Dead Giveaway

by Chloe Kendrick

  Danvers saw me walk in and held up a hand for me to wait. Great, I thought. Now I was being told what to do in my own place. It didn’t put me in a better mood. Instead of making me feel more mature to be in a nice apartment, I was feeling like I was less in control than before.

  Land finished the conversation with, “You really need to think about this carefully. This whole thing could backfire on you.”

  With that pronouncement, Danvers walked up to me. “Can I get a cup of coffee?” he asked. Great, not just less in control, but also back to my role as food server. This night was turning out to be a great success.

  I pointed to the door. “This way.” We walked down the hall in silence. I wasn’t sure if that was because he didn’t know anything about the corpse or if he didn’t want to encourage me to look into this more.

  We got to the kitchen. He looked around as I scrounged a third mug and poured a cup for him. “I like what you’ve done with this place so far,” he said, which was almost pleasant for Danvers. He accepted the mug and sipped.

  “I’ve been here a few minutes. Give me a break. What do you have on this guy?”

  Danvers took his time to sip at the coffee before responding. “The same things you do at this point. He was strangled, but we have to wait for the final report. He’s been dead a while – as in more than a month – based on the ice crystals on the body, but we’ll know more later. The coroner is putting the death in terms of years. I have someone working on the missing persons’ reports for the last five years to see if we can get a hit, but that’s going to take a while. Even if we narrow it down based on age, race and gender, we’re still talking hundreds of files. Nothing in his pockets, no tags in his clothes, no wallet. No identification whatsoever. So we’re at a dead end there. We’re going to look at the means, I guess. How did the body get from wherever to here? And then maybe then we can figure out more when we know where the body came from.”

  That was almost more than Danvers had said to me in the last month. I was more than a little surprised. He normally tried to keep me at arm’s length in an investigation. I wondered if he’d become more genial, or if I’d just worn him down. There was very little chance of him keeping me out of this case since I actually lived in the crime scene. He knew that, and I knew the same. I wondered what he’d do about that reality.

  “So what now?” I asked.

  “For the immediate future? I’m going to talk to the tenant who should have received this freezer. Then as soon as I can, I’m going to talk to the delivery service that brought this here and find out who sent this.”

  I explained that I had already tried to contact the people in 362, but no one had answered.

  Danvers pulled out a phone, explained the situation to the person on the other end, and hung up. “We’ll have a warrant in less than an hour. Then we can find out what was going on there. In the meantime, I’m going to go talk to the techs.”

  He left again without as much as asking how I was holding up.

  I busied myself by serving coffee to anyone who wanted it for the next hour. I knew that it was just a waiting game for Danvers – until he could get a warrant to look at unit 362. Since I knew I wouldn’t be allowed in the crime scene, better known as my back bedroom, I did routine things to make the time pass more quickly.

  Danvers didn’t bother to tell me when the warrant arrived, but, since two new cops without coffee showed up about 50 minutes later, I didn’t have to be an expert. They declined the coffee with a smile and walked through the apartment to find Danvers.

  Detective Danvers came out with them and left my place. I watched as they put on vests in case things got difficult at the other tenant’s apartment. Danvers’ vest fit snugly and it only reminded me what a great body he had.

  I knew that I’d never be allowed to walk down with them to the other apartment. If there was gunfire, civilians could get hurt. However, I could stick my head out of my door and watch them approach the door from my vantage point.

  They knocked, announced who they were and waited. Nothing happened – just as it had when I had gone down there. They knocked again and repeated their request. Their guns were drawn now, and they stood to either side of the door. One of the bigger men raised a leg and kicked the door open.

  The sight of the easy entry into the neighboring apartment did nothing to make me feel better about my new place. It was rather scary to know that someone who wanted into your home could get in so easily. I made a mental note to talk to my father about security. Normally I would have talked to Land about something like this, but I remember that I once entered Land’s apartment by wiggling a loose screen. So he was probably not the best choice to discuss home security with.

  I didn’t hear any noise coming from apartment 362, but several of my neighbors had stepped into the hallway and had moved down to the now broken door of that apartment. Since everyone else was doing it, I had no qualms about joining them. Several of the residents were in varying degrees of dishevel, and I looked positively well dressed in dirty jeans and a t-shirt.

  An older woman looked at me and smiled. She had skin that was almost transparent and a shock of unruly white hair so thin that I could see her scalp. I knew she was older than my grandmother, though I couldn’t put an age on her.

  “You must be the new 326. I’m Angel,” she said holding out a hand.

  I introduced myself and asked if she knew was going on down the hall. She shook her head. “First time we’ve had a raid here. It’s pretty exciting. Nothing’s going to happen though. That apartment is empty. Maybe I should suggest that the cute one come over and check out my place.” She was pointing at Danvers. I would need to remember to tell him about the offer.

  I told her that we’d talk later, and I moved closer to the broken door. A man and a woman, whom I presumed to be his wife, were talking loudly a few feet away. They seemed to be arguing about what was going on.

