by R. L. Akers
Gray nodded, not really surprised. Though... "It took them fifteen minutes to tell you that?"
Mack looked slightly abashed. "Well, no. I got a personal call right after I hung up with them."
It was Gray's turn to shake his head in amusement. He turned to the landlord. "Mr. Saunders, thank you for your time and assistance today." He checked his watch. "Our people should be done with your elevator by now, so you'll need to get it cleaned up before unlocking it for use again." Gray began ripping a blank sheet from his pocket notebook.
Saunders' eyes widened. "You mean... I have to clean the elevator?"
Gray smiled. "You certainly can, but I recommend hiring a company that specializes in crime scene cleaning. Here—" He scribbled a name and number on the piece of paper, handing it over. "That's a biohazard cleaning company. You can find others in the yellow pages."
"Um, thanks," the landlord said weakly.
The two NYPD detectives exited the stairwell into the first floor hallway, down which they walked, passing three apartment doors and then turning a corner to enter the lobby.
At least, that's what the Harkley Building's landlord had called it. "Lobby" was a bit generous, in Gray's opinion, as was bestowing such an impressive-sounding name upon an aging low-rise apartment building like this one. But at least Saunders was trying. The small "lobby" had enough room for a minimalist sofa and end tables with potted plants, and judging by what Gray had seen of the landlord's model apartment/office, Harkley was nicer than average for buildings its age in this area of the city.
He and Mack stepped to the side, leaning over the sofa to make room for a mother and child coming through the front door. When the woman pressed the elevator call button, Gray cleared his throat helpfully. "Uh, sorry, ma'am. Elevator's out at the moment." The woman acknowledged this with a sigh, then dragged her son around the corner towards the stairwell.
Gray turned back towards Mack and froze.
Mack had the front door open, was politely holding it open for him. At least, Gray assumed it was Mack; so blinding was the light streaming in from outside, he could barely distinguish his partner.
Gray cursed himself inwardly. Of course it would be bright out by now—it was well after ten in the morning!
"Come on, man, let's go," Mack called.
Gray remained rooted in place, unsure what to say. All he knew was that he couldn't step out that door. He didn't have what he needed in order to do so safely, certainly not in the company of another NYPD detective.
Mack came back through the door, and once it closed behind him, Gray could make out an exasperated look on his partner's face. "You look like you've seen a ghost, man." Mack cocked his head. "Actually, you look a bit like a ghost yourself—when was the last time you got some sun, anyway? Did you step outside your apartment even once in the last month?"
Gray's eyes narrowed, and he felt a surge of anger. "You mean other than going to my wife's funeral?"
His partner blanched. "I—right. Um..."
Gray sighed in frustration, feeling his anger swing just as swiftly back onto himself. "Sorry, Mack. You don't deserve that." He seated himself on the edge of the small sofa and took a deep breath, let it out. "No, I've not gotten out much."
The other detective settled onto the sofa beside him. "Are you sure you're ready to come back?" he asked in a soft voice.
"Yes," Gray replied hurriedly. "I need to be on the job." He thought quickly. "It keeps my mind off... what happened." That was at least partly true; working this case today had indeed kept him distracted from the deep ache in his chest. The larger truth was that he needed this job if he was ever to make sense of the tragedy that had befallen him—that catastrophic moment when Rose was ripped away from him.
"I..." Mack paused, obviously searching for words. "I guess that means you don't want to talk about it?"
"No."
"Okay." Gray's partner seemed relieved to hear that. He glanced at his watch. "Let's get back to the office. Did you drive here?"
Gray had opened his mouth to protest, but he stopped. "Took the subway, then walked."
"Okay, you can ride with me. Let's wrap up the paperwork and go out for lunch. My treat. Kinduva welcome back, ya know?"
Gray smiled. He glanced toward the window set in the front door, but averted his eyes immediately when the glare sent a shooting pain through his head. "Thanks, but... I'd like to stick around here, go ahead and canvass the other tenants."
