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block off Aurora on Linden Avenue. The weathered shingle structures looked like an early failed attempt at condominiums, one that had deteriorated into lower-middle-class apartments with the passage of time and the dwindling of enthusiasm. Even the pristine mantle of snow couldn’t disguise an overall air of near hopelessness, of object poverty held only partially at bay.
    The complex’s driveway dipped steeply down from the street, with plenty of spinning tire tracks in evidence to show that those few drivers who had managed to escape the parking lot that morning had struggled mightily to make their way up to Linden. We parked on the street and walked and slid down into the complex past a grove of evergreens, their branches drooping under the weight of fat clods of snow.
    Number 709 was in the third building and on the second floor. Unable to use the snow-laden railings, we gingerly climbed a rickety set of stairs that groaned and creaked ominously beneath us and the added weight of heavy snow.
    Once on the small landing outside the apartment, we saw that the curtains were solidly closed against the brilliant daylight. The varnish on the flimsy front door was faded and peeling. From inside we could hear the droning hum of a television set. Kramer tried ringing the bell. Predictably, it didn’t work, but Kramer’s determined knock, curiously muffled by the snow around us, eventually produced a reaction—the audible lowering of the volume on the TV.
    “What’s the matter? Forget your key?” a woman’s voice demanded as the door was flung open. “Where’ve you been?”
    The sour-faced woman standing before us was improbably fat and wearing a terry cloth robe that gapped open over her more than ample boobs. Hastily she pulled the robe shut and stood on her toes to peer anxiously over our shoulders toward the parking lot. I knew who she was looking for. She didn’t know yet that he wasn’t coming. Not then, and not ever.
    “Sorry,” she mumbled. “Thought you might be my husband, Alvin. He’s late getting home from work, and he never called, either. Who are you?”
    “Police officers, ma’am,” I began, reaching for my ID. “Are you Mrs. Chambers?”
    “Yes.”
    “Would you mind if we came in?”
    “Yes, I mind. Couldn’t you come back later? I’m right in the middle of The Young and the Restless .”
    “It’s very important, Mrs. Chambers,” I insisted.
    “Oh, all right,” she said grudgingly. “Come on in then, but I don’t want you to stay very long, not when Alvin’s not here. People might talk, you know.”
    She turned and waddled away from the door, clutching the robe around her. Kramer and I followed, making our way through a heavily curtained room whose only light came from the flickering images on a color television set in the far corner. Before my eyes adjusted to the lack of light, I stumbled into a chair and sent a pile of something crashing to the floor.
    “Don’t worry about that,” Charlotte Chambers said. “It’s only Alvin’s books. I keep waiting for him to put them away. Stay there a minute and I’ll turn on a light.”
    She switched on a table lamp on an end table by the couch and punched the mute button on the television set’s remote control. The room looked like it had been in an earthquake. Boxes with stacks of contents spilling out of them were scattered everywhere. Every available flat surface was covered with junk—clothing, soda cans, dead newspapers, books. A narrow path threaded its way through the debris to where two decrepit recliners sat in front of the television set. Before one of them sat a TV-tray, and on it was a plate with someone’s breakfast—two congealed eggs and two pieces of dry toast.
    “Alvin’s breakfast,” Charlotte Chambers told us when she noticed I was looking at the plate. “He usually likes to eat just as soon as he gets home, but like I said, he’s late today, and he didn’t even call. That’s gratitude for you, when I got up