“Get photos, then bag it.”
A loud bang sent me dropping to the tabletop and then sliding to the floor in a heap, expecting to see a SWAT team bursting through my broken-down door.
Except the door was intact and Theo and I were alone in the apartment.
“What the hell?” I pressed a hand to my heart, looking left and right for the source of the noise.
“It’s just a saucepan,” Theo said, leaning over the side of her wheelchair to pick up the offending item. “You left it sitting on the edge of the counter, and I accidentally knocked it off. Kind of spectacularly, actually.”
Great. I’d lost five years off my lifespan to a falling saucepan.
I took some deliberate deep breaths, trying to calm my racing heart.
“What did you hear?” Theo asked, apparently unconcerned by the fact that I’d nearly suffered a heart attack at the tender age of twenty-eight.
I scrambled to my feet, remembering what I’d overheard now that I’d recovered from my near-death experience. “They found gold leaf!”
Still shoeless, I dashed over to the door and burst out into the hallway, just in time to see the police leading a handcuffed Mr. Nagy out of his apartment. His balding head shone with perspiration, and all the color had drained from his face.
Mrs. Nagy lunged out of their apartment with a distraught wail that nearly broke my heart. The blond detective I’d seen earlier caught her before she could throw herself at her husband.
“No!” she cried with tears on her cheeks. “Not my Zoltán! He’s innocent!”
As the uniformed officers led Mr. Nagy away, his wife collapsed into the detective’s arms. He picked her up like she weighed nothing and took her back into the apartment. I tried to follow, but the officer on guard blocked my way.
“But Mrs. Nagy—”
“She’ll get medical attention,” the officer assured me.
Doors opened along the hallway, and curious heads poked out.
Theo had her chair parked in the entrance to my apartment. She gestured with her head that I should follow her, and then backed up, disappearing inside. I darted after her, not because I liked being bossed around by a kid, but because I knew that my neighbors would bombard me with questions if I didn’t make a quick getaway.
After dashing into my apartment, I shut the door and leaned against it, my brain too numb to fully process everything.
Theo spun her chair around until she faced me. “Why’d they arrest Mr. Nagy over gold leaf?” Theo asked. “What’s that got to do with the murder?”
“There was some on Freddie’s body,” I explained. “I was there when Agnes found him.”
“I know you were.” Theduhwas clearly implied. “That’s why I came to see you. You took pictures, right?”
“What? Why would I do that?”
“Because that’s what any competent investigator would do.”
“I’m not an investigator! I’m a…” I trailed off, on the brink of an existential crisis. What was I? A jobless auntie? A hot mess? Yes and yes. But was I anything more than that?
“Next time, take pictures.”
Theo’s words managed to interrupt my rapid descent into panic-laced self-pity.
“Next time?” I echoed the two words with a mixture of confusion and disbelief.
“For now, write down everything you can remember about the scene. Every tiny detail.” She wheeled toward the door as she rattled off those instructions.
“I already gave a witness statement to the police,” I said.
“This isn’t for the police.”
