“Nope.”

“Forwarding address?”

“He’s been gone almost two years, Detective.”

The sound of an airplane was in the sky. Far away, but in our silence, we could hear it.

“Still, I’d like to look around,” I said, knowing this was a trigger for her to talk more.

“Adrian would come home drunk,” she explained. “Gamble with friends from the liquor store he worked at. Make noise. If you complained about it, you’d never get shit fixed in your apartment. I changed that culture.”

“With the ownership?”

“Yeah,” she said.

“Is that Lauten Hartley?” I asked.

She cocked her head then. “Do you want to come inside? I can get the management company on the phone.”

“When’s the last time you saw Adrian?”

“The day he moved out,” she said. “He didn’t tell me shit about how to run this place, and I was pinging him with all sorts of questions. He left me with this leaking septic thing to handle.”

I was still standing out front. “He lived in that building?” I pointed to my right.

“Yeah,” she said. “But there’s nothing to see anymore. There was a septic tank issue. The management company literally filled in the basement, which was part of his apartment. To keep the smell down.”

“With what?”

“Dirt,” she said. “Like I told you, I was transitioning to manager then. So I was just a resident during half this time, but we were all happy about it.”

“Happy about what?” I asked.

“They house-bolted the place. One of those old brick septic tanks got punctured or something while they were under that building.”

“I’m not following you.”

“There was a bad smell,” she said. “Where Adrian lived. Under the house. It got filled in with dirt.”

“A smell like what?” I said. “Feces? Manure?”

“More like rotten eggs,” she said. “There were flies. That’s what I remember most.”

“Show me.”

43

Maria grabbed a set of keys, and we moved across the small apartment complex. As she walked, she pulled her cell phone from her back pocket.

“I’m gonna need to call the management company if I unlock this for you, Detective,” she said. “I’ve seen TV and all. Warrants and such. I think you need a warrant to be looking around here.”

“Traditionally that is what I’d need,” I said. “Are they pretty involved? The management company?”

“Intimately,” she said.

“Mr. Hartley himself?”

“He shows twice a year maybe.”

“So he’d object then?” I said. “To having a manager run—say—an illegal graphic design business in the garage? Making fake I.D.’s for underage kids?”

Maria stopped cold in her tracks, a foot from the door. She cocked her head and her grayish-brown hair clumped to one side.

“What do you want?” she said.

“Your full cooperation.”

She stared at me, at first expressionless. Then a half smile. “Well, lucky for us, I’m in the cooperation business.”

Maria unlocked a side door that led under the building next to hers, and I pointed for her to go in first. She reached a hand inside and flicked on a light.