Never Come Back

Chapter Seventeen

I met the police on the stairs outside my neighbor’s apartment. During the short minutes we waited, he and I managed to introduce ourselves to each other. His name was Jeff. I apologized again for the kitchen flood. He blinked at me a couple of times. I thought maybe he’d forgotten about it. Then he said, “You’re providing all the excitement for the building.”

The police—two young officers, both with crew cuts—told me to wait in Jeff’s apartment while they went and checked out my apartment. That was fine by me. When they were finished, they called me up to assess the damage.

Having never been burgled before, I didn’t know what to expect. My laptop went with me everywhere, and it mattered the most. I didn’t own expensive jewelry or rare antiques. My television was close to ten years old, and I rarely turned it on. When I stepped into the apartment, I saw a mess. That’s the simplest way to describe it. It looked like a small tornado had blown through, kicking up papers and knocking cushions off my love seat and chairs. The desk drawers had been yanked out and dumped. One of the cops emerged from the small bathroom and announced that the door to the medicine cabinet hung open, its contents scattered across the floor.

“Meth heads,” his partner said. “Do you see anything missing?”

I looked around the room. “Tidiness and order,” I said.

“Ma’am?”

“I don’t see anything missing,” I said.

“The TV and DVD player are there.” He looked around. “Phone. Toaster. Do you have a computer?”

“A laptop. It was with me.”

“Lucky. They take electronics and sell them to get money for drugs. Or they just steal drugs if you have them.”

“I saw the man,” I said. “I passed him on the stairs as I was coming home.”

“Oh, yeah?”

I told them what had happened—the man passing me, bumping into me. His rush down the stairs. I told them he looked like an older man, not a junkie.

“They come in all ages,” the cop said. “Anything else you can tell us about him?”

I thought about it. “It was dark.”

“Was he white or black? Anything?”

“I really couldn’t tell,” I said. “White, I guess.”

The other officer came out of the bathroom. They stood side by side, surveying the damage. They were both solidly built, former football players or marines or something. They looked like law enforcement bookends. Giant law enforcement bookends.

The one closest to me said, “Well, we can file a report. If nothing significant is missing, then you probably don’t want to bother your insurance company with it.”

“I don’t have renter’s insurance,” I said.

“Then you should probably have your landlord get a locksmith over here,” he said. “And have them put in a dead bolt this time. That lock you had was pretty flimsy. Especially if you’re living here alone.”

“There’s something else,” I said.

Both officers turned to listen to me.

“My mother died—she was murdered this past weekend.”

I’d managed to say it out loud. Murdered. My mother. All in the same sentence to complete strangers.

Recognition crossed their faces. They must have heard about it. I was sure everybody in town knew.

“Do you think the two could be related?” I asked. “Someone kills my mother in her home, and then someone breaks into my apartment this way.”

The two officers nodded sympathetically. They seemed to be taking my concerns seriously and giving them their full weight. But I don’t think they bought into it.

“I understand this is disturbing,” one of them said. “Especially in light of such a tragedy. But these meth heads break into apartments all the time. We’ve had a little rash of them around the edges of campus lately. It happens. I don’t think it was directed at you.”

The other one said, “They were clearly just looking for something to sell to buy drugs.”

I looked around too. I agreed with them about one thing: whoever that man was, he was definitely looking for something.