“Who lives there?”
“We’re trying to figure that out,” I said.“Zachary knocked on the door last night, with a pizza, and said the girl who opened the door was around twenty-two or twenty-three, blond and very pretty.”
Diana moaned softly.
“But that was later.There could be other people living in the house, as well.”
Diana didn’t answer.Mendoza waved at me to go on.
“The reason I’m calling,” I said, turning my back on him, “is that I can’t find Steven this morning.Zachary went to the university to see if he could track down the blonde.We thought maybe she was one of Steven’s students.But he didn’t see her.He also said that Steven wasn’t around.”
I waited for her to tell me that Steven was home, in bed, with a bucket next to him.
She didn’t.“That’s strange.I talked to him this morning.He didn’t say anything about not going to work.”
If his absence from the university had anything to do with the girl, then he probably wouldn’t mention it to his wife.But now at least we knew he really wasn’t where he was supposed to be.“Maybe you could call him?Try to figure out where he is, so I can pick up his trail?”
“I can do that,” Diana said.“I’ll call you back.”
She was gone before I even had the chance to say goodbye, let alone mention anything about Mrs.Grimshaw’s murder.I turned back to Mendoza.“She doesn’t know where he is.She’s going to call him and get back to me.”
Mendoza nodded.
“So Mrs.Grimshaw was shot between ten and midnight last night?”
“That’s the ME’s preliminary determination.It could change upon further examination, but it’s probably pretty close.”
“I was home by then,” I said.“I have no idea what happened.”
“I didn’t think you would,” Mendoza told me.
“Have you spoken to the neighbors?”I glanced at the house next door, where Steven had been yesterday.
“There are two uniformed officers going door to door asking if anyone saw or heard anything last night.”
“And did anyone see or hear anything?”
“Not so far,” Mendoza said.
“Was anyone home next door?”
He didn’t answer, and I added, “I didn’t tell you this, but this morning, before I saw the dog and discovered Mrs.Grimshaw, I checked the trash cans outside the house next door.”
Mendoza’s lips twitched.It was the first time they’d done that during this conversation.“The trash cans?”
“Private Investigating for Dummiessays you can learn a lot about someone from their trash.”
The twitch became more pronounced.Practically a grin.“What did you learn?”
“That they don’t care about the environment.”
He looked blank, and I added, “They don’t recycle.And apparently they don’t generate trash, either.All the cans were empty.”
“That’s interesting,” Mendoza said.
I had thought it was.Until I forgot all about it in the horror of discovering that Mrs.Grimshaw was dead.
“Come on,” I told Mendoza.“I’ll show you.”
