"Actually I do. I think I ought to take a look at those bills of hers. At least we can see how recently she's used her charge accounts and where she was at the time. Has anything else come in?"

"Just a couple of things. I'll show you what I've got."

I followed Tillie through the lobby and into the corridor beyond.

She unlocked her front door and moved into the living room, crossing to the secretary. Since the glass had been broken out of the doors, there was no need to unlock anything, but I saw her hesitate, nonplussed, putting an index finger on the side of her cheek like someone posing for a photograph. "Now, that's odd."

"What?" I asked. I crossed to the secretary and looked in. We'd replaced the tumble of books the night before, and there was nothing else on the shelves now except a small brass elephant and a framed snapshot of a puppy with a stick in its mouth.

"I don't see Elaine's bills and they should be there," she said. "Now, isn't that strange." She glanced at the shelves again and then opened the drawers one by one, sorting through the contents.

She moved into the kitchen and dug into the big black plastic bag where we had dumped all the broken glass and debris the night before. There was no sign of them.

"Kinsey, they were in the secretary yesterday. I saw them myself. Where could they have gone?"

She looked up at me. It didn't take a massive leap of intelligence to arrive at the obvious possibility.

"Could she have taken them?" Tillie asked. "That woman who broke in last night? Is that what she was really up to?"

"Tillie, I don't know. Something about it bothered me at the time," I said. "It didn't make sense to think someone would break in while you were here just to tear the place apart. Are you sure you saw them yesterday?"

"Of course. I put the new batch of bills with the other ones on the shelf. They were right here. And I don't remember seeing them at all when we cleaned up. Do you?"

I thought back, chasing it around in my memory. I'd only seen the bills once, the first time I'd talked to her. But why would someone bother to steal them? It didn't make sense. "Maybe she deliberately scared the pants off you to keep you out of the way while she searched the place," I said.

"Well, she sure had the right idea. I wouldn't have come out of my room on a dare! But why would she do that? I don't understand."

"I don't either. I can always get duplicates of the bills, but it's going to be a pain in the ass and I'd rather not do it if I don't have to."

"I want to know who has a key to my apartment. That makes my blood run cold."