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of jiggling, the door swung open. She left it unlocked so getting out would be easier than getting in.
    “I can pick a lot of locks if I have to,” Lucy said. “You’d be amazed what being a realtor has taught me. But these two would be next to impossible. The lock on the knob’s an expensive one with a deadlocking latch, which means no one can get in with a pocket or putty knife. They’d have to kick the door or pry it open. Then there’s the deadlock. See, it has a steel shank here.” She pointed. “And it automatically double latches.”
    I wasn’t sure I wanted to know just how she had learned all this. I suspect a lot of locks had been picked on this quest for knowledge. I followed her inside, glancing behind me as I did to see if we’d attracted the attention of the men in front of my house. No one was sprinting across Church Street. That seemed promising.
    We stopped in the entryway and gazed around. The living room was to my right, the kitchen straight ahead, just past a stairwell curving to the left. Lucy had been right about the lovely woodwork and the mess. The house smelled like mildew and looked like the final day of Tri-C’s annual rummage sale.
    “Don’t say it,” Lucy said. “Every realtor in town has tried to get the owners to clean it out. We’ve even found people to do it for them, but they’re odd ducks. They think it’s a bargain just the way it is.”
    “It’s such a mess how can you tell if anything’s been moved?” I wandered forward. A window table with a dying fern sat beside the stairwell. I’d already passed a piano with most of the ivory missing.
    Lucy followed me into the kitchen. Mismatched wooden chairs sat around a tile-top table with all of the grout worn away. “Nothing’s different so far,” Lucy said. “Except the smell is worse. Let’s open a window.” She opened one beside the table. “The basement needs waterproofing or a new sump pump. That’s where the smell’s coming from.”
    I could see possibilities here. Lots of them. With new countertops and new hardware on the cabinet doors, the kitchen would be improved drastically. A little paint, a little paper . . .
    “You have a gleam in your eye,” Lucy said.
    “A little window dressing and this would be habitable.”
    Lucy leaned against a counter. “What would you do?”
    I told her and added a few touches for good measure. “The floors aren’t bad. I bet they could be scrubbed clean with Spic And Span and sealed. A couple of cheerful throw rugs, and this would be welcoming. Even homey. I grew up in rental houses. One right after another, and Junie, my mother, was a pro at making them come to life without spending much money.” Ed and I have lived in enough old apartments to assure me I’ve inherited Junie’s abilities.
    We wandered through the rest of the downstairs. I told Lucy what I would do if the house were mine. I was making conversation simply to keep my mind off our real purpose. But as I talked, I searched, looking for something to place the murderers here this morning.
    “Nothing different?” I asked after we’d made a circle and ended up at the stairs again.
    “I don’t think so.” Lucy was peering up the stairwell. “Upstairs next? Or the basement?”
    I prefer to take my chances in rooms with windows. I climbed out of dozens in my misspent youth; I was confident I could make a quick escape from the second floor. I pointed toward heaven. “Who goes first?”
    We climbed side by side. On the landing we peered into the second-floor hallway. Floors that needed finishing. Walls that needed painting. Nothing sinister.
    Four bedrooms lined the hallway and a large bathroom sat at the end. We started on our right. The bedrooms were small and mercifully clear of most furniture. Overhead light fixtures illuminated the corners that sunlight didn’t. The rooms were unkempt but undisturbed.
    Except for the final one. This was the largest of the four with the closest access to the