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S he nodded but quickly phoned Colby and told him what they found as he listened in.

“Forensics did mention that,” he shared, “and we’re waiting for a warrant to seize it and to bring it in.”

“Right,” she muttered. “I hate to leave it all here. However, we do have the name of a private detective, so I wanted to contact him.”

“Why do you want to jump on it?”

“His phone isn’t in service anymore.”

“What’s the name?” Colby asked, his voice sharpening.

“John McCauley,” she replied. He snorted, so she asked, “Why?”

“Ah, hell,” he muttered.

“You want to talk to me about that?”

“He was convicted of fraud, cheating, making up information for his clients,” Colby explained. “McCauley would take on cases and then manufacture information, making his clients think he was doing something, but, in reality, he wasn’t.”

“Ah, so my mother was potentially swindled in that deal too.”

“I would think the potential was high,” Colby noted. “Yet, as that case is also ongoing, it might be a situation where we need access to those files to prove there were other victims.”

“They’re right here,” she said. “You give me the word, and I’ll bring them in.”

She heard him talking in the background, then he came back and told her, “Bring them in. If nothing else they’ll be ammunition for his future court case.”

“Didn’t you say he was convicted?”

“Yes, but they’re reopening it, wondering if more was involved.”

“As in?”

“As in, murder.”

“Oh, crap,” she muttered. “In that case, we definitely need these.”

With a look over at Simon, they lifted the boxes and carried them out. In the hallway, a box in her arms, she stopped, looked around, and realized it was a dead little corner, and really nobody was here. No life, nobody moving back and forth. She put her box down in the hallway, walked to the apartment across the hall, and knocked on the door.

When a woman opened it just enough so she could see through the chain, Kate held up her badge. The woman groaned. “I did talk to somebody earlier today,” she shared. “I don’t know anything about the woman. I haven’t had anything to do with her.”

“Right, so you haven’t seen anybody coming back and forth?”

She hesitated and then replied, “There has been, but I don’t have a good idea who they are.”

“Male?”

“Yes, definitely male. That much I can tell.”

“Could you give us a description of him?”

She shook her head. “Honestly, the only way you survive these days is by staying to yourself, so I don’t really know anything.”

“Do you know how long she’s been here?”

“Months, if not years. However, for a while, she wasn’t really here,” she added, with a wave of her hand. “I don’t know whether she’s been away or had another place to live, but at least she would come and go. Then she wouldn’t come, and we didn’t see her for quite a while. But now, after what happened with the drugs, maybe she was in a rehab center or something.”

For some reason that seemed to tick Kate off. Still, she shrugged and responded, “It’s possible, yes.” She was biting back her tongue.

The other woman winced. “It’s better than thinking somebody did this to her,” she pointed out nervously, as she looked around the hallway.

“Is there much in the way of drug dealing going on here?”

The woman stared at her. “I honestly don’t know. I don’t have anything to do with drugs,” she whispered, as she tried to close the door a little more. “Look. I’ve got to go. I’ve got kids here. I don’t even want them to hear this conversation.” And, with a faint smile, she closed the door.

“That didn’t help much, did it?” Simon asked.

“It didn’t necessarily help, but it didn’t really hurt either. The one thing that was obvious is that she’s afraid.”

He studied Kate, then looked back at the neighbor’s door. “I wouldn’t necessarily have thought that.”

“No, but that’s because you couldn’t see her trying to close the door in my face or her white-knuckled grip on the door. Somebody else was in there,” she stated, shaking her head. “What I don’t know is who it is and if that person has any connection to what happened to my mother.”

Simon frowned. “Could it just have been that she was scared because it’s the police?” he pointed out.

“It could be,” she conceded, yet not willing to let it go. “The thing is, because she’s afraid, now she’s somebody of interest to me.”

He groaned. “That’s not fair to anyone. As soon as somebody comes to the door, and there’s a problem, everybody goes into defensive mode.”

“I understand,” she agreed, “but this woman’s response was much more.” She frowned and knocked on the door again. When no answer came, she pounded on it harder and harder. She looked over at him. “Is that normal to you?”

“It depends. She may have left, or she may be dealing with kids,” he suggested, “and she may just not want to talk to you.”

“She definitely doesn’t want to talk to me,” Kate confirmed, “but the biggest question is why. What is the problem with talking to me, except for the fact that she’s scared?” She pounded on the door one more time.

