“Oh, yes.”
“Even if she was living here with someone else?”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, not an owner, not a renter, but living with someone who is an owner or a renter.”
“Oh. Well... I don’t know. There are sixty units here, twenty-four of them as yet unsold, the others either owner-occupied or in our rental program. It would be difficult to—”
“How many are owner-occupied?” Matthew asked.
“Nineteen.”
“Year-round residents?”
“Not all of them. Seven are owners who only use the apartment two or three months out of the year but prefer not to rent it when they’re away.”
“That leaves twelve year-round residents.”
“Yes.”
“Of the seven absentee owners, are any of them here now?”
“I really couldn’t say. This isn’t a full-service condo, you see, we don’t check on the comings and goings of anyone whose apartment isn’t in our rental program.”
“How many apartments are rented right now?”
“All of the seasonal renters are already gone, they usually disappear just after Easter, the beginning of May at the very latest. We have three summer rentals, but they’re unusual. The rest are renting by the year, people who come down here with a job, expect to buy a house, rent a condo while they’re settling in and looking.”
“So,” Matthew said, “right now how many apartments are occupied?”
“Twelve owner-occupied. Three summer rentals. Six annuals.”
“Twenty-one in all.”
He was thinking Otto had already covered seventeen of those twenty-one. But which seventeen?
“Plus any absentee owner who may be in residence just now,” Anne said. “They come and go.”
Better yet, Matthew thought.
“Would you mind if I knocked on some doors?” he asked.
“It’s a free country,” she said, and arched one eyebrow. “Will you need any help?”
Matthew knew an arched eyebrow when he saw one.
“Maybe,” he said, and smiled. “I’ll let you know.”
When Matthew was a boy in Chicago, the one thing he’d hated more than anything else in the world was going around with his kid sister Gloria when she was selling Girl Scout cookies. His mother had said she didn’t want little Gloria knocking on doors all by herself, you never knew who or what might be behind one of those doors.
So Matthew had gone along with a scowling and embarrassed Gloria — her goddamn big brother leading around a Girl Scout who could make fires by rubbing two sticks together and everything — and he’d knocked on doors and listened to his sister giving her spiel, “Morning, ma’am, would you like to buy some delicious Girl Scout cookies?” and he’d felt like a horse’s ass. Especially since no one at all tried to rape or kill Gloria.
By three o’clock that afternoon, Matthew had knocked on twelve apartment doors.
At two of those apartments, he’d got no answer at all.
At four of them, he was told that they’d already answered questions about the girl with the long blonde hair. One man asked if this was a contest or something, and if so, what was the prize?
At five of them — after describing the girl known variously as Angela West, Jody Carmody, Melissa Blair, Mary Jane Hopkins, and Jenny Santoro — he was told that maybe the girl sounded familiar, but didn’t he have a picture?
And at the last apartment, the door was slammed in his face before he could even open his mouth.
Sighing, he knocked on the door to apartment 2C.
He could hear rock music coming from inside the apartment.
“Who is it?” a voice called.
“My name is Matthew Hope,” he said, “I wonder if I might have a few minutes of your time.”
“Who?”
“Matthew Hope.”
“What do you want, Matthew Hope?”
This from just inside the door.
“I’m trying to locate someone, I wonder if—”
“Try the manager’s office.”
“I’ve just been there. Miss, if you look through your peephole you’ll see I’m not an ax-murderer or anything.”
A giggle on the other side of the door.
Then:
“Just a sec, okay?”
He waited. Night chain coming off. Tumblers falling. Door opening.
The girl standing there was wearing cutoff jeans and a green tank top shirt. She was barefoot. Matthew guessed she was five feet eight or nine inches tall, somewhere in there. Her russet-colored hair was cut in a short wedge with bangs falling almost to the tops of her overlarge sunglasses. There was a faint smile on her mouth. No lipstick. She stood in the doorway with one hand on the jamb, sort of leaning onto the hand. It was difficult to tell her age. She looked like a teenager. He felt like asking her if her mother was home.
“So okay, Matthew Hope,” she said.
Very young voice.
“I’m sorry to bother you,” he said.
“No bother.”
“I’m an attorney...”
“Uh-oh,” she said.
But not alarmed, just jokingly. Smile still on her mouth. Eyes inscrutable behind the dark glasses.
“I’m trying to locate someone for one of my clients.”
A lie.
She kept watching him, smile still on her mouth.
“I’m sorry I don’t have a photograph,” he said, “but she’s a girl of about twenty-two or three — long blonde hair, blue eyes, very attractive — and she may be living here at Camelot Towers. Would you happen to know her?”
“Not offhand.” A pause. “What’s her name?”
“Well, she uses several different names?”
“Oh? Is she wanted by the police or something?”
“No, no.”
“That’s right, you said you were trying to locate her for a client.” Another pause. “What are these names she uses?”
“Jenny Santoro...”
Shaking her head.
“Melissa Blair...”
Still shaking her head.
“Jody Carmody... Angela West... Mary Jane Hopkins...”
“Lots of names.”
“Any of them ring a bell?”
“Sorry.”
“And you haven’t seen anyone of that description?”
“No, I’m sorry.”
“Going in or out of the building...”
“No.”
“...or in the elevator?”
“No place.” Shaking her head again. “Sorry.”
“Do you live here?” he asked.
“I’m visiting a friend,” she said.
“Is she home?”
“He. No, I’m sorry, he’s out just now.”
“I was wondering, you see—”
“Yes?”
“—if he might have seen this person I’m looking for.”
“I really don’t know. I’ll ask him, how’s that?”
“Would you? Here’s my card,” he said, reaching for his wallet, searching for a card, never a damn card when you needed one, “he can call me here,” handing her the card, “if he thinks he knows her.”
She took the card, looked at it.
“I’ll tell him,” she said.
“Thank you.”
“Not at all,” she said, and closed the door.
The name plate on it read: HOLLISTER.
14
She did not reach Martin Klement until six o’clock that night. She had called him earlier at his restaurant — Springtime, what a name for a restaurant, it sounded like a place selling plants — and she’d been told that he wouldn’t be in till the dinner hour. She asked what time that would be. For different people the dinner hour was at different times. The snippy little bitch who answered the phone said they began serving at six-thirty.
Jenny figured she’d try at six, nothing ventured nothing gained.