Page 100 of Conrad

“You can’t use a regular wire hanger because it’s too flimsy.” She pulled out the hood stand and opened the door. Then she reached in and deployed the garage-door opener.

“You scare me.”

“Murder podcaster. You learn stuff.”

She closed the door and handed him back the hood stand. He stuck it in his front seat, then they headed to the garage.

Sawhorses, cabinets covered in tarps, new appliances in boxes . . . “I remember this mess when I remodeled my kitchen.”

He glanced at her. “Are you sure you grew up in that giant house I saw?”

“I just wanted to see if I could do it.” She made her way to the inside door. “Fact was, yes, I had the money to hire it out, but where’s the fun of that?”

She made to push inside, but he held out his arm.

“Let me go first.”

Her hands went up in surrender. “Knock yourself out.”

He gave her a look and stepped inside. “Mr. Walsh? Are you here?”

The basement entry held a few work jackets and boots, sawdust, and the scent of oil and age. Conrad pushed open the inner door.

The basement had survived the passage of time, resting soundly in 1967, with an orange shag carpet and an old soot-blackened fireplace. A black leather sofa sat on the floor facing a massive flatscreen propped up on a couple end tables.

“I’ll bet he was house hacking this,” said Penelope.

“What’s that?”

“Where you buy a home, live in it, flip it, and sell it within two years to avoid paying capital gains.”

“Smart,” said Conrad.

“You do investments, I do real estate. I’m an HGTV junkie.”

He smiled and then headed to the stairs. The first riser creaked and he stilled, then held out his hand to her.

“You shouted his name. My guess is that if he was here, that might have alerted him more than a little creak in the stair.”

“Right.”

They headed upstairs into the main area.

The kitchen—or where there might have been one—sat gutted, the floor ripped up, walls studded in, electrical wiring running between the joists. The scent of paint ripened the air.

A wall had been removed between the living room and the kitchen, just a beam running across where the load-bearing wall had been, a couple posts holding it up.

“It’ll be nice once it’s finished,” Conrad said. He glanced down the hallway. “What do you think?”

“Let’s try it.” She opened the first door. “Storage.”

“I got something here,” he said, sticking his head into the next room. “Table, and a printer and a computer.”

She joined him, and in the room, with stained Berber carpet, sat a table with a straight chair, and on top, a closed computer. She opened it and woke it up.

“We need a password,” she said.

Conrad looked through the papers on the table. “Nothing here but receipts. One is for a ticket to Barbados, for over a month ago.”

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