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not live to enjoy. The spoon looked to be a commemorative, with something etched into the handle. She pointed to the papers on the table.
    ‘This is all that was in the desk?’ she asked.
    Byrne nodded.
    Freitag’s personal papers were as tidy and minimal as everything else in his life – a checkbook, a neatly bound stack of electric and gas bills, a few paper-clipped coupons for nearby Chinese takeout and dry cleaners. As far as they knew, Robert Freitag had no computer, no cell phone, no pager. This was the extent of his interaction with the outside world. There were no personal letters, no birthday or Christmas cards.
    Jessica flipped through the check register, found the expected: utilities, insurance, income tax, doctor’s and dentist bills. She made note of the doctor and dentist names.
    The only thing left to search were the books on the bookshelves.
    They crossed the living room in silence. Byrne took the shelves to the left; Jessica, the right. The paperbacks on the shelves – mostly worn, second-hand copies – were popular novels: Stephen King, John Grisham, Tom Clancy. Jessica flipped through them, one by one, found nothing.
    ‘Jess,’ Byrne said. ‘Look at this.’
    Byrne had in his hands a yellow hardcover book. It was an old book club edition. The cover was ripped in a few places. It was titled
Dreams and Memory
.
    ‘Never read it.’
    ‘Me neither,’ Byrne said. ‘Waiting for the movie.’
    ‘Anything inside?’
    Byrne riffled the pages. ‘Nothing,’ he said. ‘But it is inscribed.’ He opened the book, turned to the title page. On the left-hand side was a brief inscription. It was written in blue ink, with a flourish.
     
    Perchance to dream
    ‘Just the inscription? No name signed?’
    ‘No,’ Byrne said.
    ‘Looks like a textbook,’ Jessica said. ‘Doesn’t really fit with the other reading material in the house, does it?’
    ‘No, it doesn’t.’
    Byrne turned back to the title page, then flipped to the copyright page. The book was first published in 1976.
    ‘I didn’t see any inscriptions in any of the other books,’ Jessica said. ‘Did you?’
    ‘No. This is the only one.’
    Byrne looked at the inscription for a few more moments, opened the book to the back. There, drawn in pencil on the last blank page, were a series of geometric shapes. One long rectangle, with a much smaller rectangle to the left, as well as a small square at the top of the page, drawn in perspective. He showed the page to Jessica. ‘Mean anything to you?’
    Jessica looked at the drawings. ‘Not a clue.’
    Byrne glanced at the inscription once again, then put the book back on the shelf. They were done. They knew nothing more than they had when they walked into this house, or at least nothing that would point them to the person who had so brutally murdered Robert August Freitag.
    ‘This guy was a ghost,’ Jessica said.
    ‘Yeah, but why?’ Byrne replied. ‘How?’
    Jessica thought about it. She wondered how many people in her city, any city, live their lives like this. No ripples, no tracks. Before leaving the Roundhouse she’d done an online search on the man, and come up with nothing. In this day and age it was virtually impossible to leave no digital footprint whatsoever. But Robert Freitag had done it.
    ‘If he was so ordinary, why did someone put a railroad spike through his head?’ Byrne said.
    For now, that remained the most important question.
    As they prepared to leave, Byrne walked to the end of the living room. He glanced down the short hallway leading to the kitchen.
    Like everything else in the house there was a thin layer of dust on the baseboards. In the center of the hallway the dust looked to be lighter in color. Almost white.
    ‘You see that?’ Byrne asked, pointing to the powder on the floor.
    ‘Yeah,’ Jessica said. ‘It looks like it might have come from the light fixture.’
    Without a word, Jessica returned to the dining room, retrieved one of the chairs. She put it