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With Ivan gone, quiet descended. Claudia stared at the empty bookcases and bare walls. Nothing that reflected Lindsey’s personality or taste remained in the room, yet her presence hovered eerily. Was she watching from some netherworld reserved for suicides and murder victims?

After gulping down the pills and booze, had Lindsey taken one last look around at all she had accumulated, the bits and pieces that had made up her life, realizing that she would never see them again? How might she have felt, knowing that her nervous system would soon begin to shut down; that she would cease breathing; that she would no longer exist in the physical world?

Had she roamed the apartment, saying goodbye to her luxurious possessions before climbing into the Jacuzzi and sliding under the water; before consciousness gradually faded?

Chiding herself for being melodramatic, Claudia gave the first file drawer a sharp tug. Inside, green file folders pressed up against each other, untidy edges of paper protruding from the sides. Why had Lindsey, a woman of means, chosen to live with this kind of clutter? Why hadn’t she purchased more file cabinets; hired someone to organize her papers?

Claudia answered her own question: for the same reason Lindsey always wrote on trash; she only spent money if there was some kind of payback for her. Her disdain for most people was evident in her refusal to use good letterhead stock unless the letter was destined for someone she deemed important.

She assembled a file box and carried an armful of files to a credenza. Years-old magazine articles spilled out; pages of jokes off the Internet; files filled with correspondence; even gourmet recipes that would never find their way into Lindsey’s kitchen. Any handwriting that surfaced was Lindsey’s standard—scribbled notes in cursive, but nothing printed.

Could Ivan’s assertion that Lindsey had never printed be true? The chances were next to nil. People adopt alternate writing styles for various types of communication. All Claudia had to do was hunt through enough of this stuff until a suitable sample turned up.

She worked her way through the drawer, reflecting on what she considered Ivan’s odd attitude. His evident lack of willingness to cooperate in providing the materials she needed for the job was nothing short of bizarre. Was he simply being petty and vindictive because she’d rejected the samples he had offered for her examination?

Two hours into the search, an insistent growling from Claudia’s stomach added to the growing list of reasons why she should abandon what appeared more and more to be a useless task. Logically, she knew that everyone had to use printed writing at some time or another. But if Lindsey had printed
anything,
the evidence must be elsewhere.

Tension from leaning over the file drawers had bunched the muscles in her shoulders. She took a moment to straighten and clasp her hands over her head, making herself a promise as she stretched her neck to release the stress: if she had no luck in the next half-hour, she would walk.

She sealed the box she was working on. The next batch of files would be the last for the day. She was nearing the final few files when she came upon a plain white envelope, unaddressed, no postmark.

A block printed note was inside, written on a single sheet of lined notebook paper.

The pen had dug deep furrows into the paper, spawning an evil Braille on the back. Heavy, slashing strokes, crowded words, letters jumping up menacingly from the paper.

YOUR GONA BE ONE
SORY
BICH!!!!!!

Definitely not Lindsey’s handwriting. The undeveloped letter forms indicated someone functionally illiterate—grade school education at best. Psychopathology was nothing new to Claudia. She had worked for years in the courts and with psychologists, analyzing the handwritings of mental patients and convicted criminals. The handwriting on this page fit neatly into the latter category. She pressed the intercom and called Ivan.

“This has absolutely nothing to do with Lindsey’s death,” Ivan said calmly, taking the paper from her.

Claudia stared at him in surprise. “How can you be so sure? Don’t you think the police would be interested in this?”

“This note came from a security guard we fired for sexual harassment about a year ago. He was none too bright. This was just an attempt to scare us.”

“This guy could do more than scare you, Ivan. His handwriting show’s he’s a real sicko.”

“Oh, is that the technical term?”

“It’s not funny. He could do some serious damage. Is he in jail, I hope?”

“No, he isn’t.” Ivan’s tone turned decidedly frosty. “We handled the situation internally. We never heard from him again.”

Claudia got the message:
Don’t tell me my business.

She had never thought of herself as psychic, but she was picking up an undertone that mystified her. Why was Ivan unwilling even to acknowledge the possibility that the writer of this threatening message might be involved in Lindsey’s death?

