“I think they were more of a West Coast chain. Sold the usual drugstore items, like deodorant and toothpaste. Candy too. But what I remember most about Thrifty’s was the ice cream. It tasted amazing, and it was really cheap. As a kid, I couldn’t get enough of it. Haven’t seen a Thrifty’s for years, though. Probably not since the ’90s.”

“Do you think this bag has been here since Eleanor was the tenant?”

“Only one way to find out.”

Holliday held the Maglite while Jessica carefully unwrapped the plastic bag. She peeked inside and then looked at Holliday with wide eyes.

“Holy shit.”

“What?”

She reached into the bag and pulled out a thick bundle of crumpled dollar bills bound tightly together with an elastic band.

“Holy shit,” Holliday said.

Jessica thumbed through the cash. Tens and twenties and fifties and hundreds. “There must be thousands of dollars here.” She handed the money to Holliday. “There’s something else in here.”

She retrieved a brown envelope from the Thrifty’s bag, opened the flap, and looked inside.

“Looks like photographs,” she said.

Jessica carefully slid the contents from the envelope. About a dozen photos. She immediately recognized Eleanor Lavelle in the one at the top of the stack. It had been taken at night, on the street, and showed the young woman arm in arm with a much older man.

The prints were stuck together, and she had to prize them apart carefully. The hiding place in the closet where they had been stored had been cool and dry, so there hadn’t been much natural deterioration of the photos over the years, just some slight discoloration.

The next photo showed Eleanor with the same man. This time, her arms were around his neck, pulling him in close for a kiss. The backdrop was a brick wall, with a dumpster just in the shot. Jessica guessed the image had been captured in an alleyway.

The rest of the photos told a similar story: Eleanor Lavelle with a bunch of different men in intimate situations. They looked a little like paparazzi shots of celebrities, where the subjects were unaware of the camera’s lens. The back of each photo was blank. No names written to identify the men. No photo developer stamp either. Jessica held up one of the images to Holliday.

“Recognize this guy?”

He studied it for a few seconds, then shook his head. “No, should I?”

“I don’t know. He seems kind of familiar, but I can’t place him.”

Holliday gestured for her to hand over the pile of photos. He rifled through them. “This, I do recognize,” he said, holding up one of the prints.