  “Hey, who are you? You the press? I don’t want to speak to you people,” the man said in my direction. He was probably in his mid-40s and wore a white t-shirt that had seen better days. His wife wore an old-fashioned dress that almost looked theatrical; it was that representative of the 1950s. None of my friends wore dresses these days, and certainly none of us wore gingham prints with lace – except perhaps for a costume party.

  “I’m not the press,” I said, trying to hold back my sarcasm. “I’m the new 326,” I told him, using the same words that the older woman had used.

  “Huh,” he replied. “I liked the old one better.” He turned and looked into apartment 362.

  I moved closer and was able to peer in the door. The apartment layout was similar to mine, except that the hallway came off the other side of the living room. Police officers ran from room to room, yelling “clear,” and they were right. The apartment was clear of everything. No furniture, no boxes, no tenant. Whoever had sent the freezer to this apartment had sent it to an empty apartment.

  I wasn’t sure what they’d hoped to do by delivering it to an empty apartment. If the carrier had not been able to get into the apartment, it would have sat outside until the smell became too pungent for the neighbors to stand. However, if they had gotten in, provided that the electricity worked on some level, the unit could have run indefinitely without discovery – or until the unit was rented out again. That seemed to be the better option.

  Danvers was at the door before I realized he’d seen me. “Who’s the rental agent for this place?” he asked. Obviously if this was an empty unit, the rental agent would be the logical person to find out who had rented this apartment last, though it seemed hard to me to believe that someone would go to the trouble of sending a dead body in a freezer to an apartment before making sure that the tenant still lived there.

  I motioned him back to my place where I pulled out a folder of documents and handed Danvers one with the rental agent listed at the top. He’d known full well that I would have all of this information. Danvers and Land both laughed about my o
verly enthusiastic organizational skills and my love of spreadsheets.

  “Probably no one’s going to be there now, but is there an emergency contact number for the complex? I should be able to get through to someone before morning that way.”

  I handed him another sheet of paper with all the contact information for the different types of emergencies on-site. There was no mention of finding dead bodies in someone else’s freezer, but the general number seemed appropriate. Danvers pulled out his cell phone and dialed the number. He explained to the answering service who he was and what he wanted. I was momentarily envious, because I knew that these people would get back to him quickly. I wished I had that type of power when something went wrong.

  Danvers hung up and looked at me. “We’re going to take the freezer now – just move the whole thing. This obviously wasn’t the scene of the crime, but we want to make sure that we haven’t missed anything. So we’re going to ask you not to do anything with the spare bedroom for a few days until we’re sure we have the full picture, okay?”

  I groaned. I’d just rented a crime scene. I wondered if the landlords would charge extra for that? So, in fact, I wouldn’t be finishing the apartment this weekend. I’d have an open-ended project that would be waiting on the police.

  The older man who had been in the hall earlier was at my door, looking in – not very good manners for a new neighbor. Danvers waved him into the room. “How long have you lived here?” Danvers asked without any explanation on his part. He flashed his badge to the man so fast that a speed-reader couldn’t have deciphered it.

  “Going on six years. Nice place – until tonight,” he added, staring in my direction as if I’d planned this myself.

  Danvers looked at the man. “This is not her doing at all. A freezer headed for an empty apartment got stored here by mistake since there were movers already dropping off boxes and furniture here. The freezer is what we’re interested in.”

  “What it full of guns – or drugs?” the man asked. I bet that he watched too many crime shows on television from the way that his eyes lit up when he asked. I was well past wanting to be involved in a murder investigation, especially since it happened with alarming regularity.

  “No. What can you tell me about the tenant in 362? Who was it? When did they move out?”

  “Oh geez, it was one of those guys – what do you call them – with the hats and the beards?”

  Danvers looked at me.

  “A hipster?” I guessed. I wondered exactly how he would describe me in a few years.

  “Yeah, him and his girlfriend lived there. They split up. One of them got involved with another person – someone of the same sex, if you know what I mean. You could ask my wife, she kept up with all that. After they split, then they both moved out.”

  “You got a name for them?” Danvers asked, writing all this down.

  “You can ask the wife. She talked to the girl all the time. I don’t do well with names, but I’m good with faces. Always been good with faces.”

  Danvers thanked the man and walked back to me. “That’s not a hipster in the freezer.”

  “No beard, and there’s no way that the neighbor wouldn’t have mentioned that he worked out – a lot.”

  Danvers sighed. “Yeah, I’m going to get some men working on calling a few gyms in the area to see if any regular members stopped showing up in the past few months or years. That’s one lead that we’re going to follow up for sure.”

  I gave him a smile. “Anything I can do to help?” I asked. I knew what the answer would be, but I wanted to give him a hint that I would be looking into this as well. My place, my investigation.

  “Nothing at all. Stay away from this. It’s not your problem.” Danvers stopped the men with the dollies as they maneuvered the freezer out of the apartment. As they stood there, I took another look at the label on the freezer. I made sure to note the courier, the location shipped from, and the other information. I didn’t see anything about who had sent it.

