do that.â
âWould it be okay for me to see Randyâs apartment, Mrs. Lamont? You said the police were done, right?â I added when she frowned, âI promise I wonât take anything.â I heard the anxiousness in my voice.
Gloria heard it, too. She was looking at me shrewdly, those brown eyes narrowed. âWhat do you need to see his apartment for, anyway?â
âSometimes you can understand a person better from seeing where he lived.â Which is true.
âSo this is for your story, huh?â She crossed her arms again. âThatâs a load of you-know-what. Whatâs going on?â
I debated, but not for long. âMy best friend was killed six years ago. Now the police are saying Randy did it. I need to know if itâs true.â
I had startled her, but the shock turned to anger. She glowered at me. âWhy didnât you tell me that in the first place?â
âI didnât know if youâd talk to me.â
âUh-huh.â She studied me for a moment. âSo that part about writinâ a story on Randy, thatâs all lies. Not much difference between you and him, is there?â
Well, of course I felt myself blushing. âI may end up writing something about him. Right now Iâm trying to find out what I can.â
âUh-huh.â She cocked her head. âHow do I know youâre not givinâ me another
story
?â
I took out my wallet and showed Gloria a photo Mrs. Lasher had taken of Aggie and me in the Lashersâ backyard against a background of hot pink bougainvillea on a June day a month before she died. âThatâs my friend,â I told the manager. âHer name is Aggie. She was killed on July 23, almost six years ago. She was twenty-three.â
âAnâ the copsâre sayinâ Randy did it?â Gloria looked at the photo, then at me. Then back at the photo. âBut you donât think so?â
âHe could have. But you said he never fought and never gave you any trouble. And he never killed anyone before, as far as the police know.â
âI seen people do things when they drunk or on drugs they wouldnât do otherwise. Just âcause a man brings candy to a child donât mean he canât turn ugly.â
She pinched her lips, and her eyes had a pained, far-away look. I wondered if she was reliving a memory.
âTen minutes,â she told me.
âYou can watch me the whole time, Mrs. Lamont.â
She dismissed my smile with a snort. âYou got
that
right.â
six
AFTER GIVING STRICT INSTRUCTIONS TO JEROME NOT TO open the door to anyone (âNot even the chief of
po
lice!â) and promising sheâd be back in ten minutes, Gloria took a ring of keys, locked her door, and led me through a narrow, musty hallway to a second-floor apartment at the back of the building.
âRandyâs daddy was supposed to empty the apartment yesterday soâs I can rent it, but he didnât show,â she said with annoyance as she unlocked the door and pushed it open. She flipped up a light switch. âWell, here it is.â
Stale air laced with an unpleasant odor I couldnât identify greeted me like a ghost. I followed Gloria into a generous-size L-shaped living-dining room. The âlivingâ part said bachelorâs pad: cushy red leather sofa, black area rug with a red-and-white swirling pattern, one-piece Lucite coffee table with curved ends. The sofa faced black speaker boxes the size of refrigerators that were hooked up to a sound system housed inside a black lacquer cabinet crammed with CDs, and the DVDs Randy would have viewed on the sixty-inch projection TV positioned between the speakers. Next to the sofa was a black lacquer desk whose working surface was taken up by magazines and a combination phoneâanswering machine and multipurpose fax machine.
âHe got all that about five, six years ago,â Gloria said when I asked her