O Is for Outlaw

Ordinarily, I'd have opted to leave the door ajar in case I had to make a hasty exit, but I was feeling anxious and didn't like the possibility of someone coming in on me unheard. I moved through the apartment to the living room. The only light was a thin shaft coming in from the gallery between drapery panels in the dining L. I shone the flashlight beam like a sword, cutting through the shadows. Since I'd been here earlier, the fingerprint technician had been busy with his brushes, leaving powder residue on countless surfaces. I made a quick foray through the dining area and kitchen, then back through the bedroom and bathroom to make sure I was alone.
    I returned to the living room and secured the open1ings between the drapes. I pulled on my rubber gloves. Despite the fact the cops had come and gone, I didn't want to leave evidence that I'd been in the place. I like to think I'd learned something from my little trip through Ted Rich's doggie door. I turned on the overhead light, pausing to swap Mickey's 60watt bulb for one of the 100-watt bulbs I'd brought with me. Even a cursory glance showed Detective Aldo had been there. Kitchen cabinets stood open. All the mail was missing, and the fishbowl full of matches had been upended on the dining-room table. I pictured the police sorting through the collection for clues, carefully making notes about the bars and restaurants Mickey'd frequented. In truth, only about half the matchbooks would be from places he'd been. The rest were packets other people had acquired for him while traveling, a practice left over from his youth, when he'd assembled hundreds of such covers and mounted them in albums. Who knows why kids like to do shit like that?
    I got down to work, methodically emptying the miniature safes he'd created behind the electrical plates. The three sets of phony IDs, the credit cards, and the currency went into my duffel. I spent a long time in his kitchen, sorting through containers with a fine-tooth comb, checking in and behind and under drawers. Once again, I removed the five-gallon water bottles from under the sink and unscrewed the back panel. This time I lifted out the handguns from the rack he'd built and put them in my duffel with the ID'S.
    I went into the bedroom and took the chenille bedspread and sheets off his bed. Tacky little thing that I am, I paused to check for evidence of recent sexual excess but found none. I pulled off the mattress and checked it carefully, looking for evidence that he'd opened a seam and restitched it. Good theory; no deal. I lay on my back and hunched my way under the bed, where I peeled back the gauzy material that covered the bottom of his box spring. I shone the flashlight across the underside, but no dice. I put the mattress back in place and then remade the bed. This was worse than hotel work, which I'd also done in my day.
    I crawled the entire perimeter of wall-to-wall carpeting, pulling up section after section without finding much except a centipede that scared the hell out of me. I tried the bed-table drawer. The diaphragm was gone, as were the bottle of cologne and the tissue paper packet with the enameled heart and gold chain. Well, well, well. His latest inamorata must have heard about the shooting. She was certainly quick to erase the signs of their relationship. She must've had a key of her own, letting herself in sometime between my initial visit and this one. Could she be someone in the building? That was a notion worth exploring.
    I spent a good thirty minutes in the bathroom, where I lifted the lid to the toilet tank and used my dental mirror and the angled flashlight to check for items concealed behind it. Nothing. I took all the toiletries out of the medicine cabinet and lifted the entire cabinet off the wall brackets to see if he'd hollowed out a space in the wall behind it. Nope. I checked inside the shower rod, checked the cheap-looking vanity for false fronts or concealed panels. I unscrewed the heater vent and tapped along the baseboards listening for hollow spots. I removed the PVC under the bathroom sink. The gold coins were still there. I loaded those in my duffel and replaced the length of pipe. No telling what the next tenant would make of it if the fake plumbing were discovered at some future date. In the hollow core of the toilet paper roll I found a hundred-dollar bill.
    I went through his closet, checking his pockets, looking behind the hanging row of clothes for the possibility of a false