Amber Massey’s last known address was a condo building situated at the corner of a major thoroughfare and a residential side street, way the hell up in White Plains. The main entrance faced the larger road, of course, but although there was a nice foyer, there was no parking out front, which suggested that wasn’t how people went in and out with boxes. I walked around the corner and found a double-door entry and a second single door farther down. The road was lined with a smattering of trees and lots of parked cars. Following typical city etiquette, double-parking would be tolerated if you were loading or unloading. Unfortunately, there were no cameras.
“We take our residents’ privacy very seriously,” the snooty property manager had told me.
Amber had moved out a year ago. The place had been cleaned and then occupied since. There was little chance of getting anything useful.
“Fuck . . .”
I crossed the street and followed the sidewalk, scanning the roofs and doorways. Halfway down, past two multilevel blocks, I found what I needed jutting from an overhang in front of a public gymnasium. I went inside and smelled sweat and pool water. There was a bulletin board in the entryway and random printed signs hanging on the painted block walls announcing changes to old policies and various upcoming events. I passed a set of bathrooms and turned left and found the front desk. The kid behind it was on the phone and I waited.
In my mind, I kept seeing those long, tapered cuts in Amber’s soft, waterlogged skin. Her face nibbled and distorted beyond recognition. The blood and bruising under her skin that had faded from red to brown to yellow. The distended blue veins that snaked through the discoloration. She looked completely inhuman.
When the call ended, I flashed my badge at the kid and was shown to a cramped, window-lined office studded in plaques and trophies where a short, balding man with forearms like Popeye and a grip to match asked what he could do for me. I said I needed the security footage from the 180-degree camera that hung over his side door.
“That’ll be at corporate,” he said. “We can’t access any of that here. For security reasons.”
“That’s fine.” I pulled one of my cards. “But we’ll need it ASAP.”
He took it and read it, as if to make sure it looked genuine.
“Do you know if it has a view of the condo across the street?” I asked.
He said he wasn’t sure and followed that with all the usual queries. What was this about? Had someone been killed? Was the neighborhood safe? I deflected with the usual responses. We’re just following up on a few lines of inquiry. No reason to be alarmed. Anything he could do would be helpful.
“Of course,” he said. He seemed a lot calmer when he realized I was more interested in the condo than his place of business. “I’ll make the call right now.”
I thanked him and took one of his cards from the corner of the desk and said I’d be in touch and showed myself out. I saw him reaching for the phone as I left. There was no telling what the corporate office would say. They didn’t have to comply, of course. They could hold out for a warrant. But in my experience, most large business are happy to hand over anything and everything, even sensitive client information, as long as it didn’t directly affect their business or anyone in their management chain.
Since I was already all the way up in White Plains, I thought I might make a pit stop at the home of Dr. C. L. More, PhD. It was another twenty or so minutes farther north still. In fact, that it was such a long drive was half the reason I hadn’t stopped by yet. The other half was that I was busy. And the third half was that I just didn’t want to.
I looked at my watch. It was just after 11 a.m. on Sunday, which I figured gave me a good shot of catching him. In my experience, most people with office jobs like to stay home and relax on Sunday mornings—if they’re not churchgoers. After months of therapy with him, I was pretty sure the good doctor wasn’t vexed by his salvation. I didn’t know his home address—and technically wasn’t supposed to—but he had a driver’s license, as people do, which meant it was very easy to find, especially since that very morning I had logged into the system to find the last known address of my victim. My fingers fumbled over some keys and oops, Dr. More’s came up as well.
It was a nice house, tucked between some trees at the end of a cul-de-sac. The neighborhood was older and had an apples-and-oranges mix of original and remodeled homes. I imagined the folks in the 1970s split-levels were older couples with grown children who had lived there from the start or bought the homes off someone who had. Dotted between were the new-money folks, younger couples with important jobs, who, if they hadn’t razed the original dwellings, had at least remodeled them all to hell. The doc’s was clearly part of the latter, although the work wasn’t recent. Early 2000s, I’d guess—back when there was too-easy money for that kind of thing. It was already showing some age, but nothing like the pair of older homes on either side. Most of the yards didn’t have fences, even in the back. There was a time it was fashionable to be neighborly.
I parked on the street and walked up the drive, which was almost completely covered in fallen leaves. It was a proper autumn day—overcast and gloomy—and the leaves rustled about with the chill breeze. I looked at the front windows. I didn’t see any lights. I walked up and rang the doorbell. I knocked. I rang the doorbell again. After a few minutes, I walked through the leaves to the shrubbery under the front windows. The Venetian blinds had been partially turned. It was impossible to see anything in the dark house without getting very close. I leaned across the prickly bushes in my cheap suit and squinted. I could feel the points poking my skin through the thin fabric.
It was dark inside. No lights and no signs of movement. There were tribal masks on the living room wall. They covered it, in fact, spaced apart on a 5×3 grid. I could see a few singles hanging around as well: next to a bookcase, in the hall, above the phone stand. There had to be a couple dozen at least, all different, some painted, some plain.
“You’re not here to trim the hedges, are you? Dressed like that?”
One of the neighbors had walked into the doc’s yard. Mid-60s, I guessed, with the appearance and demeanor of a man approaching retirement. I saw a ladder and a rake and some cans of paint in his driveway. His house needed all three.
