All the Little Raindrops(81)
A slew of wrinkles appeared on Louise’s forehead, and she tugged lightly at her bandanna. “Oh? What is it?”
“I know the police believed the motive in your brother’s murder was a straight robbery, but my father seemed to think differently. There are a few notes in a calendar he kept, and while they don’t give any more information than that, it’s clear he believed it was more than what met the eye.”
Louise’s frown deepened. “Oh . . . I see. The police didn’t ever find who it was that robbed him, but yes, they seemed to think it was just a ‘wrong place, wrong time’ situation. Dow’s bad luck.” She let out a sigh and tugged at her bandanna again. “Truth be told, Dow generally made his own bad luck. He was always so damn smart, growing up. Things just came to him, especially computers. Our dad flipped when he came home one day and my brother had taken his whole damn computer apart, chips here, circuit boards there, and I don’t even know if I’m using the right terms, but you get the picture. Anyway, Dow says, ‘Don’t worry, Dad. I just wanted to see how it worked. I’m putting it back together now.’ And damn if he didn’t do just that and powered it up like it was brand new.” She shook her head, her eyes unfocused. “Damnedest thing.” She sighed again. “Unfortunately, he preferred to tinker and code than do anything that brought in much money. He had a shop, and he fixed other people’s computers, but he could have done that in his sleep. If he’d have had an ounce of ambition, that man could have gotten a job with NASA or the CIA or . . . whatever.” She gave a short laugh. “He futzed around, and he drank a lot. And then he got himself killed in an alley by some meth head who wanted whatever petty cash he mighta had in his wallet.” She shook her head again. “I don’t know why your dad might have thought it was anything other than that. But if it was, I don’t have a clue as to why anyone would want to kill my brother.”
They were all silent for a moment as Louise tugged on her bandanna, Evan obviously going over what Louise had said. After a moment, he leaned forward. “Louise, Noelle seems to remember Dow telling a story about hacking into the electric company. It may have been a joke, but do you have any idea if he ever did that sort of thing?”
“Hacking?” She raised her brows, the hair sparse and thin. “If he did, he never told me about it. But my ex-husband was a bailiff. He was real serious about law and order.” She let out a small huff of breath that made Noelle believe that Louise was being sarcastic in some way Noelle didn’t have enough information to understand. “And Dow didn’t like him anyway. He didn’t come around a lot while I was married to him.”
“Did you clean out his shop after his death?” Evan asked.
“Nah. I called another computer repair shop, who came in and made an offer on some different parts and whatnot. The rest I paid to have hauled away to the dump. When all was said and done, I pretty much broke even.”
“My father had a laptop that seems to be missing,” Noelle said. “Do you happen to know if the other computer repair shop might have taken it if my father left it at Dow’s shop?”
“There were three or four computers Dow was working on, but they belonged to customers. I contacted those people, and they came and picked them up. They were all spoken for.”
Noelle ran her hands over her thighs, then rested them on her knees. What Louise had offered hadn’t really advanced their case, but she couldn’t think of anything else to ask her. She glanced over at Evan, who was pulling a card out of his wallet, which meant he’d obviously come to the same conclusion. He set the card on her coffee table. “Here’s my number in case you think of anything else.”
“Oh, wait,” Louise said, standing. “I do have a small box of his things in the extra bedroom.” She tapped her fingers on her chin momentarily. “He’d been living with some woman friend on her couch, apparently, after some roommate situation or another went bust. When she heard about Dow, she brought the stuff he’d left at her place to me. It looked like a bunch of junk, but I wasn’t really in a place to go through it at the time either. I only remember it even exists because I saw it when I moved to this apartment nine months ago. Follow me.”
She turned and led them down a short hall to a room on the left, then pushed the door open and stepped inside. It looked like she was using it solely for storage. There was no bed or any other furniture, just piles of boxes, plastic bins, and household odds and ends. Noelle and Evan remained just outside the room, as there was really no space for them to stand inside.
“Do you remember her name?” Evan asked as Louise rummaged through some things. “The woman who dropped off his things?”
She stood straight, squinting for a moment. “No. No memory at all of her name.”
They waited as she went back to moving this and that aside, murmuring to herself and forming a path to the far wall, where she bent, retrieving a cardboard box, the flaps tucked closed, the name Dow scrawled on the side.
Interesting to think that if they moved forward in the investigation, it might be thanks to the contents of several dusty cardboard boxes belonging to her father and his friend.
Louise handed it to Evan. “Thanks,” he said. “We’ll look through it and return it afterward.”
“Don’t bother returning it,” she said. “Just toss whatever isn’t useful. Lord knows I don’t need something else to store.” She sighed. “I suppose it’s just one less thing my daughter will have to get rid of once I’m gone.”