Flesh and Blood by Thomas H. Cook Page B

know.”
    Tannenbaum shrugged. “Well, maybe time will tell,” he said as he headed back out of the room.
    Frank followed him slowly into the room across the hall. It was set up as an office. There was a small wooden desk, a bookshelf filled with books about the fashion industry, and a tall antique oak filing cabinet. A computer rested on top of the desk, along with a small portable typewriter. A box of Hannah’s personalized stationery lay open beside the type-writer, light blue paper headed with an elegant gold script: Hannah Karlsberg, Fashion Consultant. It did not list her address or phone number.
    â€œFar as we can tell, absolutely nothing was taken,” Tannenbaum said. “She had nice clothes, nice jewelry, and this computer would be worth a few bucks on the street.”
    â€œHow about money?”
    â€œThere was three hundred dollars in the top drawer of her desk,” Tannenbaum said. He pulled the drawer open and pointed to the small black tray inside it. “It was laying right there, right in the open.”
    Frank glanced about the room. One wall held an enormous framed painting of an island paradise where brown native people lounged happily by the river, while the one opposite it was decked with an enormous handmade quilt. There were also a few photographs. One showed a large, middle-aged woman as she posed stiffly in front of the Eiffel Tower. Frank nodded toward it. “Is that her?”
    â€œYeah,” Tannenbaum said. “Like they say, at a happier time.”
    Frank’s eyes moved from one photograph to the next. Hannah in Venice, Hannah in Rome, and finally, Hannah standing on one of the serpentine ramparts of the Great Wall of China.
    â€œShe got around, no doubt about it,” Tannenbaum said.
    â€œTraveling like that,” Frank said, “it’s expensive.”
    â€œShe made a good dollar,” Tannenbaum said. “We checked with your client on that. According to her, Hannah was pulling down over a hundred thousand a year.”
    â€œShe spent a lot of it on this place,” Frank said.
    â€œShe had a lot to spend,” Tannenbaum said quietly as he ran his fingers over the elegant oak desk. “But like they say, it don’t buy happiness.”
    â€œYou figure she wasn’t happy?”
    Tannenbaum shrugged. “Who is? Money or no money.”
    Frank stepped to the door and glanced back toward the living room. The chalk outline of Hannah Karlsberg’s body spread out before him, the single outstretched arm reaching desperately, as it seemed to him now, for some final hopeless hope.
    â€œWhat else can I do for you?” Tannenbaum asked.
    â€œHow about letters? Postcards?”
    â€œWe went bottom up on that,” Tannenbaum told him. “Unless you’re talking about recent snapshots. She had a box of those, but then just about everybody does.”
    â€œIs it still here?”
    â€œYeah,” Tannenbaum said. He walked to the closet on the right side of the room and opened it. A small wooden chest rested on an upper shelf. He took it down and handed it to Frank.
    Frank took the box and opened it. A thin scattering of glossy color photographs stared up at him.
    â€œOh, and since you’re looking for lost heirs,” Tannenbaum said, “you might be interested in this. It came in today. She left everything to the American Cancer Society.” He laughed. “You think they got any button men over there, Frank, people they send out to smoke a rich benefactor once in a while?”
    Frank said nothing. He closed the box softly and walked back into the living room. The light from the window flooded in all around him, glaring hazily in the luxuriously framed pictures and awards which she had used to decorate the rose-colored rear wall.
    â€œShe took pride in herself,” Tannenbaum said as he joined him in the living room. He glanced about randomly. “This place. The way she did that wall.