by Angus McLean
I doubted the cops had a decent case against him, but that wouldn’t stop Kennedy and Vance wanting to turn the key on him. The moment that was done, I had no doubt the investigation would stop there and it would be left to us to pick up the pieces.
No, we needed to stop the investigation into Mike dead in the water. While the cops were chasing him, they weren’t chasing the real killer. I hadn’t been kidding when I told Liam Flynn it was a helluva lot harder for PIs to investigate a homicide than it was for the proper authorities.
But that wouldn’t stop us.
Our first avenue of enquiry was going to be The Great Underwear Caper. Laugh it up, but stolen underwear are both rare and a big red flag. There’s only one reason to steal someone’s undies.
I’m no psych or profiler, but you get to know a few things over time. Seemingly minor offences like stealing undies or peeping and peering are often feeders to bigger sex crimes. If Sarah had a secret admirer or stalker, then it was quite plausible that things would have escalated.
Sarah had told Flynn that she had a creepy neighbour who used to watch her, and turned up uninvited, wanting to come in. That, coupled with the theft of her unmentionables, spelled “suspect” to me.
The question was, who was that guy?
Being a simple man, I would keep things simple and go back to the start.
‘You may want to call Evans back,’ Molly called out, swivelling her chair to face me as she hung up. I’d been so lost in my own thoughts I hadn’t even realised she was on the blower.
‘How’s that?’
‘Julie just called.’ Julie was the branch manager for an insurance company we did a lot of work for. In fact, their office was literally only a few metres from ours. ‘She’s decided that, in the best interests of maintaining Mutual Insurance’s professional integrity, they won’t be sending us more business until things are, quote “adequately resolved”, end quote.’
‘Adequate to who?’ I grunted. I hated dealing with Julie. She was like an anxious librarian; Molly was much better at handling her. ‘Us or the cops?’
‘Her, I think.’
I grunted again. ‘Give him a ring for me, would you?’ I dropped my feet off the desk and stood. ‘I’m going to the scene of the crime.’
Chapter 9
The manager of the apartment complex was a white haired guy in his late sixties, with a skinny chest and a bizarrely round belly that made him look like he was either heavily pregnant or had swallowed a helium balloon.
He had a long face with a hang dog expression he was probably born with. His name was Alf and it was a major effort for him to get up and answer the office door to me.
‘Oh,’ he said, ‘it’s you.’ He started to close the door. ‘Sorry, I can’t talk to you.’
I jammed my foot in the door. I’d never met him before, so somebody had given him a photo. ‘Hold up there, Alf. Why can’t you talk to me?’
He avoided my gaze. ‘They said I’m not supposed to talk to you. You need to go.’ He tried to close the door again.
‘Who, the cops? Was it the guy with dandruff and no chest, or the one who smokes?’
‘Him. The smoker one.’ Alf looked at me now. His blue eyes were red rimmed and moist looking. ‘They say Mike killed her.’
‘And they told you I’d come round looking for information, didn’t they?’
He nodded sombrely. ‘I can’t talk to you. I can’t believe he would do that.’
Alf was having a tough day. There was so much he couldn’t do, I didn’t know how he’d fill in the time.
‘The thing is, Alf, he didn’t do it,’ I said.
‘But they said…’
‘Yeah, I know what they said, but they’re wrong.’ I let that sink in for a second. ‘You know Mike, he’s a decent guy. There’s no way he did this.’
Alf was silent as he listened. He wasn’t trying to close the door anymore. I knew he wanted to believe me, and I knew he could help. Sometimes good people just need a nudge in the right direction.
‘She was a good girl, Alf,’ I said. My tone was soft, non-confrontational. ‘She didn’t deserve this. This is your domain, mate; you need to do the right thing and look after it, and look after your tenants too. You run this place Alf; not me, not the cops.’
He said nothing for a few moments, just stared at the floor. Then he looked up. ‘That cop threw his cigarette in the pool.’
‘Really?’ I gave him disapproving.
