Page 38 of To Die For

She said, “They found no prints other than Rollins’s.”

“Did he have a car?”

“We could find no registration in his name.”

Devine walked to the center of the small main room, off which was a bedroom and a bathroom. The kitchen consisted of an under-the-counter fridge and a microwave. There was little food in the cabinets. A few grimy clothes were piled in the closet. An old deodorant can and a worn-down bar of soap were in the bath. There were no books, no photos, no knickknacks, nothing personal really.

“I think someone was on to Rollins before he started following me.”

“You’re referring to the timing of his death?” she asked.

“Right. I think they were trailing him, saw him talking to me, then followed us both to the bar. After I left, they killed him. Whichmeans theyknewRollins had some information that they didn’t want him to sell.”

“Sounds plausible, but how does that help us?” she asked.

“Not sure. You find his cell?”

“No. He has a phone registered to him but it wasn’t on his person. And there was no phone found here.”

“Which means they took it after they stabbed him.”

“Most likely yes.”

“Can you get into the data?”

“We have a warrant request in.”

“The thing is, I don’t figure Rollins for a loose lips kind of guy. He made his money by finding secrets and then selling them. So how did they latch on to him in the first place?”

“Everybody makes mistakes.”

“Well, he offered me dirt on Danny Glass, so maybe he offered it to others.”

“Including the people who killed him?” said Walker in a skeptical tone.

Devine made a show of looking around the dingy apartment. “Well, it’s not like the guy’s business was all that lucrative, unless he’s got millions socked away in some offshore 401(k). So he might have been that desperate.”

“You don’t mess with a guy like Danny Glass without having some sort of Plan B.”

Devine nodded. “I think Rollins was at least smart enough to knowthat. So whatever info he had, he would have kept someplace safe, no matter what happened to him. As insurance, but it didn’t seem to protect him in this case.”

“So, if Glass figured that out, and let’s assume he did, he would want to find it before someone else does.”

“Right.” The next moment Devine froze. He pulled out his phone and emailed something.

He pointed at her pants pocket, where the outline of her phonewas visible. Walker read the email he’d just sent her and glanced up at him, surprised.

Devine said, “Well, I’m not ashamed to admit that it’s too complicated for me. We’re not going to find anything out here. Let’s head on.”

They left the apartment.

“The email you sent? You think they had Rollins under surveillance somehow?”

“It would make sense,” said Devine.

Devine led her to the apartment that was on the other side of Rollins’s place and knocked on the door. Over the noise of a TV playing inside, they also heard a thumping sound coming toward them. When it opened, the elderly woman there was sitting on a rollator with a cane in one hand. The cane’s hitting the floor as she was moving along must have been the thumping sound they’d heard, Devine deduced.

“Yeah?” she said in an irritated tone. “Make it snappy. I’m binge-streaming.”

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