The demure woman moved as though she had Red Bull in her veins. Short gray hair was neatly trimmed, nails polished. They had obviously interrupted her exercise routine as she was dressed in a jogging suit and jacket. Either that or she had a closet of track suits in an array of colors.
“Can I get you gentlemen anything?” They could smell heavenly odors coming from the kitchen. Frank looked ravenous. It wouldn’t be the first time a lonely, elderly woman devised any means for company. “I have chocolate chip cookies made. They’re still warm.”
“Sure,” Frank blurted before Jake could stop him.
She looked expectantly at Jake. “Coffee, if you have some fresh.” Jake figured the missing tenant wasn’t going to be showing up any time soon and the cookies definitely sounded good. Vi appeared delighted as she clapped her little hands. “God, why did the plot of Arsenic and Old Lace just pop into my head?” Jake moaned as Vi scooted off to the kitchen.
She poked her head around the door frame. “If you are interested, I left Donna’s application with her personal information on the coffee table in front of you. That is my tenant’s name. Donna Oberweiss.”
“Huh.” Frank appeared impressed and grabbed a seat next to Jake on the couch. Vi’s furnishings were early garage sale, although for some reason, or by sheer luck, everything seemed to go together. The area rug had a dizzy pattern of flowers and swirls. Somehow the floral upholstered chairs didn’t clash. They had just enough of the same colors as in the rug to appear a distant relative. The couch they sat on had those curled feet from an era where kings had a lot of numerals after their names. There was a mixture of wood tones that seemed to complement each other. Vi’s selection included light and dark wood, oak, mahogany, cherry wood, you name it. A chess set was on a square table near a front window. The chess pieces were in the shape of Star Wars characters, probably a collector’s item.
“Here we go.” Vi hefted a tray onto the coffee table. “There’s cream and sugar and plates for your cookies. Help yourself.”
A small tan head poked out from between Frank’s feet. “Whoa!” He lifted his feet and a cat scurried out.
“There you are.” Vi lifted the cat into her arms. “This is the little stowaway rascal I found in Donna’s apartment. I’m going to go out and buy cat food later on. In the meantime, I gave it one of my cans of tuna. I don’t allow pets but now I’m stuck with a cat, unless one of you…”
“No thanks,” they replied in unison.
“You will notice that Donna moved here from Indianapolis five years ago. She has a license from some beauty college to be a cosmologist. She told me she was waitressing and bartending to pay for school but the money in those jobs paid far more than she could make as a skin care specialist.” Vi was babbling. Either she was nervous or starving for company.
They perused Donna’s application while they ate and drank. “She lists a Marian Oberweiss as next of kin,” Jake said.
“Her mother still lives in Indianapolis.”
Frank asked, “Have any of her co-workers or her boss called looking for her, that you know of?”
“I called Bailey’s, that’s the restaurant where she works. It’s one of those sports bars. Anyway, I called after I couldn’t reach her at home. It wasn’t like her to miss a rent payment. She has always been one month early, like clockwork. Anyway, I called and asked for Donna but was told she wasn’t working that day. When I asked when she would be working next I was told they weren’t allowed to give out that information. So I asked for the manager but he’s never returned my call.”
After one more cup of coffee and three more cookies, Vi lead them to the apartment on the second floor. “I took the liberty of being nosy when I checked out the apartment earlier,” she said as she used her master key to unlock the door. “The milk was long past the due date, cheese was growing penicillin, her mail had piled up in her mailbox, and I’m surprised the mailman didn’t point that out. Oh no, he just keeps cramming it in there.” The apartment smelled musty and stale with a hint of food well past its prime.
Frank asked, “Would she have told you if she were going out of town, maybe to visit her mother?”
“No, at least she never did before. I don’t really pry but my tenants are good about letting me know if they are going to be gone for a while. Usually they want me to pick up their mail or watch for any deliveries. Donna never told me she was leaving town. Hope I’m not being worried over nothing.”
“You are one nice landlady to have,” Frank assured her.
“I just treat my tenants the way I would like them to treat the place if they actually owned it. I figured if the hallways are unmarred, vacuumed daily, flowers in the alcove, they will make an effort to keep things nice. But don’t pat me on the back too quickly. I have been taken to court for evicting a woman and her three horribly bratty kids. They tore the place apart. I was told I was discriminating against mothers. She won but I hit her with a fifty thousand dollar suit for damages, the exact amount she was awarded in court. It was a wash. Charges were dropped all around.”
Vi picked up several magazines lying on the floor and fluffed up a pillow on the couch. “Sorry, this is just nervous Nellie hands finding something to do. That and the realization that a dear tenant is missing.”
Jake walked over to a long table against the wall. There were framed photos of an attractive woman on a beach with a male friend. “Is this Donna?”
“Yes. And that’s her boyfriend Ron, I think.”
“Did she have a lot of boyfriends?” Frank asked.
“I don’t watch who comes and goes out of the apartments,” Vi sniffed, although they wouldn’t doubt if she kept a diary. “After the lawsuit it was pretty hard to be selective when renting. It doesn’t seem to matter, I’ve learned over the years. Single people have too many parties. Married people have too many fights or too many kids. The elderly, well, who wants to live somewhere where the only vehicles that make daily stops at the building are ambulances? My husband, rest is soul, could write a book about all the characters we’ve had over the years.”
“You have been very helpful, Vi,” Jake started.
Vi hesitated, then asked, “You don’t think anything bad happened to her, do you?”
Jake flicked his gaze to Frank, letting his partner switch to his pastoral mode. Frank said, “We treat all missing persons as just that. We’ll give her mother a call just to make sure she didn’t make a quick trip home, and we’ll take her photograph to route through the system.”
Vi gave a nervous smile. “Okay then. I’ll leave you to your work. Just close the door when you are through.”
Once Vi left, they set to work inspecting the rest of the apartment. The building was old but in a good way. The woodwork and molding were solid wood, not the plastic used in some newer buildings. Walls were solid and soundproof. Ceilings were at least twelve-feet high with ceiling fans in the living room and bedroom.
Frank stood in the center of the living room, hands on his hips. “If Donna is the victim, her apartment doesn’t look like the crime scene.”
“Check the bathroom for a hairbrush so we can have a sample of her DNA for comparison.” Jake held the photo of Donna in his hand. “Maybe if she is our victim, we can find out where lover boy was the day she was killed.”