“She’s dead,” Bloom said.
“Oh,” Tabitha said.
Rawles liked the way she said that single word. Just the proper amount of shock and respect in that single word.
“Would you know which bank carries the mortgage on her unit?” Bloom asked.
“There is no mortgage. The apartment was bought outright.”
Bloom’s eyes opened wide.
“A two-bedroom apartment?” he said.
“Yes, two bedrooms.”
“Costing six hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars?”
“Yes.”
“And she bought it outright?”
“No, Mr. Bloom, the apartment was not purchased by Miss Kilbourne.”
Bloom leaned in close.
“Who did purchase it?” he asked.
“A firm in Stamford, Connecticut.”
“Named?”
“Arch Realty.”
“Who was paying the quarterly maintenance fees?” Rawles asked.
“Pardon?” Tabitha said, and licked her lips.
Rawles wanted to carry her off to China.
“The maintenance fees. You said—”
“Oh yes.”
“Who paid them?”
“We receive a quarterly check from Arch Realty,” Tabitha said.
“In Stamford?”
“Yes. In Stamford.”
“Every quarter?”
“Every quarter,” Tabitha said.
“When did you get the last one?”
“A few weeks ago. They’re due on the fifteenth.”
“And you’ve been getting them every quarter—”
“Like clockwork.”
“Even though Miss Kilbourne hasn’t been here since... When did you say you saw her last?”
“I can’t be certain. In the fall sometime.”
“The checks keep coming, Morrie,” Rawles said. “Girl was in the river for God knows how long, they still keep paying the maintenance fees here.”
“Yeah,” Bloom said.
“Who signs these checks from Connecticut?” Rawles asked.
“I’ve never really studied the signature, Mr. Rawles,” Tabitha said.
“Could you look at it now?” Rawles said. “You said you received this quarter’s—”
“Yes, two weeks ago. The check’s already been deposited, Mr. Rawles.”
“Which bank?” Bloom asked.
“Our management account is with Calusa National.”
“Ever any trouble with the checks?” Rawles asked. “Any of them ever bounce?”
“Never.”
“Not even in the past six, seven months?”
“No, never.”
“Somebody doesn’t know she’s dead,” Rawles said to Bloom. “Checks just keep on coming.”
“Must be on a computer,” Bloom said.
“Can we see this apartment she was living in?” Rawles asked.
“Why, certainly, Mr. Rawles,” Tabitha said, and rolled her eyes at him.
They followed her out of the office and onto a wide white walkway that meandered past the condominium’s ground-level shops — a boutique, a pharmacy, a flower shop, an art gallery, a jewelry store — and then past the tennis courts. The swimming pool glistened a sapphire blue in the distance, against the emerald-green waters of the Gulf. The air was redolent of lush, blooming plants. Bloom sucked in a deep breath.
“Here are the garages,” Tabitha said. “Did you want to see Miss Kilbourne’s car?”
“Yes, please,” Bloom said.
Tabitha unlocked the door to the two-car garage. A brand-new sleek brown Mercedes-Benz 380SL sat in the exact center of the space. There was a Connecticut license plate on the car. Rawles tried the door on the passenger side. It was unlocked. He opened the door and then thumbed open the glove compartment.
“Here’s the registration,” he said.
“What does it say?” Bloom asked.
“Registered in the state of Connecticut. To Arch Realty Corporation.”
“The address?”
“Four-eighty-two Summer Street, Stamford, Connecticut.”
“Who signed the registration?”
“Andrew... Norman, is it? I can’t make it out, guy writes like a Chink. Andrew Norton Hemingway? Treasurer of Arch.” He turned to Tabitha. “He the one who signs those maintenance checks?”
“I really don’t know,” Tabitha said.
“Would you mind if we take the registration with us?” Bloom asked Tabitha. “We’ll give you a receipt, if you like.”
“It’s not my car,” Tabitha said, and shrugged.
They went out into the sunshine again, and she locked the garage door behind them.
“This way,” she said.
Tracy Kilbourne’s apartment was called “ground level,” which, under Calusa’s new building codes, meant thirteen feet above mean high-tide line. Tabitha unlocked the door for them and led them into a spacious living room that overlooked the Gulf. The apartment smelled of insecticide. Tabitha explained that the exterminator had been there only yesterday. The apartment was extravagantly and expensively furnished in a style too modern for Bloom’s taste; he later confided to Rawles that he felt as if he were stepping into Star Trek’s Enterprise. Rawles, on the other hand, thought this was just what an apartment in Florida should look like — all white Formica and glass, and fabrics in blues and greens and yellows to give an open feeling of sun, sky, and water — and he secretly wished he could afford something like this. He suspected the modern paintings on the walls had cost someone a fortune. He knew that Tracy had not furnished the place herself; there had been no checks written for furniture or art among the ones they had studied back at the police station. From somewhere on the beach below, Rawles heard a young girl laughing, and for some reason the sound almost moved him to tears.
“Bedrooms are back this way,” Tabitha said.
The master bedroom enjoyed the same beachfront exposure as the living room. White Levolor blinds were drawn against the sun, giving the spacious room — with its white furniture and white fabrics — the cool, clean look of an arctic tundra.
Framed photographs of a beautiful blonde woman with light eyes and a slender figure were on the dresser top.
“That’s Tracy,” Tabitha said.
“We’ll want to take those with us,” Bloom said.
Both he and Rawles had been occupied with Tracy Kilbourne’s case since the fifteenth of April, but only now — on the first of May — did they know what she had looked like when she was alive.
Bloom began taking the photographs out of their frames.
A king-size bed dominated the room. A pair of white Formica nightstands flanked the bed. A white slim-line telephone rested on the one nearest the window wall. Rawles picked up the receiver.
“Getting a dial tone,” he said.
Bloom looked surprised.
Rawles studied the receiver. “Number on it,” he said. “Want to jot it down?”
Bloom took out his pad, and Rawles read off the number.
“So how come the phone company doesn’t have a listing for her?” Rawles asked.
“Pardon?” Tabitha said.
Rawles wondered if she was a little hard of hearing. The possibility that she might be somewhat deaf made her seem even more exciting to him. He was considering a marriage proposal when Bloom said, “Let’s check the drawers and closets. That okay with you, Miss Hayes?”
“Yes, certainly,” she said.
The detectives went through the dresser drawers first.
A leather jewelry box in one of the top drawers contained, among other choice baubles, a gold ring with a diamond as large as the state of Rhode Island.
The drawer alongside that one contained lace-edged silk panties in what appeared to be every color of the rainbow.
There was more lingerie in the other dresser drawers. And sweaters. And blouses. In the closets they found yet more blouses on hangers, and tailored slacks and designer dresses and suits and high-heeled shoes lined up like a cadre of well-disciplined cavalry officers.