The police had already dusted for prints, as evidenced by the black, powdery film left behind. That made me wonder if there was much point in me doing the same. I didn’t want to voice thatthought to Theo, though, so I found a few clear spaces to dust and lifted two partials and one full print. At one point I thought I heard a muffled noise from somewhere not far off, but I held still and waited and heard nothing more.
As I packed up the kit, the lost and found basket that Livy had shown me before caught my eye and got me thinking. Had Freddie found the art deco cuff links in the basket and helped himself? Probably. The cocktail shaker disguised as a trophy was likely from the speakeasy too.
I grabbed the kit and decided it was time to leave, but I paused when I reached the display of photos hanging on the wall. I loved 1920s women’s fashion, so I took the time to admire the flapper dresses the women wore in the pictures. As I moved along the wall, something twitched in my memory before quickly slithering out of my grasp. I felt like I was missing something, but no matter how many times I looked at each photo, I couldn’t figure out what that might be.
“What’s taking so long?” Theo yelled, clearly back from her short trip upstairs.
I hurried up the steps and joined her out in the hallway, where she handed me a chocolate chip cookie.
“How do you propose we get fingerprints for comparison?” I asked before taking a bite of the delicious, chewy homemade cookie.
“We’ll get Freddie’s—for elimination purposes—from his office or apartment. As for Hoffman’s, you can use your key to get into his place again.”
She made it sound like a walk in the park, not an endeavor that required breaking the law and risking time in the pokey.
I finished off the cookie in two more bites and tried the door to Freddie’s office, now free of police tape. I expected to find it locked, but it swung open easily. So easily that it couldn’t have been latched properly.
“Take a look at this.” I pointed at the damaged doorjamb and corresponding scratches and splintering on the door itself.
Theo drew the same conclusion as I had. “Someone broke in.”
I peeked into the office. It was empty, so I entered the room, with Theo right behind me. All the drawers of the filing cabinet had been left partially open, and the same was true of the desk drawers.
“They were looking for something,” I surmised.
Theo approached the desk. “And probably found it. Come and look.”
I rounded the desk. She pointed into the bottom drawer, which was the deepest one. It was empty, save for a thin layer of dust on the bottom. Two circles of disturbed dust were visible, the same size as the clear circles on the shelves in the speakeasy.
“Freddie had a couple of bottles stashed here,” I said.
“And whoever broke in probably found them and took them.”
“The camera in the lobby doesn’t cover the entrance to the office.”
“But it might show someone entering the building through the front door,” Theo said. “Someone who doesn’t belong here.”
“It’s worth checking,” I agreed.
Even if the person didn’t have a key to the building, they could always ring a bunch of units until someone buzzed them in. That was probably how Hoffman got in on the day of the murder.
We left the office and turned toward the lobby. A small poster caught my eye as I paused by the bulletin board on the wall outside Freddie’s office door.
“Hey,” I said, “Minnie’s having an art show.”
Theo studied the poster. “Maybe we should go.”
Theo’s grandma stepped off the elevator, carrying a full garbage bag in one hand.
“Hello, girls,” she said with a kind smile. “What are you up to?”
Theo zipped up her backpack, hiding the fingerprinting kit. “Just hanging out.”
“Mrs. Harris, can I take that for you?” I asked, gesturing at the garbage bag that was almost dragging on the floor.
“Oh, I’m just taking it out to the dumpster,” she said.
“I can do that.”