Mack looked at him with confusion. "Um... why? We have a confession. We saw the murder happen."
"Yes, but..." Gray cast around for something, anything—a plausible reason for staying in this building and out of that blinding light. "Tapes can be faked."
The husky detective measured Gray for a long moment, obviously trying to decide whether he was joking.
"There's a reason this kind of thing is inadmissible in court, you know that," Gray tried.
"Yes, thank you, I do know that," Mack said caustically. "Gray, the guy confessed. The camera footage is irrelevant."
Gray fished out his USB thumb drive and threaded it off the key ring, then handed it to Mack. "Have Bobbi take a look at that. See if there's any evidence of tampering." He managed to say it with a straight face, but inside, Gray felt terrible. He was, in essence, lying to his partner, not to mention wasting department resources—both his own time and that of Bobbi Falmer, one of the precinct's resident geeks. The truth was that Gray had no more doubt about Chan's guilt than Mack did. He wouldn't have even asked the landlord for the security footage if he'd known Chan already confessed.
"Don't do this, man," Mack said quietly.
Gray's forehead crinkled. "Don't do what?"
"You're a good detective, Gray. You're careful, methodical... but there's such a thing as too careful." Mack shook his head. "I hate to say this yet again, and on your first day back of all days, but... Gray, you and I have the worst case closure rate in the precinct. I managed to catch up some while you were out, but..." He trailed off, then concluded bluntly: "Some cases deserve more digging, but this isn't one of them."
"Don't you at least want to know why this guy up and killed his neighbors?" Gray asked, finally hitting upon a reason for further investigation that sounded plausible in his own head. "Saunders told me Chan and the Howells lived next door to each another since before he owned the building, and he insists they were always friendly. What changed?"
"The guy had a psychotic break. What more do you want? If there is a reason, I'm sure it's all in the confession."
"Just give me ‘til the end of the day," Gray pressed. "If I don't turn up anything, that's that."
Mack threw his hands up. "Whatever," he said, standing abruptly.
"And if you don't mind..." Gray added, as the thought occurred to him, "could you call in a search warrant for me? On Chan's apartment?" The older detective stared at Gray. "You know," Gray kept talking, "just in case I want to search for anything the uniforms might have missed."
Mack pursed his lips in obvious dissatisfaction, shaking his head. "Whatever," he repeated finally, turning and pushing out the front door without another word.
On his climb back up to the sixth floor, Gray accessed the NYPD database from his smartphone; if he was going to waste department resources by sticking around here, he might as well be convincing about it. The transcript of Chan's confession had not yet been uploaded, but he had plenty of time to skim the first responder's report, then peruse the statement from the eyewitness who'd seen Chan running from the elevator. There wasn't much there, and certainly nothing that Mack hadn't already told him, but at least Gray discovered the name of the witness living in 601 before he knocked on her door.
"Vanessa Watkins?" he asked when the door opened a crack, stopped by the short chain.
"Yes?"
"I'm Detective Gaynes with the NYPD." He positioned his shield and ID where she could see them clearly through the crack. "May I ask a few more questions about your neighbors, and about wh
at happened earlier today?"
There was a moment of silence, then she shut the door, disengaged the chain, and reopened it fully. Gray's first good look at Vanessa Watkins left him momentarily speechless; she was gorgeous, and his sudden proximity to her left him a little short of breath. He was immediately furious with himself for having such a reaction, and in the next instant, all of the pain and loss and horror of Rose's death crashed back over him once more.
"Uh, Detective?"
Blinking back the sudden moisture in his eyes, Gray cleared his throat, then pulled his notebook from his pocket to buy a few more seconds. When his eyes finally returned to her face again, he saw more than he'd seen before. She was beautiful, yes, in her mid-to-late twenties—not much younger than Gray himself—but she was also a wreck. She'd seen something this morning that no human being should ever have to see.
They stood there awkwardly for another long moment before she gave a little start. "Um, sorry. I— Do you want to come in?"
"Yeah. Uh, sure. Thank you."
