The apartment is empty. It doesn’t look as though the police have been here yet. There’s a compact living room, with a small flat-screen TV. Cheap furniture that doesn’t match, and not much of it. Like a waystation. She goes past the extremely tidy kitchen, past the dining nook with its one chair at the small table. She finds the bedroom—also immaculately tidy. The bed is made. The closet has three changes of clothing, all hanging together. Organized. She searches the nightstand and its drawers. In the bottom is a Glock nine-millimeter pistol. She doesn’t touch it. She peers under the mattress. Nothing. Back to the closet. Nothing. She goes into the kitchen. It’s spotless. A single skillet, only a couple of plates. For a man who ran drugs, this is very sparse. That means it’s here for a purpose. But there’s no laptop, no convenient folder of papers or receipts to show her Marland’s associates.

She keeps searching. The police might be on their way if someone heard her breaking the glass; but so far no one has come to investigate either.

The refrigerator is also painfully tidy and bare; a carton of milk, pimento cheese spread, a loaf of bread, butter, packaged salad. The freezer has a neat stack of frozen dinners. And on the bottom of the stack, a box of waffles.

She starts to shut the door, then stops. She can see the expiration date on the waffles: three months ago. She has a thing for expiration dates, as Julia refuses to eat anything that’s past one. She reaches in for the package. Inside aren’t waffles but another Glock and two tidy stacks of cash and a phone. And three passports. All with Marland’s picture, but under three different names and countries: Belgium, Canada, Panama. She takes it all, even the money, stuffing the gun, cash, and phone into her coat pocket.

Who was this man? She feels cold, and not from the open freezer.

There’s nothing else for her here.

She goes back through the broken door, careful not to cut herself.

She climbs the slope back to her car. Two women are standing by the truck that pulled in, one was the woman who told her which apartment was Marland’s.

“Were you down there? Did you hear glass breaking?” the woman asks.

“Yes. I did.” Iris doesn’t stop. She gets in her car, and the two women are looking at her. One lifts her phone and takes a picture.

Iris waves and drives off.

65

Kyle

Kyle’s in the interview room again, waiting for Ponder and Ames. Or his lawyer. Or his wife. He’s not sure. No one has told him why he is back here.

He’s scared they’re going to tell him that Julia is dead.