“What?” I said. “Might as well go straight to the source. He’s in there; I can feel him.”
A moment later, I winced at the sharp pain at the back of my head as Haywood floated through his front door.
Haywood’s vivid eyes looked sad and pained, and a sudden lump formed in my throat. My guess was that sometime during the night what had happened to him finally sank in.
“Hi,” I offered, the one word sounding strangled from the emotion straining my voice.
He gave me a halfhearted wave.
Dylan walked over to us. “He’s really here?”
“Right in front of you,” I said.
“Strange,” he murmured, shaking his head.
Haywood nodded.
It was off-the-charts surreal, I had to admit.
“Does he have a key out here?” Dylan asked.
Haywood pointed to the fancy deep vertical mailbox mounted to the trim alongside the door.
“Inside?” I asked, taking a step back to try to ease the pain.
He nodded. Yes.
“Inside the mailbox,” I said to Dylan.
Lifting the black lid decorated with floral scrollwork, he reached his hand inside, and came out with a key. “Amazing.”
A moment later, we’d ducked under the yellow crime scene tape and were inside the house.
I took off my sunglasses, slipped them into my coat pocket, and looked around. For having been broken into, the place didn’t look too bad. It certainly had been thoroughly searched but nothing was literally broken and it would take only an hour or so to look good as new.
From my quick glance, I determined this hadn’t been an ordinary burglary. The big-screen TV was still on its stand in the living room. A silver tea set remained on the sideboard in the dining room. Expensive crystal sparkled inside a hutch.
Whoever broke in wasn’t looking to make quick money.
But what was he or she looking for?
The papers Mayor Ramelle wanted?
Keeping to the rules, Haywood had drifted away from me, giving me some space. I asked him, “You wanted to show me something last night . . . Was that item stolen during the break-in?”
Perking up a bit, he shook his head and gestured for us to follow him.
I grabbed Dylan’s arm. “Come on, he’s taking us upstairs.”
Dylan said, “He hasn’t relayed what the evidence could be?”
My wet boots squeaked on the wooden steps as we climbed. “No.”
We followed Haywood into a big room at the top of the steps, which was being used as an office space. A drafting table sat in front of double windows encased in thick trim. To the left of it was an L-shaped computer desk with a wide printer and a professional-grade scanner slash copier. On the right of the drafting table was a large wooden chest of drawers that reminded me of an apothecary’s cabinet. There were sixteen drawers in all, measuring about ten inches across, each with a rustic handle. Some of the drawers were on the floor, contents dumped out. And others looked untouched altogether. Scattered across the floor were odd-looking triangular-shaped rulers, pens, pencils, markers, calculators, sticky notes, paper clips, and tape measures. The dribs and drabs of an architect.
A faint scent of acrid smoke hung in the air, laced with an undertone of another odor . . . something I couldn’t quite place. I wondered where the smell was coming from as there wasn’t a fireplace in the room and there were no signs of a fire.
Floor-to-ceiling bookshelves lined one wall, a vintage threadbare rug covered most of the floor, and gray-blue paint gave a soothing feeling to the room. A comfy-looking couch anchored a sitting area where a mahogany coffee table was littered with magazines and books, including a hardcover from the library that was open facedown on the arm of the couch. I picked it up, and felt another pang for Haywood. He was never going to finish this book. Was never going to finish the house plans that were tacked to his drafting table with round stickers. Never going to slip his feet into the house shoes under the table.
His had been a life interrupted, and suddenly I was extremely angry at the person who’d stolen the future from this man.
Taking a deep breath, I walked over to the drafting table and noticed that the plans there weren’t for a new house.
They were the plans for the Ezekiel house. I supposed that made sense, as he’d been the architect on the refurbishment job. I studied them for a moment, fascinated with all the architectural details from the large basement to the widow’s walk.
“Take a look at this,” Dylan said as he crouched over a small metallic trash can in a corner of the room.
When I leaned over it, I saw it was the source of the smoke I’d smelled. Soot covered the inside walls of the can and white ashes were mounded at the bottom.
I glanced at Haywood, who’d hung back in the doorway. “Did you burn something in this last night before you went to the ball?”
He shook his head. No.
“He shook his head, which means no. He didn’t,” I translated to Dylan.
Dylan glanced toward the doorway. “Do you know what was burned?”