“I saw a service door in the kitchen,” Sigrid said, “but I couldn’t say where it went.”
As they returned to the search, the white cat came in and wound himself around Urbanska’s legs. She gave him an absentminded stroke and he jumped up on the bed to begin washing himself.
A dainty dressing table held little bottles of creams and lotions, additional fragile perfume bottles, and a chrome makeup mirror that was framed in lights. Opening a side drawer, Sigrid found a tangle of costume jewelry and a blue velvet jeweler’s box. Inside that was an elaborate crystal necklace and a handwritten gift card:
One drawer of the tall dresser held masculine socks and underwear, the other four drawers were filled with lingerie and feminine sweaters.
Ditto the two closets. Denise’s was stuffed to overflowing with the usual women’s apparel. Phil’s held three brown coveralls in plastic dry cleaners’ bags, a brown suit, several shirts and ties, a sports jacket, and four pairs of slacks.
In the bathroom’s medicine cabinet were over-the-counter painkillers, vitamins and calcium supplements, first aid remedies, Band-Aids, and three prescription bottles. One was an antidepressant in Denise’s name. Another, also in her name, held mild sleeping pills. The third, in Phil’s name, contained pills to control high blood pressure.
Once they had walked through the apartment, they spread out to search more intensively. On the floor at the back of Denise’s closet, underneath three rows of shoeboxes, Urbanska found a cardboard box with dividers that had originally kept jars of mustard from bumping against each other. Each compartment was now stuffed with even more shiny knickknacks. She saw a crystal long-stemmed rose, a pretty cloisonne pillbox, a kitten of frosted gray glass, a porcelain shepherdess figurine, a pink glass perfume bottle, and a silver Santa Claus bell that tinkled when she picked it up.
“What’s that?” Sigrid asked.
“Looks like her overflow collection. She probably switches them out with each other. That’s what my aunt does, anyhow.” Urbanska paused and almost to herself murmured, “My aunt doesn’t have any children either.”
At the end of another ten minutes, they had found nothing with writing on it except for that one card and the shopping list.
“Everybody has papers,” Sigrid said. “Bills, bank statements, insurance policies. Where are theirs?”
The cat followed them back through the apartment.
“I guess he’ll be okay,” Urbanska said with a concerned look on her face. “I put out some dry food, too. And fresh water. The litter box was pretty clean, too.”
“You looked?” asked Hentz, amused.
Before he took them up to the twelfth floor, Sidney Jackson used the house phone to tell Mrs. Wall that two detectives were there to see her, and she was waiting at the door when Elaine Albee and Jim Lowry stepped off the elevator. Mid-fifties and confident with it, she was small and slender and carried herself like someone who was used to being photographed at opening receptions and charity functions. Her straight silver hair curved to frame a pointed chin, and ragged bangs softened her strong forehead. She wore black stretch pants and a slouchy black sweater with the sleeves pushed up to show several silver bracelets. Despite the laugh lines and wrinkles, she had beautiful skin, and her only makeup was lipstick that had almost worn off. She might have started the morning with mascara and eye shadow, but her hazel eyes were red-rimmed now and they realized that she had been crying.
They introduced themselves and Mrs. Wall invited them into an apartment that was harmoniously furnished in earth tones and sturdy Arts and Crafts oak furniture. Craftsman touches were everywhere, from the rugs on the wooden floors to the brass lamps and slatted wood radiator covers. An earthenware teapot and a full cup of hot fragrant tea sat on a hammered brass tray atop the coffee table, and they declined her offer to bring more cups.
“Everybody in the building is just devastated by Phil’s death,” she said when they were seated. “All sorts of rumors are flying around. Please tell me what really happened.”
“The only thing we know is that he was struck down in apartment 6-A sometime between nine-thirty and eleven,” said Lowry.
Mrs. Wall sat there slowly shaking her elegant head and her eyes filled up again. “He was just the dearest man. There’s no way we’ll ever find someone half as good again. Why was he killed, Detectives? He never hurt anyone or anything. Not even spiders. Our middle child used to go all Annie Hall on us whenever she saw one, and if my husband or I were out, Phil would come right up and catch it in a plastic cup and put it out on the balcony.”
“How long had he worked here?” Albee asked gently.
Struggling to keep her voice steady, Mrs. Wall said, “We moved in seventeen years ago and he was here at least two years before that.”
“What about Mrs. Lundigren?”
It seemed to Elaine that Mrs. Wall’s lips tightened when she said, “Denise? We’ve heard that an ambulance had to be called when they told her. Will she be all right?”
“I think they expect to let her come home later today.”
The older woman shook her head. “Poor woman. Her condition is so…” She hesitated, searching for the right word. “… so fragile. I honestly don’t know how she will manage without Phil.”
“Do either of them have family?”
“I never heard him mention anyone. He listed Denise as next of kin when he applied for this job, and I do know he had a mother who died about eight years ago, because they went up for the funeral.”
“Up?”
“To New Hampshire. That’s where he was from originally. I don’t know if that’s where she’ll want to go, but part of the super’s salary is the free apartment and we’ll be needing it for Phil’s replacement.”
“Is the building a co-op or condo?” Albee asked.