“I could compare
this
handwriting with the suicide note,” Claudia pressed him. “If you really believe Lindsey was murdered, this person could be a suspect. It’s block printed, too.”

With a dismissive wave of his hand, Ivan tore the paper into six jagged pieces, ignoring Claudia’s gasp, and tossed it into the trash bin under the desk.

“It’s not him.”

“Why are you so sure?”

Brushing aside the question, Ivan took a deep drag on his cigarette and tapped it on the ashtray, sending up a shower of ash and sparks. “I think your time might be better spent talking to Earl Nelson. It’s possible he might have something you can use.”

“Who’s Earl Nelson?”

“Lindsey’s brother.”

Claudia frowned, puzzled. “Lindsey had no family, she was an orphan. There certainly wasn’t any family at the funeral.”

Ivan blew a thick cloud of smoke from the corner of his mouth. “I can assure you, whether she acknowledged him openly or not, her brother is alive and living in West Hollywood. He wasn’t at the funeral because her will barred him from attending.” He scribbled on a yellow sticky note. “Here’s his phone number. I don’t know whether he’ll see you or not, but give him a call and ask whether he has any of her handwriting—tell him what you need. He’ll want something in return, so call me if he’s got anything. Meantime, I’ll have someone from the office pack up the rest of the files and messenger them over to your place so you can finish looking through them.”

Claudia accepted the paper, noting that he had printed Earl Nelson’s address. She dialed the number on her cell phone, making a mental note to check Ivan’s handwriting against the alleged suicide note.

Earl Nelson lived in a run-down condominium conversion in one of the less affluent neighborhoods of West Hollywood. Less than ten miles east of the penthouse his sister had called home, it could have been in another galaxy. In the 1960s, the place had been an apartment building for moderate-income tenants, but some twenty years later, mercenary owners concluded money was to be made by turning the flats into condos. Unfortunately for the buyers, new paint and carpets failed to mask the fetid smells of cooking, old kitty litter, and mildew that permeated the maze of hallways. And the passage of time had only made it worse.

As Claudia entered the dimly lit lobby a youth in black leather slouched past, his hair molded into a crown of magenta spikes. He walked in front of her as if she weren’t there, and punched the elevator call button. When the car groaned to a stop and the door clanged open onto a tiny, graffiti-defaced compartment, she changed her mind about stepping inside with Spiky Boy and decided to take her chances on the stairs.

Nelson’s apartment was located on the third floor at the far end of a succession of labyrinthine corridors with poor lighting and frayed carpeting. Television sounds penetrated the wall as Claudia knocked at the door. She wondered whether Earl Nelson would resemble Lindsey. He’d been anything but friendly when she’d spoken to him over the phone, but at least he had agreed to see her and even grudgingly acknowledged that he might have what she was looking for.

The door swung open and an odor stronger than anything she had smelled on her way to the third floor assaulted Claudia’s nostrils with a knockout punch. The stench of old garbage and marijuana mingling with body odor made her want to pinch her nostrils shut. Even LA smog was preferable to breathing Earl Nelson’s personal brand of air pollution.

Nelson bore about as much resemblance to Lindsey as he did to Brad Pitt, which was zero. He peered at her through mean eyes framed in Buddy Holly glasses, a permanent scowl etched on the sallow face. Middle-aged, maybe ten years older than his sister had been. A long ponytail hung over a soiled green golf shirt, which bore an incongruous Izod logo. The round shoulders were peppered with dandruff. A tattooed snake slithered up his left arm, its red eyes glittering with evil.

“Earl Nelson?” Claudia offered him her business card. “I’m Claudia Rose. We spoke earlier about Lindsey.”

“Yeah?” He took the card and jammed it into his trouser pocket without looking at it. Flicked a glance over Claudia’s body, his gaze lingering on her breasts until she crossed her arms. Turning on his heel, he went back inside. “Whaddya waitin’ for?”

The postage stamp apartment was lit only by the television and what little sun leaked in around the edges of the mangy curtains. Nelson plopped into an ancient recliner that bore the clear imprint of his ass and picked up a bottle of beer from the coffee table. He didn’t offer Claudia a seat, for which she was thankful, as there was no surface in the room where she would willingly sit. She watched, fascinated, as he emptied the bottle and aimed it at an overflowing box of trash in a corner of the room. It missed, and fell clattering against its brethren already on the floor.

