“Okay.”
“Tell me about Nancy Mills. Why did she decide to live here? Did she know anybody here?”
“No. She just called up and said she liked living near the mall.”
“How did she pay for the rent? Did she have a credit card?”
“She gave me cash. It was a lot of money, when you add up first, last, and security deposit. Over three thousand bucks. I had to deliver it to the company that owns the place that day, because I didn’t want to keep that much around.”
“Just like that? Didn’t you do a background check to see if she was a problem tenant?”
“What do you mean?”
Dunn was patient. “A deadbeat, who skipped on her last landlord. Or a drug dealer, or a prostitute. That’s the kind of person who has lots of cash.”
“I don’t do that kind of checking. I think that the company does sometimes. On the application they ask for a lot of information. They want the last three addresses and phone numbers. They ask for references too, including an employer they can call.”
“Do you have her application here?”
“No,” said the manager. “The company gets it as soon as the place is rented.”
“I’d like you to see if you remember anything at all about her that might help me find her. Does she like to wear particular colors or a special style of clothes, for instance?”
“She has a nice little body, so she tends to wear pants and tops that are sort of snug. Not tight, exactly. Fitted. I never saw what she wore when she went out at night, but the picture from the hotel camera looked like the kind of thing I always saw on her. It was pants and a yellow top, and a matching yellow jacket thing over it, with something written on it.”
“You mean like a brand?”
“You know, there’s always some smart-ass thing written on it, like to tease you. Maybe the brand is mentioned, maybe not.”
“Oh. Any friends, anybody she talked to a lot?”
“I don’t think so. I guess she must have talked to Mary Tilson, the woman across the hall from her.”
“Nobody else? No guys?”
“None that I ever saw. If you’re an apartment manager, you have to kind of watch for that too. You get a sweet-faced little babe into an apartment, and then all of a sudden there’s a boyfriend living there and his drinking buddies are in and out all the time, making noise and pissing off the other tenants.”
“What did she do all day? Did she work?”
“I don’t know. She used to go out for a run in the morning, then come back. After that, I guess she would go for the day. Now and then she’d come home with bags from stores.”
“Interesting. I’d like it if you’d let me into her place now, so I can have a look around.”
“I’m not really supposed to do that. The police won’t let me rent it out or anything yet.”
Dunn said quietly, “If you help me, I’ll pay for your cooperation. If you don’t, I’ll still get what I want, but you won’t.”
The manager noticed again the strange way that Calvin Dunn looked at him, his eyes appearing to focus on a point inside the manager’s forehead. “All right.”
They went to the apartment, and Dunn waited while the manager unlocked the door, then ducked under the yellow police tape across the doorway and into the room. Dunn looked at everything closely, and sighted along the woodwork where the police had dusted for prints. There didn’t seem to be any spots where they had put tape down and lifted a print. Then he examined the furnishings. “Did she pick out this stuff, or did it come with the place?”
“It’s furnished. The company buys it in lots, I think. It all looks the same. They have a lot of other buildings.”
Calvin Dunn spent a few more minutes looking for anything that Nancy Mills might have left, carefully opening and closing cabinets and drawers with the edge of his hand, but looking only experimentally, to be sure the police had already searched. Then he said, “Let’s go back to your place.”
When they were in the manager’s apartment again, Calvin Dunn reached into his inner coat pocket and handed the manager three hundred-dollar bills. “This is for your cooperation.”
“Thank you,” said the manager.
“You’re welcome. Now get me the application.”
“I already told you—”
Calvin Dunn held up his hand to interrupt. “I want you to think about it. You just saw that I’m a truthful man. No harm came to the apartment and you got a reward. Look at me. Do you want me to be your friend, or do you want me to be your enemy?”
The manager said, “I can’t give you that.”
Dunn lunged forward, his right arm across the manager’s chest, and flipped him backward over his hip so that he landed facedown on the floor. Dunn held the manager’s wrist with both hands and placed his foot against the manager’s back. “You keep a copy of the application. Where is it?”
Norris gasped. “In the desk. Over there.”
“Thank you,” said Calvin Dunn. He released the manager, walked to the desk, pulled open the deep file drawer, and found the applications filed alphabetically. He took the photocopy of the one that Nancy Mills had filled out, and examined it closely. Then he set it on the desk. “That will do it for me. Don’t worry, your arm will be okay in a day or two.” He stepped to the door. “You look too smart to say anything to anybody about my visit. Are you?”
The manager looked up from the floor. “Yes.” And then Calvin Dunn was out the door and gone.
24
The boy drove Nicole Davis to a long, one-story suburban ranch house with a low rail fence at the sidewalk and a small rustic wooden sign on the lawn that said THE GILMANS. The boy used an automatic garage-door opener, drove all the way in, and closed the door behind them before he got out of the car.
Nicole Davis looked around her at the garage in the dim light. It was big, made for three cars, and the little Mazda seemed lonely in the center of it. When the boy went to the wall and switched on the overhead light, she could see a workbench along the back wall with a vise, and a pegboard with outlines of hand tools traced on it, most of the tools in their places. She got out of the car. “The Gilmans. Is that you? Are you a Gilman?”
“I’m a Gilman. I’m Ty. That’s for Tyler.”
“Where are your parents?”
“Don’t worry about them. They’re at Lake Havasu right now. They won’t be back for almost a week. On the way home they’re going to swing by my grandmother’s house in Scottsdale.”
He went to the side of the garage, unlocked it, and let her into the kitchen. She took in everything quickly. It was small and a bit worn. There were dishes in the sink and the floor was dirty. He wasn’t coming in with her. She looked back to see him going to the car. He noticed her watching. “I’ve got to get back to work now. I’ll be home around eight. Make yourself comfortable, but don’t let anybody see you. Okay?”
“Okay.” She closed the kitchen door, then listened while he opened the garage door, started the car engine, backed out, and closed the garage again. She went through the kitchen to the living room, knelt on a chair, and moved the curtain aside a quarter inch to watch him drive off.
She looked around her and had a feeling of unreality. Being here was strange and sudden. She had been rushing to get on the bus, and now she was here, alone in this quiet suburban house. He had said he’d seen her on television, so she went to search for a television set. The living room was the kind that she suspected the family seldom used. The furniture had awful patterns on it that looked defiantly fresh and clear, and there wasn’t a book, magazine, or anything else on the coffee tables.
As she explored the house she wondered about the boy. She felt sympathy for his awkwardness. He looked to her as though his hands and feet had grown too fast and the rest of him had not caught up yet. His sandy blond hair had been cut short and tousled with his hands instead of combed, which unintentionally accentuated his baby face
