13

When I reached my building’s third floor landing, I found a friendly face waiting for me outside my door. “Phillips. They put you on guard duty? Please tell me the Captain let you go home and get some sleep last night.”

“Not to worry, Detective,” he said with a smile. “I didn’t come in until ten. Captain’s orders. You can save your sympathy for the officer who stood guard overnight.”

“Captain Knox left a detail here, too?”

Phillips nodded. “Didn’t want any interference with the crime scene after CSU left.”

The door to my apartment stood open, though someone had strung another length of police-issue caution tape across the entrance. Inside, I could see a trio of white coat-clad technicians meticulously inspecting my living room’s remains. “They’re back.”

“Ten o’clock, same as me,” said Phillips.

I pointed at the open door. “You mind?”

“Not at all, sir,” he said, stepping to the side. “Your apartment, after all.”

I unpinned the tape and walked inside, careful not to step on any of the glass shards that still littered the floor. The CSU techs looked my way upon hearing my footsteps, but only the head tech bothered to give me a nod, a middle-aged woman by the name of Maribell or Marissa or something that started with an ‘M.’

“Detective,” she said. “I wasn’t expecting you here.”

I wondered if I could get through our conversation without admitting I’d forgotten her name. “I wasn’t expecting to be back. Forgot a change of clothes for a ceremony I’m attending this afternoon. Well, I didn’t actually forget, if we’re being technical. My plans changed.”

“Mmm-hmm.” Mariwhatever turned back to her work of plucking hair fragments and mystery threads from the wall where Biggie’s body had been recovered.

I could’ve gotten away scot-free, but I couldn’t leave well enough alone. “Say, have you checked that area for traces of neurotoxins?”

Marisomething cast a glance my way.

“It’s the guy who died there. Biggie, I’m calling him. Coroner Moonshadow suspects he might’ve been poisoned, but she didn’t find anything on the blade. I’m thinking he might’ve taken a suicide pill to avoid questioning. Maybe he had more than one. Could’ve lost one, even.”

Mariwhatshername lifted a brow.

“So you’re looking into it? I can tell you’re looking into it. Good. Great.” I turned to one of the other techs, feeling like a heel. “It’s fine if I grab something from my bedroom, right?”

“So long as you didn’t fight anyone in there.”

I nodded my assent before heading to my bedchambers. Once there, I sifted through the limited portion of my closet that didn’t contain plain cotton shirts and denim, trying to think what Shay would’ve chosen for me if she’d been here. Eventually I plucked free a tan linen suit I hadn’t worn in years and put it on. I felt naked in its silky embrace, and not because the linen breathed so well. Rather because I had to leave Daisy behind again. The thing barely had room for a billfold in the interior pocket, never mind a foot and a half long truncheon.

I was a master of avoiding eye contact as I left my apartment, making it back to the exterior door without so much as spotting any of the three techs in my peripheral vision. To be fair, I doubt any of them wanted to talk to me either. That didn’t hold for Phillips, though.

“Looking good, sir,” he said as I pinned the caution tape back into place. “Heading to another event with Detective Steele?”

“A reception for her brother. He graduated from business school today. Try not to die of boredom, Phillips.” I gave the young guy a wave.

“Um…sir?”

I paused in mid-stride. “Yes?”

“It’s really not my place, but ah…your shoes.”

“What of them?”

“Black doesn’t go with tan. Sir.”

I blinked. “You’re kidding, right? Am I the only one left at the precinct who’s not fashion conscious?”

Phillips blushed. “No, sir. I didn’t mean it that way. Forgot I said anything.”

I glanced down at my utilitarian work shoes. They’d been black, once upon a time. Years of scuffs had turned them more of a dark gray.

I sighed. Phillips was right. Shay would notice them. She might not say anything, but she’d notice.

I blinked as I stared at my shoes. Speaking of noticing…

I knelt and peered at the floor. As with my shoes, the floorboards were covered with scuffs and crisscrossed scratches, decades worth instead of years worth, but there were a few that looked fresh, ones where raw wood unearthed by an errant boot had yet to oxidize and fade. Several scratches, actually. A set of three, all in a row.

I looked up and moved closer to Phillips.

“Sir, really, I apologize,” he said. “I shouldn’t have mentioned anything.”

I found a few more scratches near my door. From when Topples bum rushed me? “You’re fine. Don’t worry about it.”

“You’re sure?”

I waved him off, swatting aside the tape on my way into my apartment. Sure enough, I found another set of scratches.

“Hey, Mari…er…”

The head tech looked my way, unamused. “Yes?”

“You catalog these scratches?”

“Already in my report.”

I nodded and kept starting at them.

“I can strike them if you think they weren’t caused during the skirmish.”

I shook my head. “No. That’s not it. Go ahead and leave them there.”

I headed back to my bedroom before she could ask me what my issue with them was. It wasn’t until I was halfway through changing my shoes that I realized there were two. The fact that there were so few scratches when Biggie, Topples, and I had darn near tangoed across my living room three times over was confusing, but the presence of a set of scratches in the hallway, where I hadn’t fought anyone at all, was darn near baffling.