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.”
“Oh wow, that’s good,” Noelle said around a mouthful of Thai noodles. They’d stopped on the way to Evan’s house at a restaurant he said was one of his local favorites and gotten dinner to go. Now they were sitting at his dining table, cartons and bags spread out around them as they ate off paper plates. “I feel like I haven’t eaten adult food in far too long.”
Evan wiped his mouth, picking up his beer and taking a sip before setting it down. A smile played around his lips. “Adult food?”
She shrugged. “Well, at least anything that has a spice rating over negative three.”
He laughed. “Callie’s not a fan of spice, huh?”
She smiled. “Not yet. I should probably introduce her to more variety, but there’s a kitchen right on site, and she’s got the cooks wrapped around her finger. They’re more than happy to make all her favorites all the time, notably spaghetti and meatballs. It’s far too convenient to let them take care of dinner many a night.”