This time it opened with a fury, and a huge burly male with a beer gut stepped out, his expression thunderous, as he shoved his face in Kate’s. “What the fuck does it take for you to leave us alone? She told you that she doesn’t want to talk to you.”

“Yeah, that may be,” Kate noted, shoving her face right back into his. “Yet maybe it’s you I really want to talk to.”

He stared at her. “I don’t know shit,” he snapped. “The neighbor woman is nothing but a psycho bitch.”

“Really? And you know that how?”

“Because I talk to her. She’s always trying to scrounge drugs off me,” he sneered. “I don’t have time for that crap. Anybody who does drugs is just one sick motherfucker.”

“Really?” she asked, with a mock smile. “I suppose alcohol is your vice then?”

“It’s not a vice,” he declared, glaring at her. “Alcohol is decent at least. It doesn’t turn you into a crazy man.”

“If you say so,” she said, staring at him intently. “So, what did you see?”

“I didn’t see fuck-all,” he snapped. “Why the hell would you even think I did?”

“It’s hard not to think you did. It’s pretty clear, especially when you won’t even let the poor woman inside talk to me.”

“She already talked to everybody she needs to, and now you’re just hassling her.”

“I’m really glad to know you’re here looking out for her,” she quipped, with a knowing smile, “because, at this point, we’re not exactly sure whether this was an overdose or something else.”

“It was an overdose.… That’s obvious,” he declared, staring at her. “Anybody could have seen that. She had the fucking needle hanging off her arm.”

“Oh? You saw that, did you?” she asked, eyeing him intently. “Kind of interesting that you saw that.”

“Not really,” he snapped. “They took her out of here on a gurney so hard to miss.”

“And you were at your door, watching?”

“I saw some of it, yeah. Why not? We got pretty piss-poor entertainment around this place. So, if somebody offs it next door, you kind of want to see who and what you’re dealing with.”

“Who and what you’re dealing with, or just a gory sense of curiosity?”

“Whatever,” he mumbled. “No crime in that.”

“Maybe not,” she replied, still staring him down. “It depends on whether you can tell us about anybody who might have been there earlier or not.”

“I don’t know. I didn’t get home too early.”

“Which is why I was trying to talk to your partner in there.”

“You did talk to her,” he snapped, “and you won’t talk to her anymore.”

“Unless I need her down at the station,” Kate countered, calmly staring at him. “And then you better make sure she shows up.”

He frowned. “Hey, hey, hey, no need for that. She can’t afford to get babysitters,… not cool.”

“And yet here you are interfering in an official investigation.”

“What investigation? She’s nothing but a junkie,” he argued in frustration. “So, she killed herself. Who gives a fuck?”

“And yet,” Kate added, looking at him, “maybe she didn’t kill herself. Maybe that was you over there, popping her. It’s not as if anybody else would know. For all I know, you weren’t even at work today.”

“Hey, hey, hey,” he roared, but it was obvious he was getting agitated.

“I’ll need an alibi from you,” Kate stated, with a hard smile.

He stared at her. “Are you serious, man?”

“Yeah, I am serious,” she snapped right back at him. “A woman is in hospital, fighting for her life. Whether she did it to herself or somebody else did it to her, we need to know what happened.”

“Fucking cops,” he muttered, slouching against the door. “I didn’t see anybody before, and neither did she. We talked about it earlier, and she thinks it was an overdose. How anybody can think it was anything but that, I don’t know,” he said. “You guys are just trying to make a case where there isn’t one. Why don’t you go off and deal with the bloody drug dealers?”

“That’s next,” she shared, with half a smile. “I don’t suppose you know where she got her fix, do you?”

“No, I don’t,” he snapped. With that, he turned to go back in to his apartment, and added, “And I was at work.” Then he gave her the name of the company. “You can check with them.”

“I will,” she confirmed, with a smile. “Have a good evening.”

And, with that, she turned, picked up her box, and walked down the hallway, leaving Simon helpless to do much of anything as he held the other two boxes. He did nod at the man, as Kate set off. Simon quickly followed her down the hallway.

Kate had reached the car and just deposited her box with Simon’s two in the trunk, when her phone rang. It was Colby.

“I got two men on the PI, already heading out to check on the address. So you stay out of it, Kate. Got that?”

Kate grumbled, didn’t say a word, and listened to the click on the other end of the call.