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“I’m Portia Fox,” she said, her voice quavering. “Sergeant, may I speak with you privately?”
Chapter 102
I STEPPED OUTSIDE the Blakely Arms with Portia Fox.
“I think I know that man that Mr. Durbridge was referring to,” Ms. Fox told me. “He sounds like the guy who lives in my apartment during the daytime.”
“Your roommate?”
“Not officially,” the woman said, casting her eyes around. “He rents my dining room. I work during the day. He works at night. We’re like ships crossing, you know?”
“It’s your apartment, and this man is a sublet, is that what you’re saying?”
She bobbed her head.
“What’s his name?”
“Garry, two Rs, Tenning. That’s what’s printed on his checks.”
“And where is Mr. Tenning now?” I asked.
“He’s at his job with a construction company.”
“He works in construction — at night?” I asked. “You have a cell phone number for him?”
“No. I used to see him every day for about a year in the Starbucks across the street. Sometimes we’d say hello, share a newspaper. He seemed nice, and when he asked if I knew of a place he could rent cheap . . . well, I needed the money.”
This child had let a stranger move into her apartment. I wanted to shake her. I wanted to report her to her mother. Instead I asked, “When do you expect Mr. Tenning home?”
“Around eight thirty in the morning. Like I said, I’ve always left for work by the time he comes in, and now that I’ve got a coffeemaker at work, I don’t go to Starbucks anymore.”
“We’re going to want to search your apartment.”
“Absolutely,” she said, pulling her key out of her handbag and offering it to me. “I really want you to. My God, what if I’m sharing my place with a murderer?”
Chapter 103
“JUST LIKE MINE,” Cindy said as we walked into Portia Fox’s apartment. The front door opened into a large living room facing the street — roomy, sunny, furnished in office-girl modern.
There was a galley-style kitchen off the living room, but where Cindy’s dining room was open, Ms. Fox’s had been boxed in with plasterboard walls and a hollow-core door.
“He stays in there,” Ms. Fox told me.
“Any windows in his room?” I asked.
“No. He likes that. That’s what sealed the deal.”
It was too bad that the dining room had been walled off, because now we’d need either permission from Tenning to enter it or a search warrant. Even though Tenning wasn’t on Fox’s lease, he paid rent to her, and that gave him legal standing.
I put my hand on the doorknob to Tenning’s room on the off chance that it would turn, but no surprise — the door was locked.
“You have a friend you can stay with tonight?” I asked Ms. Fox.
I put a patrolman outside the apartment door while Portia gathered up some things.
I gave Cindy my keys and told her to go to my place. She didn’t even fight me.
Then Rich and I spent another two hours questioning the tenants of the Blakely Arms. We returned to the Hall at ten p.m.