I brushed my hands together to get the dirt off and stepped forward through the downed leaves.
“Do you know the people who live here?” I asked.
“Not well, but we watch out for each other around here. Who are you?”
I pulled my wallet from my pocket and flashed the badge.
“What is that?” He squinted and took a step closer. “NYPD? Little out of your jurisdiction.”
“Any idea where they went?” I nodded to the leaves scattered across the driveway. “Doesn’t look like anyone’s been coming or going much lately.”
“Vacation, I gathered. Can I ask what this is about?”
“Nothing much. I just wanted to talk to Dr. More about a few things.”
“Oh, Dr. More?” He seemed to relax. “He moved out a few months back. A young couple live there now. The Caldwells. Professionals, I think.”
“Why do you say that?”
“No kids,” he explained.
“I don’t suppose you know where I could find Dr. More?”
“I might still have his cell number . . .” He reached for his back pocket.
“It’s alright,” I said, turning for the car. “I have it.”
I glanced one more time at the dark house with the masks on the wall. The neighbor watched me leave.
I wasn’t back an hour before I heard it.
“Chase!” Lt. Miller called from the door of her office.
I sighed. I looked down at the open drawer. I was trying to surreptitiously pack its complete contents into a box under my desk. I moved the giant salamander claw out of the way and pushed the drawer closed with my shoe.
I wasn’t even all the way into her office before she asked, in full earshot of everyone, “Did you pay the Cormacks a visit?”
I stopped and leaned against the door frame. I didn’t want to sit down for that shit.
Miller saw my face and her head dropped. “You’re just trying to make all of this as difficult as possible, aren’t you?”
“Don’t worry. Mrs. Cormack made it clear I wasn’t welcome.”
“Nevertheless, she called Legal. They called me. I’m to advise you that you are not to speak to the Cormacks, for any reason, without counsel present.”
She didn’t say ‘or else.’ She didn’t have to.
“Do you understand?” she asked, as if she knew how stupid a question it was and was angry at me that I was making her ask it. “Not if they threaten you. Not if they invite you for tea. Not if their house is on fire. Got it?”
I nodded. “I don’t suppose it matters why I went.”
“No. It doesn’t.” She looked at me sternly. She’d just about used up all the patience she had left. “I have something else for you. Just came in.”
She moved to sit, which was my clue to follow her inside.
“You were right.” She handed me a report. “The blood from the driveway was your vic’s.”
“No offense, Lieutenant, but why is it all my evidence seems to be going to you first?”
“It’s a shame the house burned before anyone had a chance to search it.” She waited for a reaction. “Still, not a total loss. What about the victim’s last known address? Find anything?”
“Maybe. Supposed to be getting some video in. I figure it’s 50/50 whether they have anything from a year ago.”
“I’d like to see it.”
I nodded. “Sure.”
Apparently, I was being micromanaged. My boss, it seems, was my new partner.
“You said in your notes that the victim’s car had been hastily packed. Going somewhere in a hurry?”
“Seemed like it.”
“Abusive ex? She tries to get away and he finds her?”
“Bit married to the job, according to the coworkers. No one knew of any boyfriends. But maybe. There’s something odd, though.”
“Just one thing?” she joked.
“She was supposedly a doctor, but I can’t find a record of that anywhere. Not college, not medical school. Nothing.”
“Well, keep running it down.”
“Of course.”
“And I still need that injury report from a couple weeks ago—that business with your leg and all that.”
“Is that really a priority right now? I got eight bodies on the board.”
“It’s a liability thing.”
“And it’s more important to the guys upstairs that I waive my right to sue than that I find a murderer.”
“Just write the damned report.”
“Right.”
“You know, it’s funny.”
“What’s that?”
“Every time I think your goose is cooked . . .” She shook her head. “You’re lucky, Chase. Or else you’re so damned good we can’t tell the difference. Sometimes I honestly don’t know which. A dozen officers donated an afternoon to canvass that stretch of drainage from the overflow to the other side of the freeway. A dozen men and women went through that neighborhood and came away with nothing. You go for a walk and snag both the victim’s car and the crime scene, like magic.”
I turned my head as if to say “ain’t it though?”
“And then it burns to the ground.” She waited a polite moment to see if I’d add anything. I didn’t.
“Let me know when the video comes in.”
I nodded. “Will do.”
I went back to my desk and brought up the Sacchi file again. I no longer had access. I logged in as Hammond. He hadn’t bothered to change his password. I was still going through it, looking for a current location, when Lt. Miller left for the evening. It wasn’t until I heard her turn off the light and lock her office door that I realized she and I were the only ones left on the floor. I think she’d been waiting for me.
“Tell me you’re working on that report,” she said from across the room.
“Almost done,” I lied.
She fixed her purse on her shoulder and lifted her briefcase and walked out. I heard her keys jingle in the hall. I was alone. It was when I was alone, and only then, that I could very occasionally hear the muffled shouts, as if through a heavy gag.
I kicked the bottom drawer of my filing cabinet. “Shut up.”
At some point, the lights over my head shut off, leaving my computer screen and a handful of others as the only light in the long room. And of course the exit sign. It took some time, but eventually I found what I was looking for.
I heard muffled sounds from the drawer again and raised my foot to kick it. But it wasn’t shouts this time. It was laughter.