‘I had to scoop it out.’
I stepped it up to annoyed, and threw in a teeth-suck for good measure. ‘What a jerk.’
‘This has never happened here before, you know.’
‘That’s a good thing.’
Alf nodded some more, saying nothing. I waited. He stuck with nodding silently. We were getting nowhere fast.
‘Alf.’ I bent my neck to get eye to eye with him. ‘I know this is all horrible and stressful mate, but we need to deal with it.’ He wasn’t giving me much to work with. ‘Someone needs to step up and do the right thing.’
He blinked and licked his lips.
‘Mike deserves a shot at proving he didn’t do it, doesn’t he? Isn’t that reasonable?’
Alf was silent a long moment before he slowly nodded. ‘What do you need?’
Hallelujah. Praise the Lord and pass the sugar.
He let me into his tiny office and showed me where the access control unit was. It was painful watching him work the keyboard with two stubby fingers. It took him half a minute to log in, another three minutes for the machine to fire itself up, and a further three for him to find Mike’s access card details.
I know, because my life was disappearing before my eyes.
Every tenant of the block had an access card with a unique identifier, so it was easy to see the movements into the premises at any time. Unfortunately it wasn’t required to exit, so an unauthorised person could easily slip in as a tenant went out, and there would be no record of that.
At least on the access control system. The CCTV would hopefully be a different matter.
Alf printed me out Mike’s access record for yesterday. It showed him entering via the side gate at 06:15, which I assumed was the return from his normal 05:30 run. Nothing more until nearly six that evening, when he returned home.
I knew that fit, because he’d been down in Manukau on a job that afternoon and got stuck in traffic coming back into the city. I had been leaving when he arrived back at the office. That had been 17:30.
The next time his card had accessed the system was to come in the same side gate from the car park, at 22:51.
I asked Alf to print out Sarah’s records, and also the whole day’s records for everyone. He looked aggrieved.
‘Everything?’ he said. ‘For the whole day?’
‘Yes please, mate.’ I gave him an encouraging smile, hoping to develop the turtle into a hare. Alf sighed heavily and jabbed at the keyboard again. At this rate the keys would be claiming damages through their union.
While the printer beside the desktop whirred away I scanned the page again, but couldn’t see any anomalies.
‘You should’ve kept copies,’ I said, doing anything to lift the weight from old Alf’s broken shoulders. ‘Save yourself time.’
‘Of what?’
‘These,’ I said.
He looked up at me, confused. ‘Whaddaya mean? This is the first time I’ve printed them.’
I frowned. ‘You mean the cops haven’t checked the access control records?’
He shook his head and handed me Sarah’s printout.
‘What about the CCTV? Have they checked that?’
He shook his head again and went back to assaulting the keyboard.
I wasn’t impressed. This should have been done hours ago. It reeked of sloppy practices.
I ran an eye over Sarah’s printout. It looked like she’d come through the front gate at 10:45, 15:37, and again at 18:02. It appeared that she’d had a day off, and I was guessing she would h
ave gone for a run or to the gym at some stage in the morning or afternoon. The front gate was closest to her apartment, which was upstairs and on the opposite side of the pool from Mike’s.
Alf passed me the full day’s records, which was several pages. I slipped all the printouts into my black leather folder, deciding to go through them later. I gave him another encouraging smile and pointed him towards the CCTV system.
Alf looked at the CCTV unit with all the enthusiasm of a starlet at a Weinstein interview.
‘Do you want me to help?’ I suggested.
Alf perked up and moved aside for me. The seat was warm from his expansive posterior, and when he stood beside me in the cramped office, his baby belly nudged my shoulder. I angled away and tried to focus on the unit. No man should have to endure another man’s baby belly.
The complex had cameras in the car park and covering both gates, and they were surprisingly decent.
I isolated each camera and saved a separate file for each of them from 2100hrs until midnight. I unzipped the black folder and took out the 1T external hard drive I’d brought with me, in hopeful anticipation.