  I did notice that the 362 did not look quite as it should. Something was wrong with the numbers as they were written. I wondered if a number had been erased and rewritten or if the numbers had been altered in any way. I pulled my phone out, ostensibly to look at the time, and took a quick shot of the label. I was playing Scrabble with a friend by the time that Danvers noticed me again.

  “Got it. No looking into this.” I gave him a salute as he headed out the door.

  Chapter 2

  Land came into view about that time. He’d apparently been back in the second bedroom, watching the techs take care of the body. The smell of the body or the sight of a man slowly thawing didn’t seem to bother him. He certainly didn’t look like he was going to lose sleep over the sight – like I would tonight.

  “I called Carter and told him that you’d be in late on Monday,” he offered.

  Since Land had taken over running the second truck, Carter had worked first with him, and then with me learning the business. While he’d taken over and run the food truck on a few rare occasions, usually we watched his performance. I still didn’t trust him with a set of keys to the truck. I could be suspicious of anyone, and new people were always my first suspects. I had trusted Land from the beginning because he had practically been bequeathed to me with the truck.

  I just nodded. I knew that I would need sleep at some point. It’d take most of tomorrow to sort through the remaining things in my boxes, and now I was several hours behind my plan. I didn’t believe that I would be done in time to start work on Monday.

  Land gave me a pat on the back, which was almost a hug for him, and left. I stood there, thinking what I would do now. Part of me knew that I should go to bed, but I hadn’t made it to putting together the bedframe yet tonight. So I either had a long night of work ahead to find the tools, assemble the frame, find the sheets and make the bed – or sleep on the couch.

  I knew from the few times that I’d done it that the couch was not comfortable. It ended up hurting my back and neck whenever I crashed out there. So I found the box with my tools, and put together the full-sized bedframe. I dropped the box springs and mattress on top of it. I threw some sheets on it, and by 3 a.m. I was fast asleep.

  *

  The next day was a Sunday, and I felt rather lost. I wanted to clean the rest of the apartment, but at the same time, I was dying to know what Danvers had uncovered so far. In the end cleaning won out, because I figured he hadn’t gotten too far in the ten hours since he’d left here with a dead body in a freezer.

  While it only took 40 minutes to get the CSI results on television, I knew it would be days or weeks before the CCPD heard anything about this body. The county didn’t have its own lab, so Capital City depended wholly on state-run facilities to process their samples and evidence. It was highly likely that Danvers hadn’t even submitted the evidence yet.

  With regard to the body, I wasn’t sure if the coroner worked on Sunday or if the process would need to wait for the start of the workweek. I thought it ironic that the man’s body would rest in a temperature control area until someone was ready for the post-mortem.

  Since there would be no additional evidence to find here, I spent most of the day doing laundry, which was a new luxury for me, since I had facilities in the apartment. I finished up the work on my bedroom and had the apartment – save one room – looking about the way I wanted.

  I was now feeling restless, and I thought that perhaps Land had been rash in telling Carter that I wouldn’t be in until late. If anything, I’d be early, needing something to fill my time.

  Needless to say, hours of TV did nothing to improve my mood. Sitting on the sofa and watching crime shows didn’t take my mind off of my current situation. I thought about calling people to talk, but of course, the first topic of conversation would be what was delivered in my place last night.

  I’d just finished my first dinner in my new place and filled the dishwasher when the security door rang. At first, I looked at my phone, since
I wasn’t used to having to buzz people into my apartment, but I liked it. I felt a bit safer than on a ground floor, walk-six-paces-from-my-car-to-my-door type of unit.

  Detective Danvers responded to my request for identification. He sounded annoyed that he wouldn’t be able to sneak up on me as he had at my old place. I buzzed him in, though I toyed with the idea of letting him stew downstairs.

  I had the door open when he arrived. I hadn’t had a chance to change or clean up much. I was still wearing dusty jeans and my hair was pulled back in a haphazard ponytail. I wasn’t here to impress him so I tried to ignore the urges to fix myself for him.

  “What’s up?” I asked as he approached.

  “I had a few more questions, and I thought you could help,” he said. He strolled right on into my apartment and sat down in a recliner. I thought for a second that he was going to kick back, but then I realized that he’d chosen the chair so he wouldn’t have to sit next to me. So either I was irresistible or odorific.

  “You have a team of people working for you and instead you come to me for help. Why is that?” I asked. While it sounded somewhat sarcastic, I really wanted to know. I couldn’t imagine why my thoughts would be important. I knew that he’d relied on Land’s judgment in more than a few matters, but they had a long-standing military relationship of some sort where Land had been a superior officer. While Danvers would have denied it, he still deferred to Land at times.

  Danvers cleared his throat. On two separate occasions, I’d unofficially worked with the police to help solve a crime. In both cases, I had access to a community that the police did not. I had been an insider, where the police were the ultimate outsiders. That wasn’t the case here. I was more of an outsider than anyone I could imagine. I was new to an apartment complex, where I knew no one and had no friends. I couldn’t have identified two residents by name – even if I included myself.

  “Did your landlord tell you about this place before you moved in?” he asked.