I clapped my hands together and rubbed them as if I was trying to keep them warm. “There’s nothing like starting your day off by climbing in a dumpster.”

The tall man laughed and patted me on the back as I headed around back.

Chapter 10

Chapter 10

This was outside my normal duties as an unlicensed private investigator. Usually, my job had a lot to do with finding people or interviewing people. This was the rare occasion where I was looking for evidence of a crime. Something that wouldn’t be obvious.

I had to pull a lot of garbage out of the dumpster to examine it. Also, the door was wedged beneath much of the debris. After more effort than I really wanted to expend, I had the debris laid out in the parking lot next to the dumpster the same way the FAA laid out parts recovered from a plane crash. I was hoping I might see a pattern.

The nature of the blast, one giant wave of heat, left very little smoke damage on most of the debris. Finally, I got to the door itself. It was intact. The hinges had been ripped from the jamb and were still attached to the door.

I ran my fingers around the door handle and lock. I didn’t see anything unusual. Then, on closer examination of the deadbolt, I saw some odd markings on the outside of the lock. There were several scratches around the keyhole. I touched the marks carefully with my pinky and could feel the ridge with a minuscule amount of metal roughing the edges. These were fresh markings. At first I thought it was from the blast. Then I realized they looked like the markings from someone picking the lock. I’d seen it in training with the Navy. After I had washed out of SEAL training, I went through a number of criminal investigation courses. One of the instructors set up a crime scene to teach us how to determine if someone had entered a file room at the law enforcement training center in Arizona.

The first clue in the training exercise looked exactly like the marks on this lock. The instructor had explained how hard it was to pick a lock. This concerned me.

I continue to examine the door and found one other thing out of place. At the very bottom of the door, on the inside, a piece of clear Scotch tape about the size of my thumbnail was carefully placed on the corner.

I had to think about this and what it meant.

After I was done with the dumpster, I talked to Mike about security video or any other security devices on the property.

He showed me his homemade security center in the corner of his own apartment.