‘What’s that thing?’ Alf said, pressing harder against my shoulder.
‘Like a DVD but better,’ I said. ‘It’s my AMEX card.’ I plugged it in and began saving files.
‘Huh?’
I glanced at him. ‘You know, American Express? Don’t leave home without it?’
His shirt was straining at the buttons. The belly that was trying to escape was pale and hairy.
‘Uh-huh.’
I was pretty sure he still didn’t get it, but all I wanted to do right then was get away from that pregnant belly before it consumed me.
Finally the last file was transferred and I unplugged the hard drive, forcing Alf and his gut to move back when I stood.
‘Thanks very much, Alf,’ I said. I gave him one of my cards and told him to ring me if he thought of anything that might be helpful. I was pretty sure he wouldn’t.
Stepping out into the glorious fresh air, not a hairy belly in sight, I stopped by the pool and took in my surroundings for a minute.
It was mid-afternoon by now and the sun was up and the sky was dotted with the odd cloud. I felt the warmth on my skin. There wasn’t much happening in the complex.
There was still a guard on Mike’s apartment, but they had downgraded from an armed cop to a fat security guard who was dozing in a chair outside Mike’s door. That told me that the scene examination had finished there and the cops were just holding the apartment. What for, I didn’t know.
Turning to my right I picked out Sarah’s apartment on the upper level. I’d never been there but had seen her going in once when I was visiting Mike. The door was open and I could see movement inside.
I cut around the pool and took the stairs up. I could hear muted conversation inside Sarah’s apartment as I got closer. It made sense that the cops would be searching her apartment as well. Although it seemed unlikely, there could be what the cops and courts call “an item of evidential value” in her home.
I call them clues. It’s just easier.
Besides, Philip Marlowe never went looking for items of evidential value. In fact, Marlowe would probably gut punch you for being so fancy pants as to even use the phrase “item of evidential value”. Then he’d smoke a cigarette and have a shot of rye, and wonder at the humanity of man in this sprawling city of angels.
I stopped at the door and looked in. The door opened into the kitchen and beyond that was the living area, just like Mike’s place. The bedroom and bathroom would be around to my left. The two voices were coming from that direction. I assumed it was two cops searching the bedroom.
A large plastic storage box was on the floor by the small dining table. It was open and I could see empty exhibit bags, labels and other paraphernalia. Leaning against it was a Police-issue stab vest; obviously one of the searchers was feeling the heat.
On top of the table were a few things spread out. I could see what looked like bank statements, a few photos, an iPad and a laptop.
The voices continued, muffled grunts and chat that I couldn’t quite make out. I stopped and considered my options. I wanted to know what they were taking, and in normal circumstances I might be able to bluff my way into finding out. But considering the warning old Alf had been given about me, I doubted that would work this time.
The second option was to go covert. I could just grab the stuff and walk away, but I had no doubt I would be arrested within hours and lose my license. I opened the camera app on my phone instead, muted the phone and stepped over the threshold of the apartment. I paused. The muttering continued, so I did too.
I stood at the table and snapped away, carefully moving the documents so I could see who they were from. I snapped like a paparazzi until I had grabbed a shot of everything on the table, all the while keeping one ear out on the other men in the apartment.
I flicked the camera over to video and took a minute to do a full 360, recording everything I could see. I had no idea whether it was of any use, but it was better to have it and not need it.
That done, I tucked the phone away again and backed carefully out of the apartment. As I did so, my foot scuffed the doorstep and made a squeaking noise. The voices immediately stopped and I heard movement. I backed off a few steps and came forward again, arriving back at the door just as Vance stepped out.
He scowled when he saw me.
‘What are you doing, Crowley?’
‘More to the point, what are you doing?’ I do a good look of annoyance, and I gave him the best version. ‘I hear you’re telling people not to talk to me.’
He smirked. ‘And what of it?’
‘I’m entitled to talk to people, Vance. It kinda feels like you’re trying to blockade me.’ I cocked an eyebrow at him. ‘Have you got something to hide?’
