was torn between leaving and going forward. But who would she call to investigate? CJ was behind bars; neither of her parents had any interest in her new life, and to date, she hadn’t made a single friend in Florida.
She felt completely alone. For good reason. She was.
“I think this isn’t going to be good news,” she said, stalling.
“I think we had better make certain.”
Tracy glanced back at Janya once more and saw written on the young woman’s face what she herself now suspected.
Tracy chewed her lip. Then she pressed her lips together, trying not to ask, wanting not to be beholden to a person from a different culture, a woman with whom she had absolutely nothing in common.
“I’ll come with you,” Janya said. “But we must do it quickly, before I change my mind.”
Tracy was relieved, grateful and embarrassed. “I’m sorry. I guess I’m a wuss.”
“Wuss?”
“Coward.”
“We can be cowards together, then.” Janya joined her inside the little living room.
“I’ve never been in here. I guess that’s the bedroom.” Tracy nodded toward a door to the left. “That’s where the air conditioner is.”
“He has worked hard on the house. Everything is fresh and new. And clean.”
“I’m afraid it doesn’t smell clean.”
Janya started toward the bedroom. “One peek, then we leave.”
“Mr. Krause?” Tracy called, as they strode across the room. She registered plain furniture in good repair, a glass-topped coffee table with newspapers stacked neatly on top. Several wilting houseplants.
They stopped at the door. Tracy knew this was up to her. She took a breath and held it, then she turned the knob and pushed it open.
Herb Krause was not on vacation, nor had he moved away. He was lying fully dressed in cotton trousers and a dress shirt on a bed he had carefully made before his final nap, one arm outstretched and hand turned up. Horrified, Tracy moved a little closer to see what her renter had been holding. A key rested in his palm, fingers loosely trapping it there, but the old man was never going to open a door with this key again.
Herb Krause was blue, stiff, and very, very dead.
chapter three
“If an autopsy was required, the medical examiner could pinpoint it, but I’d say he’s been dead thirty-six hours, tops. The temperature in here slowed everything and makes it harder to tell.”
The shiny-headed deputy from the sheriff’s department looked up from his clipboard. Judging by his lack of expression, he had faced a lot of dead bodies. “You can be glad he died across from the air-conditioning vents.”
“I’m overwhelmed with gratitude,” Tracy said.
He lifted a spindly brow that made it clear the hairless head wasn’t a fashion statement. “Then while you’re at it, be glad that until you got here, the place was sealed like a tomb. At least the insects didn’t find him first.”
She repressed a shudder. Under the inevitable odor of death’s final moments, Tracy had noted the fragrance of insecticide. Herb Krause had been locked in a war with the insect world. At least he had won the final battle.
Herb’s death was just one more piece of business for the professionals who had been called. The sheriff’s department had arrived, surveyed the scene, then called Herb’s physician, whose name Tracy had discovered from a prescription bottle beside the bed. After that conversation, the doctor had agreed to sign the death certificate, as law required, then he’d checked Herb’s records and told the deputy which funeral home to call. The body was being carted outside by their employees, who had arrived quickly.
The deputy finished his forms, passed the clipboard over to Tracy, then slipped his pen in his shirt pocket after she signed. “If you can stay around a little while, you should air it out some more and get all the bedding to the curb for trash pickup. I’m sure his next of kin will be grateful.”
“The trash truck comes tomorrow or Sunday. A private contractor. Next of kin…” Tracy hadn’t thought that far. Surely Herb had somebody. But how would she know? She had avoided the old man at every turn.
“The funeral home will need addresses if you’ve got them,” he said. “Mr. Krause prepaid his funeral, but the director tells me there’s an annoying lack of information in his file.”
“I’ll have to look around.” Tracy didn’t want to admit she was clueless. That sounded coldhearted, as if she had taken absolutely no interest in her renter. Which happened to be true.
“Oh, he had this in his hand.” The deputy handed Tracy