweeping glance. “Why not a bank account? Or at least a credit card statement? Who has such a small amount of . . . stuff?”
Other than him, of course. His tiny rented bungalow could give the Spartan student’s apartment a run for its money in the no-strings department. But he knew why he kept his life bare—the lack of evidence hid a host of activity. What did this kid have to hide?
“Maybe they just moved here. Students bring only what they need—at least they should.” He sighed, no doubt worried about moving a tractor-trailer full of possessions when the time came for his girls, or worried about paying for college courses, dorms, and books, or worried about that inevitable day when he realized they were no longer girls but young women.
Jack didn’t envy him any of that.
They heard the lock mechanism cycle a split second before it opened, and the girl in the photo spilled into the apartment. Unlike her boyfriend, she had dressed for