At around 9:00 a.m., the three men arrived at Claudia Wells’ apartment. Jones and Lovemarine jostled to enter first, their competitive streaks surfacing simply because neither collaborated well with others. Luca, as usual, trailed behind. The fading connection with Claudia had given him just enough resolve to tag along, though not enough to take the lead.


    The presence of dust had only grown in the past day. Where once it was the top of the hanging cabinets, now the handles were too turning gray. The lack of living within the residence was making itself visibly more apparent. The passage of time since the murder was no longer an observation reserved for the vigilant, but could now be considered plain for all those except the unattentive.


    A dismay unspeakable occurred. No scream of terror was let out, despite the emotion being there. The only reason they remained silent was that it was neither in the nature of Lovemarine nor Jones to let out any such harsh cry. The picture frame was missing. If it were possible to motivate Jones to audible anguish over the disappearance of an object, it would have happened then and there.


    As clear as day the counter lay bare. Jones and Lovemarine were frozen in shock. Almost cognizing the detail in unison, they first wondered if they had misremembered. As soon as the possible dissonant memories resolved themselves to the version of reality, they fully realized that the frame once on the counter was not a figment of their imagination. Luca was ever the oblivious character and ran into the back of Jones.


    "Someone took it," exclaimed Jones with extreme frustration. Something so key to the case was stolen right under the nose of both the detective and the private eye.


    If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.


    "Who could have took it?" where once Luca excelled now was the time for the private eye to ask a question no one in this room had an answer to. The two active minds within the room gave each other a look. No words were needed to admit to the disaster that had just befallen them.


    Lovemarine, who was now discernibly more calm than Jones, proposed an answer in the guise of a guess, but it ultimately did provide to be a very reasonable solution to the mystery, "...the killer took it."


    Jones was swayed, but not entirely convinced, "why would the killer come back to the scene of the crime when he could have taken it during the murder?"


    Lovemarine rubbed his temples, "The frame contained some sort of clue, but, perhaps the killer thought that an attentive boyfriend had laid eyes on it. If the frame was discovered missing when the body was found, then the police would have investigated this crime as a murder and not as an overdose. At the very least we would have known that someone was present the night the murder occurred."


    The two sleuths performed a thorough search of the apartment once more. With such reckless abandon they tore the place apart, only ensuring that whatever they took apart could be resemble once more. There was now no satisfaction from a cursory glance at the important details at this stage in the proceedings.. Eventually, Jones arrived to the sofa. He asked the detective if he had noticed the upside down sofa seat on the first go through. Lovemarine had a vague recollection of what he was talking about, but none of the initial search party had bothered to search. One could hardly call the piece of paper Jones discovered a clue. If not for the weird position of the paper, it meant nothing at all.


    "A jack of all trades is a master of none, but oftentimes better than a master of one," prompted by the query Lovemarine now read the paper aloud.


    Jones preferred Claudia''s version than the maxim often used by others. He was not a world expert in any one field, most people were not. A breadth of knowledge made life one''s own and not an act of moving between dependences to survive the day. The private eye wondered what had caused her to write this. All he could imagine was that a life obsessed with work had taken already taken a toll on the hope of a future with a breadth of experiences. Jones'' deliberation of the saying provided him the necessary calm to not rip the apartment completely apart.