Gray followed her into the unit, which looked much the same as the landlord's model unit, though the furnishings were very different and it was considerably more cluttered. Glancing curiously through open doors as he passed, Gray guessed that—like the model unit—this one was no more than six hundred square feet. He sat where she indicated, in one of two chairs at her small kitchenette table, waving away her offer of water or coffee.
She took the chair opposite him, eyes distant. "I... Actually, it's nice having someone else here." She searched for words. "There was all that noise in the hall all morning... the police, people taking pictures, then... it got quiet all of a sudden. And I realized I was all alone here." She met his eyes, looking very vulnerable.
It took a moment, but Gray caught her meaning. This building had three apartments per floor; with the Howells dead and Barton Chan in custody, Vanessa was the only tenant left on the sixth floor.
No. Gray shook his head mentally. Watkins, or Miss Watkins. Not Vanessa.
"Your neighbors were usually home?" he asked.
She nodded, looking away again. "Mr. and Mrs. Howell were wonderful people. They were in 603, two doors down. Retired, obviously, so they almost never left. But Barton too, right next door—he was always home."
"Oh?" Gray asked. "He worked from home?"
She shook her head this time. "No. At least, I don't think he had any sort of paying job. He was on social security."
"Really." Gray scribbled a note. "Any idea what for?"
"He..." She tensed up noticeably. "He used to be sick. Like... mentally sick. He was in a hospital for years, but he got better with treatment. This was all before I knew him, of course. I only just moved in last year." She shook her head confidently. "He never seemed kooky to me. He was just a normal guy, very nice."
"And how did you learn about his history? Did he tell you?"
"Some of it," she nodded. "Mr. and Mrs. Howell shared some too."
"They were friends then? The Howells and Barton Chan?"
Watkins' face scrunched up with sudden emotion. "We're all friends. Or—" She looked away, her eyes revealing both frustration and pain. Gray knew she'd been about to correct herself, to make her statement past tense.
"So the Howells knew Mr. Chan before you came along, obviously," he said, keeping his tone gentle but business-like.
"Oh, they'd known him all his life. Barton's parents raised him in 602, back in the 50s or 60s, I guess. They were here first, and then the Howells came later. Maybe in the 60s sometime? I don't know. They were here forever."
"But Mr. Chan—Barton—moved away at some point; you said he'd been... hospitalized for a while. Do you know when he returned?"
"No, not really. But I know Mr. and Mrs. Howell were thrilled when he came back. They were close with his parents, and all of their kids moved out of state, so Barton was like a son to them. That's what they told me, at least." She swallowed hard, and Gray could tell she was fighting emotion. "They loved him so much."
"Miss Watkins," Gray said softly. "I'm sorry to have to ask you this, but... Do you know of any reason why Barton Chan would want to hurt the Howells?"
She shook her head emphatically but did not speak, her eyes focused resolutely on a point beside Gray. Tears began spilling down her cheeks.
Gray glanced around, located a box of tissues, and retrieved it for her. "Do you know of Mr. Chan ever trying to hurt the Howells before now?"
She shook her head again, blotting her eyes with tissue.
"Was there anything unusual about Mr. Chan's behavior recently?"
Watkins paused. She cleared her throat. "Well, yes. A little."
"How so?"
"He... When I saw him lately, he was always dragging. He looked exhausted—told me he hadn't been sleeping well."
"Did he give you any more detail than that?"
"No, but... A few times I heard him screaming in the night."
Gray sat up a bit. "Screaming? Do you know why?"
"The first time, I pounded on his door. I thought maybe I should call the cops, but he came out and apologized. Said it was just a nightmare." She swallowed hard again. "He looked terrible."
"But this happened other times also," Gray said, making notes.
She nodded. "Just three times in all, I think."
"And these screaming fits, they would wake you from your own sleep?"
"No, the only times it happened was when I was coming home late, around midnight." She saw his questioning look. "I'm a nurse."
"Do you often work the late shift?"
