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“Shit,” said Sarah Jane.
“Exactly.”
Matthew stood up. “Let’s wait and see if Boston PD come back with anything.”
She nodded, but he could see her disappointment.
“This is still good work, Sarah Jane. This is what we do. We run things down and rule them out, and that’s how we get to answers.”
Matthew went back to his desk, sat, and thought. He held his pen between the first two fingers of his right hand and tapped it lightly against his desk. So far he hadn’t been able to find out who was responsible for cleaning the Jordans’ house. When he’d followed up with Rory Jordan’s attorney about the cleaning, he’d received a message back that the Jordans knew nothing about it. They claimed that it must have been something done by the previous owners or their property managers, perhaps in preparation for the property’s listing. As the previous owner of the property was some movie producer who had never visited Vermont, that was proving difficult to confirm. The producer’s property manager had hired a cleaning agency that hired casual workers, and they didn’t have a record of who had worked the Stowe property. It looked like the cleaning angle was a dead end. They would not be able to prove who had cleaned the property and when.
Matthew ran a search online for the property and found the original sales listing. He clicked slowly through the photographs. Did it look cleaner than the house he’d been in on Wednesday? Dirtier? There was a photograph of the kitchen, and another of the laundry room, but there were no cleaning products conveniently left out. Every surface had been cleared. In the photographs the countertops gleamed sleekly. How much of that was clever lighting, and how much was postproduction? In person the house was undoubtedly beautiful, but real estate photographs always seemed to conjure another world, where every room was vast and borderless, with endless natural light and perfect accents of subtle color. Matthew frowned and clicked back a couple of photographs. Something had caught his eye, but he wasn’t sure what. He found himself staring at a photograph of the living room. Something in the room was different. He narrowed his eyes and leaned forward. What was it?
Damn. It was so obvious, he nearly hadn’t seen it. There was a cream-colored rug in front of the fireplace. That hadn’t been there when he’d visited the house.
“Sarah Jane?”
“Yes, sir?”
“Call the property managers. Ask them if they took anything out of the house after the sale. There’s a rug in the living room in one of the photographs. In front of the fireplace. Ask them if they took that.”
“Will do.”
She picked up the phone. She was on the other side of the room and she spoke quietly. From that distance, Matthew couldn’t make out what she was saying, but she ended the call quickly.
“The property managers say they didn’t take anything,” she said. “The sale contract was for everything, the house and all furnishings, including lighting and soft furnishings. They didn’t move the rug.”
“Okay.”
He made a few more calls. Found out that Simon Jordan had changed lawyers, or rather his father had. Rory had moved on from Alistair Reynolds, who was, after all, a commercial lawyer. He’d retained Arnie Waugh to represent his son. Waugh was a criminal defense lawyer, a specialist. Matthew called him. Waugh took the call straight away.
“Detective.”
“Mr. Waugh. I understand you represent Simon Jordan.”
“That’s right. Nice kid.”
Matthew paused. “Okay. I’m calling to ask if Simon would be willing to hand over his phone for examination. Voluntarily.”
“Interesting idea. Unfortunately, we’re not going to be able to do that.” Waugh’s tone was relaxed and urbane.
“That is unfortunate.”
“Obviously I’ll put the request to my client, see what he says, but I’ll be advising him against it, and I would expect him to take that advice. Phones these days carry too much data. Absolutely no offense meant, Detective, but I’m not going to facilitate a fishing expedition.”
“No fishing expedition. In fact, if it would make you feel better, why don’t we choose a private lab? A neutral lab. Simon can hand his phone over to them and we’ll ask them to answer a few very specific questions. Questions we’ll agree with you on in advance.”
“Like what?”
“Location and search history for last Friday and Saturday.” He paused for a moment, then added, “Tuesday too.”
There was silence on the other side of the call. Matthew could picture Arnie, sitting in his expensive suit in his expensive office, frowning.
“I’ll get back to you,” Arnie said, and ended the call.
“You do that,” Matthew said, into the silence.
He went home and took a shower. Naomi was working a late shift, so the house was quiet. Matthew turned on the oven and took a microwave pizza out of the freezer. He opened a beer. The house was cold, and there didn’t seem to be much point in lighting a fire just for himself. He took his pizza and his beer into the living room and turned on the TV. He needed distraction. To think about anything other than Nina Fraser and Simon Jordan for a couple of hours.