“Fuckin’ thing,” Nelson groused. “I was
that
close.” He fixed Claudia with an expectant stare and pointed the remote at the TV, muting the sound on Jerry Springer. “So, she finally remembers she had a brother?”

“Excuse me?”

“Did the fucking bitch change her mind?”

No wonder Lindsey didn’t want to claim this pathetic excuse for a human being as a relative.

“I’m sorry,” Claudia said politely. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Did she leave me some bank?” Nelson spoke slowly, stretching out the words as though she were a very slow learner.

Claudia gave him her iciest stare. “Perhaps I wasn’t clear when I called. I’m not a lawyer, I have nothing to do with handling Lindsey’s estate.”

“But I thought...”

“I’m a handwriting expert. I’m here because the executor of her estate retained me to authenticate the handwriting on the note found with your sister’s body.”

“Exe-cu-tor!” He spat the word back at her, his lip curling into an ugly sneer. “Exe-cu-tor! You mean her fucking
secretary
! The selfish bitch leaves it all to her fucking secretary, and the fucking secretary sends a handwriting-fucking-expert to get something from her only brother? That’s bullshit.”

“Mr. Nelson, I told you on the phone, I’m looking for samples of Lindsey’s printed writing that I can use for comparison to the suicide note. That’s
it
. I don’t know anything about her will or her estate.”

Consumed with some primitive rage, Earl Nelson wasn’t listening. “Too fucking good for her family! Keep her only brother out of her goddamned funeral? Who the hell’d she think she was, the fucking Queen a’ Sheba? We were
partners
.”

Claudia interrupted the flow of invective. “Excuse me, but do you have anything written in Lindsey’s hand printing or not?”

Nelson broke off, staring at her blankly, apparently so caught up in his rant that he’d forgotten her presence. All at once, he grinned, showing nicotine-stained teeth. “How about some
live
action?” he said. “I got plenty of
movies
I could show ya.”

“What are you talking about? I’m looking for handwriting samples, not movies.”

“Hey, Lindsey and me, we had a nice little system going. Now
I’m
calling the shots. I could...”

“Mr. Nelson, you told me on the phone that you might have something I can use... block printed handwriting. That’s the only reason I’m here, so show it to me
now,
or I’m gone.”

A coffee table separated them, littered with racing forms, a smoke-stained bong, and assorted garbage. Nelson hawked up a wad of phlegm and spat it on a frozen-dinner tray, sending a cockroach the size of a small mouse scurrying, antennae quivering, across the desiccated remains of a long-past meal.

Claudia recoiled in disgust. She hiked her briefcase strap over her shoulder and started toward the door. Ivan Novak wasn’t paying her enough to deal with this kind of vermin, human
or
six-legged. “Hey, wait,” Nelson yelled, rushing after her. “What’s in it for me?”

Claudia stopped, her hand resting on the doorknob. “What is it you want?”

An avaricious gleam brightened the dull eyes. “Ivan needs what I got or you wouldn’t be here. Oughta be worth somethin’.”

“What do you want?” Claudia repeated, losing patience. “You want to
sell
me your sister’s handwriting? I’ll call Mr. Novak and see what he says.”

Nelson scratched his head, releasing a shower of white flakes. “That money’s mine, not his.” He shuffled over to the bedroom. “He wants anything from me, he’ll cough up some ducats.” The bedroom door snapped shut behind him.

While she waited for him, Claudia got out her cell phone and dialed Ivan’s number, keeping an eye on the cockroach, which was now examining another kind of roach lying by the bong.

Why didn’t Ivan warn me about this loathsome creature?

Earl Nelson returned five minutes later with a manila envelope clutched to his undernourished chest. “What about the bank?”

“If you’ve got something I can use, Mr. Novak will send you a check for a thousand dollars.”

The mean eyes narrowed to slits. “A thousand? Fuck that; little sister had
millions.
I want at least five big ones. That’s my price.”