Fall Guy

my bladder insisted otherwise, whichever came first.
    The front windows were untouched and had »bars on them anyway, another New York phenomenon. You paid a fortune to live here and then, if you lived on the ground floor, your apartment resembled the primate digs at a politically incorrect zoo.
    „You want I should throw a new lock on that door to the garden? Piece of shit, the one that's on it. Wouldn't keep out a three-year-old. I'll give you a break on that one, seeing as you're doing a lot of work here, keep the whole shebang under five hundred. Not bad for the peace of mind it'll give you.“
    I didn't think a three-year-old would be able to reach the doorknob, but didn't say so. I thanked Nick, but told him no, thanks.
    „How do you think that kitchen window lock got pulled out?“ Nick asked. „Someone wanted in here and had no trouble getting past that one, getting into the garden.“
    „I understand that,“ I said, „but there's a limit to what I want to do,“ thinking my job was to protect O'Fallon's property, not the trees and flowers outside. „I don't even live here,“ I told him.
    Nick screwed up his face. Wouldn't be the first time a locksmith was called to change the lock on an apartment the caller didn't occupy. A scam the thieves thought up two weeks before the locksmiths figured it out, I could have said, but decided to keep my big mouth shut. He was busy trying to figure out if this job was legit or not. I'd handed him the keys that had unlocked both doors. Still, Nick's face was in a knot.
    He pulled out his cell phone. „I'm this close to losing a good fee and having to undo all this work, lady. Can you prove you have a right...“
    I opened O'Fallon's briefcase and took out the will, showing him my name as executor. Then I pulled out my wallet and showed him my driver's license, complete with a picture that made me look as if I lived in a trailer and never ventured out during daylight.
    Nick nodded. „Sorry about your loss,“ he said.
    I thanked him. No point in keeping him here an extra half an hour telling him what the story was. Besides, I didn't know what the story was. I was still wishing someone would explain things to me. But dead men don't talk. And while I was sure the ME would disagree with that, the information I wanted wasn't available via organ weights or the path a bullet took ruining someone's young life. I needed words. Why me and not Mary Margaret? That's what I wanted to know.
    He must have had his reasons. Maybe the medical examiner would say that, too.
    When Nick left, I thought I'd try Brody, ask him about the jimmied window. From the looks of it, it wasn't all that old. Nick thought it had happened a day or two earlier.
    He'd looked up at the sky, thinking. „No rain last week, am I right?“
    „You're right,“ I told him. I was getting pretty good at this.
    „Could have been longer then, but not more than a week. You see the color of the wood here?“ He'd pointed to one of the places where the wood had been fractured, the exposed wood pale and raw-looking. „See the color? If we'd had any weather, it wouldn't be so light.“ He'd nodded, agreeing with himself.
    I picked up O'Fallon's phone, then put it down. The place was tight again, safe. The question could wait until later. I was sure there'd be more of them. For now, I wanted to get to work.
    I leaned over the sinkful of dirty dishes to open the window, wondering if whoever had jimmied the window had managed to get in this way, scrunching himself into a ball and then stepping over the sink. You'd have to be a contortionist. I wondered if it was O'Fallon, if he'd forgotten his keys, had a neighbor ring him in, then broke his own window latch to get inside.
    I pushed the knob that closed the drain, squirted in some Dove and ran the hot water. No use trying to deal with the dishes until they'd soaked for a while. Doing the dishes was another task I was happy to postpone, especially since there was no dishwasher.
    When I turned off the water, I heard a voice in the garden. I couldn't see anyone outside the window. I decided to go out and see who was there.
    He was on his cell phone, talking loud. He seemed to be upset. He was about my height, maybe an inch or two shorter, in his fifties, his gray hair slicked back with so much goo it appeared to be wet but I was sure it wasn't, that it was just the wet look he'd been after. He was dressed all in black, perhaps to minimize the potbelly that rested