I came from behind apartment number eight and threaded my way back toward the open garage door.

Inside, a small graphics studio was set up. A Mac hooked to a pile of hard drives. A large industrial Epson. And a laminator, about twenty inches wide.

Along the far wall, blown up poster-size, were images of licenses from Georgia and Alabama.

On the table were three envelopes. Each with a driver’s license in it bearing a birth year of 1998, making each kid magically twenty-one years old this year.

I took a couple pictures of the place and of each I.D. before stepping out and moving around to the front door. Knocking on it.

The same woman opened the front. She’d ditched the robe for cutoffs and a yellow Georgia Tech tee.

“Can I help you?” she said.

“Are you Maria Evans?”

“Yeah.”

I flashed her some tin and introduced myself. Told her I was following up on a previous tenant.

“What’s the tenant’s name?” she asked.

“John Adrian,” I said. “You two both had the same address here. Number one.”

“Yeah.” She nodded. “Adrian managed the place before me. I lived in number three for five years. Then the owner asked me to take over when Adrian left.”

Fidelity, Remy would say. So far this checked out with what I already knew was true.

“What’s the owner’s name?” I asked.

“What’s this about?” she asked back.

I almost smiled. Innocent people, when asked a question by a cop, rarely responded with another question. But the guilty . . .

I turned my head in the direction of the garage. Its door was still open, her illegal I.D.-making lab fifty feet away. She didn’t want me looking over there, and her mouth started moving.

“It’s a management company,” she said. “FJF Investments.”

“And who is John Adrian to you?” I asked. “Did you live together?”

“No.” She smiled. “You got this all wrong. Adrian was the guy who first rented to me when I was in number three. He managed the place until I took over.”

“So you two weren’t a couple?”

“I’m fifty-six, Detective.” She laughed. “Adrian must’ve been twenty-nine back then. Thirty tops.”

Back then, she said.

“So he lived in number one before you?” I asked. “He managed the apartments?”

“If you call it that,” she said. “The place was a mess. No one could even live in number one back then.”

I waited for her to explain.

“There was this whole mold abatement thing going on in number one and number eight. Which are here—and the unit behind me. You couldn’t live in this building at all,” she said. “So when I knew him, Adrian lived in the basement below number four.” She pointed at the structure next door to us.

“What did you think of Adrian?”

“He was a scuzzball. Drank too much. Had a bunch of degenerate Mexican friends.”

I stared at her.

“Hey, I’m Mexican,” she said. “I can say that.”

“You know where Adrian lives now?” I asked.