Free Play Dead by Richard Montanari

Jessica and Byrne exchanged a glance. “You’re saying you’re not familiar with the building?”
The woman looked from Jessica, to Byrne, back to Jessica. “Can you please tell me what this is all about?”
Jessica gave the woman a brief account.
For more than a few seconds, the woman stared at Jessica in what seemed like shocked disbelief. “You’re saying the young woman was murdered ? The young woman in the photograph?”
“Yes,” Jessica said. “And I’m afraid there is a connection to this building.” Jessica held up the faxed document. “According to the De
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    partment of Licenses and Inspections, a series of calls have been placed from your telephone number regarding the building at 4514 Shiloh Street.”
    The woman stared at the paper, but did not put her glasses back on. She wasn’t reading it. “I ...I don’t know anything about this. Anything at all.”
    “Could someone else have called from this number?”
    The woman thought for a moment. “I have a woman come to clean once a month. But she is from Honduras. She doesn’t speak much En - glish.”
    Jessica didn’t bother writing this down. She was just about to ask one final question when Laura Somerville said, “Can you excuse me for just one moment?”
    “Of course.”
    The woman rose slowly, crossed the room, entered what Jessica figured to be the apartment’s solitary bedroom. She closed the door behind her.
    Jessica turned, looked at Byrne, shrugged, palms up and out. Byrne knew what she meant. What she meant was, you cross the city—the concrete canyons of Broad and Market streets, the alleys of North and South Philly—and you really had no idea what was going on behind those walls. Sometimes, you ran across someone who smoked crack and kept their children in a closet. Other times you discovered an elegant woman who lived alone in West Philly, a woman who could do crosswords in ten languages, a woman who had beautifully carved ivory puzzles on her bookshelves, puzzles purchased by a mysterious former suitor on London’s Portobello Road.
    Jessica stared out the window for a moment, at the heat- shimmered expanse of West Philadelphia. In the distance was a hazy iridescent image of the city.
    “What do you think?” Byrne asked, sotto voce.
    Jessica considered the question. “I think I don’t know what to think,” she said, matching his low volume. “You?”
“I think this woman doesn’t have anything to do with the investigation.”
“Then how does that explain the phone calls?”
“I don’t know,” Byrne said. “Let’s leave it open with her.”
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“Okay. I’ll just tell her that—”
    Jessica was interrupted by the sound of shattering glass coming from the bedroom. It did not sound like someone dropping a tumbler or plate on the floor. It sounded as if a brick had been thrown through a window. Seeing as they were on the tenth floor, this was unlikely.
    Byrne fired a glance at Jessica. The glance. They’d been partners for years, had been to hell and back, and there was no mistaking the look.
    “Mrs. Somerville?” Byrne called out.
Silence.
Byrne waited a few more moments. “Ma’am?” he asked, a little
    louder this time. His voice seemed to reverberate between the walls, underscored by the low hum of the air conditioning. “Is everything all right?”
    No response.
Byrne walked across the living room, put his ear to the bedroom door. He waited a few moments, listening, then looked back at Jessica, shook his head. He called out once more, even louder.
“Ma’am?”
Nothing.
Byrne took a deep breath, counted off a cop’s second, then eased the doorknob to the right. He shouldered open the door, hand touching the grip of his weapon, flanked left, stepped into the room. Jessica followed.
As expected, it was a bedroom. Inside was a four- poster bed, 1950s vintage, as well as a dresser and writing desk, both from the same era. In the far corner was a brocade