Promise Not To Tell(71)

“There’s a reason why criminals and private investigators prefer the old-fashioned methods in certain situations,” Cabot said.

She could feel the icy energy charging the atmosphere around him. He was back in the zone.

“You live for this,” she said.

He shot her a quick, wary look. “For what?”

“For the moment when the vision starts to come together.”

“Do me a favor, stop comparing me to one of your oddball artists.”

“Okay,” she said. “But for the record, I don’t think you’re an oddball artist.”

“No?”

“No. Just an artist. No oddball qualities involved.”

Fortunately the elevator doors slid open before Cabot could think of a response. He instantly refocused and led the way out of the elevator.

She followed him down the hall and waited while he got the door of 1210 open.

Sandra Porter’s apartment was a studio with an alcove for the bed and a bath. Virginia’s first thought was that someone had searched the place. The room was definitely in an untidy state. Drawers looked as if they had been emptied and then had the contents dumped back inside. Cupboards and closet doors stood open. The furniture had been pushed around in a random manner.

“Good grief,” Virginia said. “Either Sandra Porter wasn’t much of a housekeeper or someone got here before us.”

Cabot handed her a pair of gloves. “I think you can blame the crime scene people for most of this mess. After they go through a place looking for evidence, they don’t refold clothes or put items neatly back on shelves. Not their job.”

“I see what you mean.”

Cabot headed for the small kitchen area.

Virginia pulled on the gloves and went into the alcove. The bed had been stripped. The clothes in the closet had been shoved to one side. A collection of shoes littered the floor.

“What are we looking for?” she called.

“I have no idea,” Cabot said. “But I’ll know it when I see it.”

She heard the refrigerator door open. There was a pause and Cabot appeared.

“There’s almost nothing in the refrigerator,” he reported. “Nothing in the freezer, either. Looks like she lived on takeout. Any luck in here?”

“No. Well, there are some clothes, but that’s about it. Nothing of a personal nature. No books. No pictures on the walls. If there was something important here, the cops found it.”

“Maybe. If so, Anson’s good pal Schwartz is no longer passing along the information.”

Virginia closed a drawer. “Do you really think Sandra Porter’s death is connected to Zane’s cult?”

“Everything in this case is connected.”

“Because you can see it,” she said, smiling a little.

“Yes.”

Virginia went into the bathroom. The process of going through the dead woman’s things was not only frustrating, it gave her the creeps.

“Remember why you’re doing this,” Cabot said quietly behind her.

Startled, she turned to face him.

“It gives me a weird feeling,” she said.

“I know. That’s why you have to remember that you’re going through a dead woman’s stuff because you’re trying to find out why Hannah Brewster died and because you’re trying to identify the person who tried to murder us.”

His words had a bracing effect. She took a deep breath.

“Right,” she said. She looked around. “I think I’m done in here. Maybe you should take a look. You’re the professional.”

“Yes, but that only means I see things from a particular point of view. Your observations are just as valid because you look at them from an entirely different angle.”

“Because I’m a woman?”

“No, because you come from the art world. You know how to look beneath the surface.”

“Right. Maybe I should try that approach.”

She went past him and moved into the main room of the studio. For a couple of minutes she wandered through the space, just looking at her surroundings, as if the studio were a work of art. Waiting for some small kernel of truth to speak to her.

She was about to give up when she noticed the cardboard shipping box on the floor in the kitchen. It stood next to the recycling containers. Her first thought was that it had been destined to be flattened and taken down the hall to be discarded in the trash room.

She lifted the box lid and looked inside. Light glinted on pieces of a broken mug. There was also a man’s black T-shirt that looked as if it had been attacked with a pair of scissors. A couple of small, smooth rocks that looked as if they had been picked up on a beach, a smashed picture frame and a photograph that had been ripped in half completed the strange collection.

She picked up a couple of pieces of the mug and examined it closely. When she fit the pieces together, she was able to read the words written in bold red letters: Happy Birthday.

Cabot came to stand next to her.

“I assumed the stuff in the box was junk that Porter intended to recycle,” he said.

“Maybe.” Virginia dropped the shards of the mug back into the box and held up a piece of the T-shirt. “This belonged to a man. It was cut with scissors, not accidentally ripped.”

“Everything in that box is broken,” Cabot said thoughtfully.