Cameron shrugged and said, ‘I’m the new kid on the block. Contact my boss – whatever he says to do, I’ll do.’
They made even more of a racket getting down the stairs than they had coming up. All the tenants watched Angela Lacey’s body leave the building – she was probably getting more attention today, Sarah thought, than she had ever had from any of them while she lived here.
Leo went around opening the meager blinds, trying to get as much sunshine as possible through the small windows. Delaney assigned them each a portion of the apartment to search, and went off to talk to the building manager about the decedent’s car. While he was gone the detectives walked, peered, stooped and scrutinized. But in truth there was very little to see. Angela had kept a meager minimum of household items here. And her employer had not sacrificed much when she gave her this scruffy little apartment.
The one item Sarah could see that seemed to place her somewhere in the mainstream was a small laptop, battered and old, centered on the gateleg table in the tiny foyer. It was plugged into the wall outlet behind the table, and lit up when she tapped the spacebar.
‘Heaven’s sake,’ she said. ‘This building has wifi?’
‘Most of these old apartment buildings in town have it,’ Leo said. ‘It’s cheaper than redecorating and it holds the tenants. Most of the people in this building are probably looking for another job.’
‘I don’t get it,’ Ollie said. ‘Why would she live in a squat like this when she owned a house?’
‘She rented the house,’ Oscar said, not looking at Sarah, ‘to start a nest egg for her old age.’
Sarah could see them all avoiding each other’s eyes, hoping nobody said any more about that. It embarrassed them all, somehow, to think of somebody living this poorly on purpose, in pursuit of a goal so easily lost as the future.
The fingerprints tech was busy, busy – prints everywhere, she said. The closet where Angela had been hanging had a set of built-in drawers and Jason spent a long time shining a flashlight beam into each one and taking out the liner paper, looking underneath. His total yield was two shirt buttons and a tiny safety pin.
The whole apartment had an impersonal air, Sarah thought, as if it might have been occupied part-time by someone whose real life was somewhere else. She found one item that seemed to be a keepsake, in a drawer of the nightstand by the bed. It was a faded snapshot, black and white, in a cheap metallic frame, nested carefully in a pile of underwear. A woman who somewhat resembled Angela, and a young man in a US Army private’s uniform faced the camera, smiling, with their hands clasped. She was wearing a hat with a small veil, and had a flower pinned to the lapel of her suit.
Sarah showed it to the other detectives.
‘That’s one of the first camo uniforms,’ Leo said. ‘My mom had one of those packed away. She said it was Dad’s, from when he fought in Vietnam. She let me wear it once in a school play. Talk about oily, that fabric.’
Probably Angela’s grandparents, then, looking pleased with themselves, optimistic about what the future held. Maybe their wedding picture, Sarah decided. But why would Angela keep it in a drawer, instead of out where she could see it?
Holding it by its edges in gloved hands, she took it to the scene techs to be photographed and tested for fingerprints, then signed out for it. She thought about it while she continued the search, wondering, did Angela keep that small, cheap picture near her because it was her best family picture? Or her only one?
The picture merged with her earlier impression about a real life somewhere else, causing Sarah to stand still with her head cocked like a beagle on a scent. Ollie noticed her standing that way and said, ‘What?’
‘This can’t be all there is,’ she said.
‘Of what?’
‘Of, you know, stuff. Think about it, they were married for seven years, moved out of Frank’s house into their own after three. You move into a house, you start getting stuff – pots and pans, blankets and towels. Furniture. Ed moved out of that house, but she stayed there till a few months ago. Where’s all the stuff?’
The other detectives, bored with searching empty grids, had gathered around this conversation and began to comment.
‘Maybe she rented the house furnished?’ Ollie said. ‘Easy enough to find out.’ He made a note.
‘And held a yard sale,’ Jason said. Yard sales were a reliable Saturday feature in his churning, up-and-downwardly-mobile neighborhood.
‘Maybe, but you never sell it all,’ Leo, the faithful husband and father, had endured many moves. ‘Dishes, pictures, books – those things you move.’