“Going out with who?”
“The only one I saw was the one in the picture. Sometimes she went out alone.” Shayndie Winograd blinked. “A few times we said hello. She said my children were cute. Once she offered Chaim Sholom- my six-year-old- a candy bar. I took it because I didn’t want to insult her but it wasn’t kosher so I gave it to a Mexican lady who works at the day care…she always smiled at the children. Seemed like a nice girl.” Deep sigh. “So terrible for her family.”
“She ever talk about family?”
“No, sir. We never really had a conversation, just to say hello and smile.”
Milo put his pad away. He hadn’t written anything down. “Anything else you can tell me, ma’am?”
“Like what?”
“Whatever comes to mind.”
“No, that’s it,” said Shayndie Winograd. Another deep blush. “She was beautiful but I felt sorry for her. Showing a lot of…herself. But she was nice, smiled at the babies, one time I let her hold one because I was getting into the car and had lots of packages.”
“So you had no problems with her.”
“No, no, not at all. She was nice. I felt sorry for her, that’s all.”
“Why?”
“Living by herself. All the going out. People think they can go out and do anything they want but the world is dangerous. This proves it, no?”
Squalls sounded from a bedroom. “Uh-oh.” We followed her into a ten-by-ten room taken up by two cribs. The occupants were a pair of infants, purple with indignation and, from the aroma, freshly soiled. Gershie Yoel bounced like a Slinky toy and tried to butt his mother as she changed diapers.
“Stop it! These men are policemen and if you don’t behave they can take you to the
The little boy growled.
“
“What’d he do?” said Milo.
“Nothing,” she said. “But he was accused. By a woman.” She rolled up a filthy diaper, wiped her hands. “Bad things. Even then there were bad things.”
Milo left his card at the other apartments. When we got to the ground floor the mail carrier was distributing envelopes.
“Afternoon,” said Milo.
The postman was a gray-haired Filipino, short and slight. His U.S. Postal Service van was parked at the curb. His right hand grasped one of several keys on a chain attached to his belt as the left pressed bound stacks of mail against his torso.
“H’lo,” he said.
Milo identified himself. “What’s the situation in Box Three?”
“What do you mean?”
“When’s the last time she emptied it?”
The carrier opened Michaela’s compartment. “Looks like not for a while.” He let the keychain drop and used both hands to separate the stacks. “Two for her today. It’s not my regular route…lucky this is all she got, not much room left.”
Milo pointed to the two envelopes. “Can I take a look at those?”
The mailman said, “You know I cannot do that.”
“I don’t wanna open them,” said Milo. “She got murdered last night. I just wanna see who’s writing to her.”
“Murdered?”
“That’s right.”
“It’s not my regular route.”
“You already said that.”
The carrier hesitated, handed over the envelopes.
Bulk solicitation to apply for a low-interest home loan and a “Last Chance!” pitch to resubscribe to
Milo handed them back.
“How about the stuff inside?”
“That’s private property,” said the mailman.
“What happens when you come back in a few days and there’s no more room?”
“We leave a notice.”
“Where does the mail go?”
“Stays in the station.”
“I can get a warrant and come by and open it all up.”
“If you say.”
“I say I just wanna look at the envelopes that are in there. Seeing as the box is already open.”
“Privacy- ”
“When she got killed she lost her privacy.”
The carrier made a show of ignoring us as he went about delivering mail to the other tenants. Milo reached into Box Three, removed a thick stack wedged so tightly he had to ease it out, and thumbed through.
“Mostly junk…a few bills…urgent one from the gas company meaning she was overdue…same deal with the phone company.”
He inspected the postmarks. “Ten days’ worth. Looks like she was gone well before she died.”
“A vacation’s not likely,” I said. “She was broke.”
He looked at me. Both of us thinking the same thing.
Maybe someone had kept her for a while.
CHAPTER 11
We sat in the car, in front of Michaela’s building.
I said, “Dylan Meserve cleared out of his place weeks ago. The neighbor heard him and Michaela arguing and Michaela told me she hated him.”
“Maybe he came and got her,” said Milo.
“Took her on another adventure.”
“What about Mr. Sex Criminal Peaty? Maybe he snatched both of them.”
“If Peaty did abduct anyone, he didn’t take them to his place,” I said. “No way to keep that from Mrs. Stadlbraun and the other tenants.”
“Too small to entertain.”
“Still, he’s the one with the record.”
“And he’s weird. So now I’ve got two high-priority bins.”
As we drove away, he said, “Coffee would prop my eyelids.”
