It didn’t take long before I recognized thebuilding which I assumed had been the site of the discovery of thedead body. To my surprise, no yellow police tape surrounded thearea, nor did any police cars wait at the curb. Three pedestriansstood nearby talking quietly among themselves. Occasionally onewould point or glance up at the building in question.
Doing my own glancing upward, I saw lightshining from two second-story windows. Inasmuch as the windows boreno curtains, I could see the upper part of a room, but the viewconsisted merely of bare walls dimly lighted by a trio of nakedbulbs in a ceiling fixture. No doubt 25-watt bulbs, the landlordtrying to lower his electric bill.
Tessa pointed. “That’s it.”
I grabbed her hand and pulled it down. Irepeated something she herself told me a couple of decades before.“It’s not polite to point.” I resorted to a whisper. “Let’s not leteveryone else know what we’re doing.” She winked and grinned.
We walked slowly down the sidewalk, turnedthe corner and stopped. Slightly concealing myself behind a bush, Ilooked back at the watchers, wishing they’d soon go away.
Tessa hovered next to me. “What do yousee?”
“I’m hoping those people will go back home.They look as if they might.”
“Do you want me to get rid of them?”
I stared at her. “And just how do you proposeto do that?”
“I can pretend to try to sell them something.Or give them a flyer like those religious people hand out.”
“You aren’t carrying any religiousflyers.”
“But if I did... I’m just saying, that sortof thing always works to get rid of people. Once innineteen-sixty...”
I didn’t hear what she said next, because Iturned back to the street and, sure enough, the people had gone.“You’re off the hook, Tessa. They went away.”
Keeping a wary eye out for any otheronlookers, we strolled back to the house I’d already begun to thinkof as the “murder house.” It was tall and narrow, like most of theold houses in that neighborhood, but not covered, like Tessa’s, inany overhangs, ledges, designs, or fancy scrollwork.
“They’ve taken the gingerbread off.” Her tonemade it clear she disapproved of the building’s straight, modernlook.
“They did that a lot back in the fifties,”she added. “In fact, back then they not only took off all the fancywood trim, some owners painted them battleship gray.”
“Really?” I couldn’t imagine solid gray whenI could see colorful blue, red, and yellow trim on so many housesthese days. “Why?”
“It was cheap. They bought up surplus navydepartment paint from World War Two.” She walked in time to hercommentary. “Then in the sixties, people began to appreciate allthat beautiful wood carving and preferred houses that still had it.Some owners of modern ones actually hired companies to put thegingerbread back on.”
I tried to ignore Tessa and stared at thehouse. The second floor windows revealed the lights stillblazed.
The history lesson apparently overtemporarily, Tessa came forward and grabbed the handle of the doorat street level. “Look, the door’s not locked.”
“Tessa,” I stage-whispered, “don’t dothat.”
“Why not? We want to go inside, don’twe?”
“Yes, but we can’t just barge in.”
“Well, the lights are on, so someone’s upthere, and we can ask permission when we arrive.”
Holding tightly to the banister, she precededme and we left the narrow, empty vestibule and climbed the stairsto the second floor. Next to the stairs which continued their riseto the third floor, I saw a tiny hallway with two doors. The largerone on the right wasn’t locked and, in spite of a diagonal band ofyellow police tape, it stood open and a man came through it.
Needlessly tall, quite bald, and wearingover-sized black-rimmed glasses, he was so skinny he looked like alamp post with eyes. When he spied us, he stopped and stared.
“Mr. Kostitch.” Tessa craned her neck to lookup at him. She loses an inch in height every year. “How areyou?”
He squinted before giving us a blanklook.
“Tessa Reynolds.” She tried to stretchherself taller but to no avail. “Remember me? I own a building likethis on Baker Street.”
He only adjusted the glasses perched on hisnose, which magnified his sight, and stared some more.
“We met at a neighborhood meeting a fewmonths ago. The one about allowing a Starbucks coffee shop to openup on the next corner.”
Kostitch’s stony face broke a little andexhibited what might pass for a smile. “Yes, I remember now. Goodevening.”
“This is my granddaughter, Sheridan Holmes.”Then, getting right to the point, she grinned and patted the man’sarm. “We heard you had a commotion here today. A dead body found inyour vacant apartment.” She gave him a playful scold. “You naughtyboy. What have you been up to?”
He protested in a strong voice. “It’s none ofmy doing. Flat’s been empty for weeks. Went in because the tenantupstairs claimed he heard a gunshot. Didn’t believe him of course.But I went in and there’s this... this man lying there.”
“Anyone you knew?” I asked.
“Of course not. The police came at once.They’ve taken him away now, thank goodness.”
Tessa used her wiles on the man again. “Maywe go inside and see? I’ve never been in a place where a murderhappened.” As she spoke, she moved toward the door, almost elbowingthe landlord out of the way.
“No, I don’t think you should.” He leanedinto the room and apparently hit the light switch because thelights went out.
“Just for a minute, dearie,” Tessa said.
After a shrug, Kostitch moved aside and letus enter before him.He flipped the switch again and the large emptyroom became only slightly brighter, even though the bulbs in theceiling fixture had no shade or other covering. At least it madesearching the place a little easier.
Not that one could see very much. I’dpreviously decided the room was empty, and then I realized therewere not only no window coverings, but no furniture of any kind.The walls—no doubt the current shade of apartment white—were alsobare, although a few nails protruded to indicate where a picture ortwo might have hung. A fireplace took up space on the
