Franks hadn’t been keen on Andrews snooping about, but he was either too considerate or too wise to try to prevent it. With barely concealed reluctance, he’d given Andrews a key to Dana Larsen’s apartment. There was something in Franks’ demeanor that suggested to Andrews that he wouldn’t have turned over the key if the case had been anything but a virtually closed file. Larsen had lived alone in a condominium unit on the twentieth floor of a West Fifty-seventh Street building not quite plush enough to employ a doorman. When Andrews pushed on the door, it swung open stiffly onto stale air and unmistakable emptiness. It was as if the possessions of the dead had taken on the peculiar blankness of the dead. The shelves of books and knickknacks, the tables, chairs, opaque-screened TV—all seemed to be nonfunctional museum pieces, for observation only. Maybe what gave that impression was the faint layer of almost imperceptible dust over everything. Maybe it was something else. Andrews stepped inside and closed the door.
