“What are we looking for?” Charlie asked as he started disappearing down a hallway.
“Anything out of place.” The wide hallway curved and opened into a living room and dining room that were as eclectically furnished as the foyer. At first glance, nothing jumped out at me. Aside from Hank’s decorative taste, everything else appeared normal. There was some mess with socks left near the couch and an empty bowl sitting on a stack of comic books on the coffee table. A bookshelf held mostly nonfiction books: autobiographies, self-help books, a few business books.
One of the books stuck out to me. It had a light blue spine without any title or author. I pulled it out, the cover made of a soft fabric. On the front, a single domino was stitched, and underneath were the words “For You.” Inside, on every other page, was a cleverly titled poem along with a scratchy illustration matching each one. All of the poems, no matter the length or subject or drawing, seemed to end with the same word:
Hank.
“What’s that?” Charlie asked, looking over my shoulder.
“I think Domino has more talents than just dancing.” I gave him the poem book so he could flip through it. “Looks like he and Hank were really serious. More than what Domino let on at the police station.”
“Yeah, this shit is intense. Really good, but intense.” He looked up from the blue book. “You don’t think…”
I knew what Charlie wanted to ask. Was Domino somehow behind this? Could he have killed Hank, possibly over something that didn’t even have to do with Charlie’s fall?
“I’m not sure of much right now,” I said, deciding to be honest with him. “Let’s keep looking around.”
We moved on from the living room, opening the sliding glass door that led out to his sprawling yard. It had gotten dark out, but I could still see the stunning mountain ranges that surrounded Blue Creek, cutting into the night sky like toothy shadows. A floodlight turned on automatically as we stepped outside, shining onto the resort-style pool and adjacent tennis court. There was still a chalk outline from where Hank’s body was found next to the pool, splayed out like Domino had described him.
Around the entire yard was an unscalable fence topped with what appeared to be electric wire, without any obvious doors leading outside. “If someone did kill him, then Hank had to have let them in. Nothing was broken, and there’s no way anyone’s getting over that fence.”
Charlie nodded, the floodlight casting strong shadows across his face. “Or they had a key.”
“Or that,” I said. The key in my pocket might as well have turned into a burning hot ember.
We scoured the entire yard for a little longer, finding nothing but a few empty beer cans and a box of unused condoms, which I was sure were going to be as effective as a wet paper towel after being left out in the sun. There weren’t any cameras back here, which I wasn’t too happy about, but I held out hope that Anya, Stonewall’s hacker on call, could get me something from the camera at the front door.
Back inside the house, we moved our search upstairs. The first room we searched was empty. Literally. There wasn’t any furniture or art or boxes; it was just an empty room. Next one we searched, same thing. Empty.
By the third empty room, the two of us paused and looked at each other. “He didn’t just move into this place, right?” I asked Charlie.
“No, he’s been living here for years now. Did someone rob him? Maybe whoever killed him wanted his furniture, too?”
“Someone wanting Hank’s furniture would probably be the biggest twist in this case.”
Charlie laughed at that, the sound a mixture of bubbly and nasally, and it was fucking perfect.
“It’s a possibility, though.” Not a very likely one, but still.
The next room we searched was furnished. It was his bedroom, and it had the same wild and eccentric flare as the rest of the house. His four-post bed had a canopy around it, with leopard-print sheets that happened to match the leopard-print rug that sat above a zebra-striped runner. The ancient wooden nightstands and dressers looked straight-up haunted, as if he specifically went to a Ghostbusters’ garage sale and asked for the most spiritually charged pieces available.
It was as I got closer to the closet when I heard the noise. Charlie heard it, too, causing us to freeze where we stood.
A shuffling. Low at first, as if someone were moving papers on the ground. It came from behind the double doors of the closet. I put a hand out, making sure Charlie didn’t get any wild ideas.
I waited a moment longer, and the shuffling stopped. Charlie stayed exactly where he was, midstep with a hand on the bed for support. To his credit, he didn’t look nearly as frightened as I expected him to be in a situation like this.