She frowned, looked at him, and said, “You know what? I think she slept with the guys half the time.” She shrugged. “We don’t really keep count. We go with whoever we want to go with.”
“Interesting lifestyle,” Richard said.
“Absolutely,” she said. “And a healthy natural one. But I can’t help you.”
“What about her room?”
“The kid who just left has her room.”
“Any chance we can see it?”
“We put her stuff in storage,” another guy said, as he walked into the kitchen, his hair spiked up in some kind of gel, probably done up the previous night, and he was looking much older now that the night had passed. He held a cup of coffee like it was a lifeline.
“That would be good to see,” Richard said. “And do you know where she went from here?”
“She said she had a new gig, and it was the best deal ever. She wouldn’t tell us where.”
“Of course she wouldn’t,” Andy said.
“We just heard what happened to her,” he said.
“I need everybody who knew Liana to wake up and to make statements. Otherwise we’ll have to do it downtown at the station. So, can you go get your friends up?”
It took them hours to get the very groggy, hungover, drugged-out artists to sit down long enough to give their stories. Basically they all said everybody had been friends. With each of them, Richard heard the same thing about Liana. She had told them that she was taking off to live the good life because she got a perfect opportunity, and she was leaving them all. Sorry, suckers, but sayonara.
“And where are her things?”
The first guy they talked to hopped up, walked to the front closet, opened it, calling out from there.
Richard looked at him. “Is this all hers?”
“No, no,” he said. “This is.” He pulled out a duffel bag and another bag, dropping them at Richard’s feet. “We’d be really grateful if you would take this with you. We’re short on space.”
“Why would she leave her stuff behind?”
“Well, the way we figured it, she probably had a sugar daddy who would buy her all new stuff.”
“Wow,” Richard said. “You guys have so much that you just leave it all behind?”
“It holds us down, holds us back,” said the woman with the purple hair. “You really have to let all that go.”
“We need your contact information, all of you, in case we need to get in touch with you.”
Multiple groans came around the room. “Man, we’ve cooperated. Why do you have to get our cell phone numbers?”
“Because it’s the law,” Andy said. He stopped and slowly walked around, grabbing everybody’s name and phone number. When they were done, he looked at Richard and said, “Let’s go.”
He nodded, and they headed out. “Did we ever get any forensics from the dumpster?”
“No,” he said. “Well, nothing we’ve heard back on anyway.”
“Wouldn’t it be nice if it was like TV,” Richard said, “and we could just put it in and get it back within a day or two.”
“Wouldn’t it,” Andy said with a sneer.
Back at the police department, they walked into one of the interrogation rooms, opened up the door, placed the bags on the table. They both put on gloves and slowly went through everything here. The bag was filled with clothing; that was about it. Including dirty socks, dirty jeans, and, unfortunately, dirty underwear.
“Does this make any sense to you?” Andy asked Richard.
“Well, there are two theories,” Richard said. “Either she didn’t bother coming back because her good deal would replace it all, or she couldn’t come back to grab it.”
Andy nodded. “Sucks either way.”
They checked all the pockets. And they suspected that the others had already done the exact same thing, so not even a quarter was found in the pockets and certainly no money in the wallet.
“What do you think? Did the kids strip it?” Richard asked.
“Absolutely they did,” Andy said with a chuckle. “Did you see that group?”
“I wonder how much they make on their art.”
“I doubt very much,” he said. “Probably nothing at all.”
“Right.”
“Let’s check the duffel bag.”
They moved all the clothing off to one side. It would go to forensics anyway, and they brought up the larger bag. It was filled with notebooks. Richard opened one to see sketches.
“She’s an artist,” Andy said, staring at it. “It always comes back to art, doesn’t it?”
“Yes. They’re either wearing it or producing it.”
“Or both.”
“Exactly. Interesting thought.”
They quickly flipped through all the sketches. “This is nothing like Cayce’s work.”
“Everybody there is an artist,” Andy said.
“Right. So, it makes sense that we have sketchbooks.” He frowned at Andy. “But not that she left these behind.”
They quickly pulled the rest of the stuff from the duffel bag. They went through everything intently, but nothing gave them any answers.
When Richard picked up another sketchbook, he noticed that the back cover was thicker. He checked it out and found a pocket. Slipping his fingers underneath, he managed to pull out a note that had been stuck in there. He opened it up, took a careful look, and said, “This might be interesting.”
“What is it?”
“Declarations of love,” he said quietly.
“Any date on it?”
“No,” he said, “but the handwriting looks familiar.” He turned it so Andy could see.
Andy’s eyebrows shot up. “Don’t quote me on this, but it’s likely from the killer.”
“Thorne’s, Liana’s, or Elena’s?”
“A shared lover?” Andy just stared at him. “We never considered that concept.”
“And I don’t want to consider it now either,” he said. “We need to get this stuff to forensics and especially get this letter looked at.”
They quickly packed everything back up, moved it all down to the forensics team, and Andy told them, “I don’t know if any of this has what we want, but this note that we found is the most interesting.”
The forensic team looked at it, nodded, and one said, “Just leave it all here. We’ll go through it.”
“Good enough,” he said.
As Richard turned and walked out, he asked, “Did you find anything
