Free Trail of Blood by Lisa Black

has changed.”
    Jablonski spoke, startling Theresa. He had moved to just behind her left shoulder. “Who took the picture?”
    All four people peered at the snap with new interest.
    “Your mother?” Theresa suggested.
    “No, they didn’t meet until after the war. I really don’t know. A friend, I suppose, or another tenant.”
    Frank asked, “Did he ever mention someone disappearing from his building? A tenant? A client? Even a hobo?”
    Corliss considered the question, shook his head. “I’m sure I would remember something like that.”
    “Did he ever mention a James Miller?”
    “Not that I recall.”
    “So you have no idea who this dead man we found could be?”
    “I’ve been thinking of nothing else since you called this morning. No.
    I have no idea.” His eyelids fluttered suddenly. “Surely you don’t think my father had something to do with that.”
    “We don’t have any theories at present. Do you mind if we borrow this picture?”
    Corliss pulled it away, toward his own chest. “My father wouldn’t kill anyone. No one.”
    “I understand,” Theresa said.
    “Unless they deserved it,” he added, and turned over the picture. The sentiment did not seem too odd; Theresa had heard it before. Corliss continued to sort through the photos but the only other find, from an investigator’s point of view, came near the bottom of the box.
    “This is my father’s office at the Pullman building,” Corliss told them.
    Corliss Sr.’s office bore a great resemblance to Corliss Jr.’s study, aside from the color of the walls—white in the photo, pale caramel in the room in which they currently stood. Plenty of bookshelves supporting model trains instead of books, and framed pictures of same. Arthur Corliss stood by himself, facing the camera with crossed arms and a self-satisfied expression. A notation at the bottom read:
November 1935
.
    “This is the same desk,” Theresa said.
    Edward patted the worn surface as if pleased she had noticed. “Solid cherry. An unusual design for the time, the flat top. Office desks were always rolltops, with all those little cubbies for storing things, but as office work increased in the new century, efficiency experts decided that a plain top minimized clutter and backlog. The pigeonholes made it too easy for workers to stash their work and forget it.”
    “Interesting,” Theresa said.
    Frank didn’t find the historical trivia quite as fascinating. “There’s a door.”
    “Door?” Corliss asked.
    “Door?” Jablonski asked.
    Theresa noted the opening, framed by wooden molding, in the wall behind the desk. “Is that the bathroom? Did you ever visit your father’s office, Mr. Corliss? Do you remember its arrangement?”
    He frowned in concentration, peering at the photograph. “Vaguely. I would have been only seven or eight, you understand.”
    “Did it have a small lavatory?”
    “It had a sink. I remember how old the fixtures seemed. And a bit rusty.”
    “Anything else? A closet? A storage space?”
    “I don’t think so, but I really can’t be sure. I had just turned nine when he sold the place.” He handed the photo to Frank and went through the rest of the box but did not find any more of the building at 4950 Pullman.
    With the interview winding down, Jablonski the stringer came to life.
    “Did you work for your father’s railroad, Mr. Corliss?”
    “A bit, in my younger days. I ran the dispatch office for a few years, but then decided to break away to the more sophisticated climes in Europe and England. Silly, as it turned out, but not entirely unproductive: I read mechanics and chemistry at Oxford and then settled down to a respectable job as a civil engineer.”
    “Buildings?”
    “No, roads. Traffic patterns were our main concern.” He stood up, visibly stretching his legs, and plucked a four-inch-long locomotive carved from ivory from a shelf. He pressed it into Theresa’s hands, guiding her fingers over the glossy surface. His eyes,