around I could appreciate the appeal a windfall of five hundred thousand dollars must have held for her. It wasn’t millions, it wasn’t an amount to kill or get killed over, you’d never make a movie about people trying to steal that little, but if you had it, you could get yourself a real bed, a real apartment in a better part of town, a rug for the floor, maybe some pictures for the walls, instead of spending every dollar you earned just to keep the landlord at bay.
The far side of the room doubled as the kitchen, a small counter separating the two-burner electric stove on one side from the sink on the other. There was a miniature refrigerator under the sink, a pair of cabinets over it. The refrigerator had a couple of apples that had started to go soft, a sugar bowl she presumably kept there to keep the bugs out of it, two cans of tuna, half a lemon. The cabinet contained a half-finished box of Lipton tea bags, a few dishes, two mugs.
There was no closet. What there was instead was a tall chest of drawers, and inside I found piles of clothing. Not neatly folded, but that was to be expected given that they’d been rifled through at least twice. Lots of T-shirts, a few sweaters, some skirts and dresses. Underwear. It felt strange going through her clothes. This was the closest I’d come to Miranda in ten years, and the closest I ever would. I could smell her on her clothing, the quiet, simple, lived-in smell any dresser full of clothing gets over time, and if it wasn’t quite the smell I remembered, it was close enough to trigger all sorts of memories.
The bras I found gave me a sense of the size she’d chosen to make her breasts, and it was definitely an increase, though not of the Mandy Mountains variety. I kept waiting to find her costumes, her work clothes, and in the bottom drawer I finally did. Thin gowns, a Lycra bodysuit, g-strings in various colors, front-clasp satin bras, elbow-length gloves. A few pairs of shoes. A tangle of stockings.
A narrow hallway led to a surprisingly large bathroom. The medicine cabinet was open a few inches, and when I tried to close it the door swung open again. Not much inside – a few tubes of lipstick, some eyebrow pencils, eye shadow. A nasal inhaler for congestion. A small bottle of Anbesol and a large bottle of nail polish remover, a plastic bag of three hundred cotton balls that now held something more like fifty, a small tube of toothpaste squeezed almost to the end. No toothbrush, or hairbrush either, but I figured the police had probably taken those. It was the easiest way to get material for the sort of DNA test Kirsch had told me the police had run. What surprised me more was that I didn’t see any of the things you’d expect from a contact lens wearer – no saline, no lens case, no spares. Maybe the police took those things, too, or maybe I was wrong and she hadn’t switched to contacts. Maybe she’d had laser surgery done by one of the crack ophthalmologists at Rianon, or else one of the dozen who advertised on the subway here in the city.
I returned to the living room. What else was there to see? There were no other rooms. I lifted the futon, pulled the dresser away from the wall. There were no more torn paper bands. The phone on top of the dresser still had a dial tone and the twelve-inch television sitting on the floor still had reception, so neither the telephone company nor the cable company had switched off her service yet. Maybe no one had notified them.
I flipped through the pages of the magazines, but nothing fell out other than a few blow-in subscription cards. I put them back. Hanging from a hook on the front door was a maroon cloth baseball cap and a light blue denim jacket. Searching the pockets only produced a crumpled tissue and a foil-wrapped roll of breath mints.
The apartment was as bare as a hotel room. Some clothes, some bits of food, a portable TV set, a phone – it was the home of someone accustomed to picking up and leaving on a moment’s notice, someone used to carrying everything she owned in the trunk of a car. For how many years had Miranda been on the road? Five? Six? For all I knew, she might only have come back to New York right before getting the job at the Sin Factory. If she’d lived longer, maybe she’d eventually have put down roots, but it hadn’t happened yet.
Of course, she’d already had roots in the city once. Her mother. Me. I couldn’t help wondering whether, if she’d lived longer and had stayed in the city, she would ever have called me. Or even whether she had. Like everyone else, I occasionally found empty messages on my answering machine, was the victim of late night hangup calls. Could one of them have been her?
Or had she tried to look me up and been stymied by my unlisted number? If I’d been listed, might she have reached me and let me help her?
Maybe. Maybe. It didn’t make any difference now.
I looked out through the peephole to make sure the hallway was empty before letting myself out.
There was no 4-I, and knocking on the door to 4-H produced no result. But 4-G was home: I could hear the radio going through the door and heard its volume drop after I knocked. Footsteps shuffled toward me and I heard the plastic peephole cover slide up.
“Yes?”
“Sorry to bother you,” I said. “My name is John Blake, and I’m investigating the death of one of your neighbors, Miranda Sugarman.” I held my investigator’s license up in front of the peephole.
“I don’t know anyone named Sugarman.”
“She lived in 4-J, just down the hall.”
“Oh, the girl Winston rented to. That must be why all the police were here on Sunday. I didn’t realize she’d died.” I heard locks turning and then the door swung in, but only a little. In the narrow space between door and wall an old woman’s face appeared. “Are you with the police?”
“No,” I said, “I’m a private investigator. Also a friend of the Sugarman family.”
“Oh.” She brought a hand up to scratch her chin. “What happened?”
“Ms. Sugarman was found dead Sunday morning at the club where she worked,” I said. “I’m trying to find out about anything that might have happened in the days leading up to her death. Did you see her at all, or see anyone else coming or going from her apartment?”
“It’s not her apartment, it’s Winston’s. But he hasn’t lived there for a long time.” She lowered her voice. “We’re not supposed to sublet, but a lot of people in the building do it. You know, under the table. Everyone looks the other way.”
“How long had she been living there?”
“Six months? Seven months?” She looked at me as though I might know which was right. “I said hello to her the day she moved in, so I should remember. Winston was with her. It was in April, so what’s that, eight months?”
I nodded.
“She was very pretty. I thought maybe she was his girlfriend, but he said no, she was just someone who was taking the apartment.”
“Did you ever talk to her?”
“Talk to her? I hardly ever saw her.” She shook her head. “Coming and going late at night, and always in a rush. I’d hear her in the hallway, but by the time I’d look out she was already gone.”
“Do you remember her having any visitors?”
“Sure, once in a while.”
“Recently?”
“Let me think.” I waited. “The walls are so thin, you can hear everything going on in the hallway. You hear people coming and going all the time. 4-J? I don’t know. The policemen asked the same thing, and I told them I couldn’t be sure.”
“Do you remember seeing anyone in the hallway on New Year’s Eve or the next day?”
“New Year’s Eve, sure. There were people coming and going all night. Going to parties, coming home at one in the morning. Very noisy. And then the police came later on Sunday morning, of course.”
“How about earlier in the day on Saturday? Did you see anyone going into her apartment or leaving?”
“I don’t stand at the door all day watching who’s in the hallway,” she said.
“I know, I understand, I just thought you might remember if someone came by-”
“Just because I’m home all day doesn’t mean I’m one of those busybodies who minds everyone else’s business.”
“I’m sure you don’t,” I said. “But if you happened to notice anything, if you saw or heard anything, it could make an enormous difference.” I glanced at the label under the peephole. “Mrs. Krieger, this is a murder investigation. If you know anything, it’s important that you share it with us.”
“The last time I saw anyone going to that apartment,” she said slowly, “was maybe a week ago. I was taking out the garbage, and when I came back from the incinerator room, I saw a young woman ringing the doorbell. I think that’s the last time I saw someone going to 4-J, except for when the cable company sent someone.”