"I usually work seven-A to seven-P," she replied, "but I pick up an extra four hours every week or two. Those days, I get off around eleven p.m." She paused. "But yeah... if I'd been asleep when he started screaming like that, it definitely would've woke me up. Even if our bedrooms didn't share a wall... He was loud." She looked stricken as she said this.
Gray felt a resurgence of his feelings of guilt for dragging the investigation out like this; there was no good reason for him to make this even more painful for Vanessa Watkins than it already was. He wracked his brain for a fresh line of questioning. "What do you think of your landlord?" He felt like an idiot as soon as he said it.
Watkins didn't seem to mind; in fact, her expression brightened. "Mr. Saunders? Best landlord I've ever had."
"Really?" Gray said, a mirroring smile coming to his own face.
"He takes a lot of pride in the Harkley Building. Keeps the place clean and safe, and he's pretty quick about repairs." She shrugged. "Plus he's just nice. Nothing worse than a foul-mouthed landlord that collects rent with a baseball bat in hand, you know?"
Unfortunately, Gray did know, all too well.
A memory occurred to him, from his first conversation with Robert Saunders that morning, just outside the elevator, down the hall from here. Before Chan had confessed and before Gray had seen the surveillance footage, he'd asked the landlord if he could think of anyone else with motive for hurting the Howells. There had seemed to be just the slightest hesitation when he responded in the negative. Then later, Saunders had hesitated again when Gray asked for copies of the building's surveillance footage.
"Miss Watkins," Gray said thoughtfully, "Do you know of anything Mr. Saunders might wish to hide?"
The young woman almost visibly recoiled from the question.
Gray cursed himself. "Wow, I'm sorry—that came out all wrong. Please, Mr. Saunders is a very nice man. My question doesn't have anything to do with... what happened this morning. It's more just curiosity on my part."
Watkins relaxed, not fully, but a little. "Why would you be curious if he has something to hide?"
Gray smiled in what he hoped was a disarming fashion. "Well, when it comes to curiosity, I'm curious about pretty much everything. That's why investigative work appeals to me. I like digging out the truth, whether or not it has anything to do with a crime."
She smiled back just a little, relaxing the rest of the way. "Bu
t what makes you think he has anything to hide?"
"Oh, nothing." Gray waved a hand. "I shouldn't have mentioned it. Sorry."
Vanessa Watkins kept her eyes fixed on his. "Well, there is one thing. Something he definitely tries to hide."
Gray paused. "Oh?"
"Yeah. The Harkley Building, it's... well, it's haunted." Watkins tried to say it with a straight face, but she failed miserably. After what she'd been through, this young woman desperately needed an excuse to smile, and her grin grew broad.
"Oh really?" Gray said.
She nodded, her smile fading all too quickly. "Actually, yes. Some of the tenants think so, at least, and it drives Mr. Saunders crazy. I know at least one lady moved out because of weird stuff happening; that was right after I'd moved in, so I asked him about it. He kept reassuring me it was nothing, but he was obviously afraid I would move out too." She shrugged. "I'm not a landlord or anything, but surely it can't be a good thing for you if your building develops a reputation for being haunted, right? If I were him, I'd definitely want to hide that."
"So you don't think it's haunted..." Gray prompted.
"Oh, heck no. I don't believe in that kind of thing."
"Does Mr. Saunders?"
"No, I doubt it. He seems too reasonable for that."
"But other people in the building do."
"Definitely."
"That's... very interesting." Gray said, smiling again at the young woman.
Back out in the hallway half an hour later, Gray Gaynes made his way to the stairwell. In light of this new information about Chan's history of mental illness, he definitely wanted to take a walk through the man's unit for himself. The uniforms who'd arrested Chan had been in his apartment earlier, of course, but there'd been nothing to search for, no real need to investigate at the time. Now, though, Gray wanted to learn more about the man, and the text he'd just received from Mack confirmed that a judge had signed the search warrant. Robert Saunders would, of course, have to let Gray into the unit, so the landlord's second floor office was his next stop. Besides, he wanted to ask him more about this alleged haunting of the building.