He sneered. ‘You don’t need to talk to people about this, Crowley, you just need to hand your buddy in.’
‘For a crime he didn’t commit?’ I felt my lip curling, but I was careful not to make any admissions to him.
‘Huh. So he says, no doubt.’
‘I wouldn’t know.’ I shrugged. ‘Of course if you actually investigated it properly, like a real detective, you’d have cracked it wide open by now.’
His sneer didn’t waver. ‘Like you have, I suppose.’
I gave him a cocky grin of confirmation, which was completely based on nothing. I detected a tiny droop in his sneer.
‘You know the most important thing about ex-cops, Crowley?’ He didn’t wait for me to answer. ‘The ex.’
‘Gee, Vance, you’re sounding more and more like Kennedy every day.’ I peered at the shoulders of his jacket, and made to brush something away. ‘Is that a bit of dry scalp there?’
He slapped my hand away and scowled. ‘Whatever, clown. Why don’t you …’
‘Take a hike?’ I cut him off, giving him the big grin.
He scowled a bit more. ‘You always such…’
‘A cool cat?’ I grinned some more. ‘Probably. I forget, I tend to just live in the moment.’
‘I was gunna say …’
‘Awesome? That’s also something I’m good at.’ I could see him getting angry now, properly angry, and figured I’d probably overstayed my welcome. There are only so many juvenile interjections you can throw at one man before he slaps you.
I settled for a cocky wink-click as I shot him with my finger gun, turned, and headed for the stairs. I could feel his eyes on my back. I’d totally lied to him about cracking it wide open. I had nothing, but I hoped he’d bought it.
Chapter 10
The guy was so annoying, Vance just wanted to slap him.
Kennedy had been right; the guy was a jerk. Mind you, the crack about sounding like Kennedy had been below the belt. If anything, Kennedy was even more of a jerk than Crowley.
Vance fired up a smoke, hearing his colleague behind him. It was one of the trainee detectives, a young guy
whose name Vance kept forgetting.
‘All done, Sarge,’ he said. ‘You want me to take all this stuff down to the car?’
Vance sucked down a lungful and nodded. ‘I’ll lock up.’
He stood aside and dragged on his smoke as the trainee shuffled past, lugging the exhibit kit. He saw the complex manager, that fat old fool Alf, watching him from the door to his little office. Alf turned away and closed the door when he realised he’d been seen.
Vance took a final drag and flicked the butt over the railing. He exhaled through his nostrils, snibbed the door and closed it.
He was just heading for the stairs when his phone buzzed with an incoming text. It was the detective he’d sent to the mortuary for the post mortem, advising that there was a hold up with the PM and they wouldn’t get done until the morning.
Vance scowled, feeling his head start to throb. First Crowley and now this. The day was just getting better.
He hit ground level and was about to head for the gate when he saw Alf peering out the door at him again. The old boy spotted him and ducked back out of sight.
Vance rapped on the door. Nothing. He rapped again.
‘Mate, I know you’re in there.’
After a few seconds the door cracked open and Alf peered out. ‘Oh, officer …’ he bumbled. ‘I didn’t realise it was you, sorry …’
Vance grunted. ‘Whatever. Did Dan Crowley come and see you?’
‘Aghh … who’s that?’ Alf was not a good liar and they both knew it. Beads of sweat dotted his forehead and a vein was banging in his neck.
‘The guy that was just here,’ Vance growled. ‘Manning’s mate?’
Alf’s sweaty brow furrowed as he pretended to rack his brains.
‘Moustache? Looks like a ’70’s porn star?’
‘Oh, him. The one you mentioned earlier?’
‘Yuh.’ Vance pulled a face. ‘The one I mentioned earlier.’
Alf’s brow furrowed harder and he shook his head tentatively. ‘No, I don’t think he did …’
‘So that’s a yes, then.’ Vance gave him the dead eyes, and could see the other man wilting. ‘What’d he want?’