Free Gone by Jonathan Kellerman

chest. “Yes?”
    The boy’s arms and feet shot out simultaneously and she nearly lost her grip. He looked to be three or so. Stocky and sturdy, twisting and turning, emitting little growly noises.
    “Calm down, Gershie Yoel!”
    The boy waved a fist. “Hero hero
Yehudah
! Fall the elephant!”
    He squirmed some more and she gave up and set him down. He rocked on his feet and growled some more. Eyed us and said, “Fall!”
    “Gershie Yoel, go in the kitchen and take a cookie —
but only one. And don’t wake up the babies!”
    “Hero-hero!
Yehudah HaMa
kaw
bee
gonna spear you bad Greek!”
    “Go
now,
good boy, or no cookie!”
    “Grr!”
Gershie Yoel ran off, past walls covered with bookshelves. Books on every table and the couch. Any remaining space was filled with playpens and toys and packages of disposable diapers.
    The boy’s shouts diminished.
    “He’s still celebrating the holidays,” said the young woman.
    “Hanukkah?” said Milo.
    She smiled. “Yes. He thinks he’s Yehudah —
Judah Maccabee. That’s a big hero in the Hannukah story. The elephant is from a story about one of his brothers—” She stopped, blushed. “What can I do for you?”
    “We’re here about one of your neighbors, Mrs… .”
    “Winograd. Shayndie Winograd.”
    Milo had her spell it and wrote it down.
    She said, “You need my name?”
    “Just for the record, ma’am.”
    “Which neighbors, the punk rockers?”
    “Which punk rockers are those?”
    She pointed to an upstairs unit two doors down. “Over there, Unit Four. Three of them, they think they’re musicians. My husband tells me they’re punk rockers, I don’t know from such things.” She held her ears.
    “Noise problem?” said Milo.
    “There was before,” said Shayndie Winograd. “Everyone complained to the owner and it’s been okay… excuse me a second, I need to check on the babies, please come in.”
    We cleared books from a brown corduroy couch. Leatherette-bound volumes gold-embossed with Hebrew titles.
    Shayndie Winograd returned. “Still sleeping,
boruch
—
thank God.”
    “How many babies?” said Milo.
    “Twins,” she said. “Seven months ago.”
    “Mazel tov,” said Milo. “Three’s a lot to handle.”
    Shayndie Winograd smiled. “Three would be easy. I’ve got six, five are school-age. Gershie Yoel should be in school but he was coughing this morning and I thought maybe he had a cold. Then, wouldn’t you know, he got miraculously better.”
    Milo said, “The Lord works in mysterious ways.”
    Her smile widened. “Maybe I should have you talk to him about honesty… so is the problem the punk rockers?”
    “This is about Ms. Brand, the tenant in Unit Three.”
    “The model?” said Shayndie Winograd.
    “She modeled?”
    “I call her that because she looks like a model. Pretty, very skinny? What’s the problem?”
    “Unfortunately, ma’am, she was murdered last night.”
    Shayndie Winograd’s hand flew to her mouth. “Oh, my God —
oh, no.” She reached back for an armchair, removed a toy truck, and sat down. “Who did it?”
    “That’s what we’re trying to find out, Mrs. Winograd.”
    “Maybe her boyfriend?”
    “Who’s that?”
    “Another skinny one.”
    Out of Milo’s attaché came Dylan Meserve’s book shot from the hoax.
    Winograd glanced at the photo. “That’s him. He was arrested? He’s a criminal?”
    “He and Ms. Brand were involved in a situation. It was in the papers.”
    “We don’t read the papers. What kind of situation?”
    Milo gave her a summary of the phony abduction.
    She said, “Why would they do such a thing?”
    “It seems to have been a publicity stunt.”
    Shayndie Winograd’s stare was blank.
    “To help their acting careers,” said Milo.
    “I don’t understand.”
    “It’s hard to understand, ma’am. They thought the attention might help them get noticed in Hollywood. So why would you think Mr. Meserve would hurt Ms. Brand?”
    “Sometimes they screamed at each