by JE Gurley
“Take my car, go home and get some sleep,” I said. “I’ll grab a taxi later. I want to check out the roof again. Something about it didn’t feel right and I doubt the uniform scoured it as thoroughly as he should have.”
“I’m okay,” Lew objected.
I waved a hand. “Sure you are. Your eyes are as red as a traffic light. Get some shut eye.”
“Yours are pretty blood-shot and those dark circles under your eyes don’t make you any handsomer,” Lew shot back.
I picked up my coffee cup and drained it. “I run on caffeine. Go on. We can pick up your SUV from the office tomorrow. My turn to pay.” I plopped down a few bills to cover the check with a generous tip for the waitress.
Lew relented and dropped me off at the crime scene. Forensics had gone home but the ubiquitous yellow crime tape still festooned the sidewalk. A single bored uniformed officer guarded the entrance.
“What are you looking for, Tack?” Lew asked as he leaned out the driver side window.
“I don’t know. I just want to look around some more. I can’t sleep anyway. My mind’s churning.”
“Need any help?” he asked around the hand trying to stifle a yawn.
“Go to bed. No reason for both of us to be cranky tomorrow morning.”
I watched Lew drive off and then approached the officer. He tipped his hat as I walked up. “Morning, Detective,” he said a little too cheerfully for me, considering my foul mood. “A late night or early morning?”
I walked by him without speaking and trudged up the five flights to the roof. As I climbed, I wondered where the Academy was coming up with these kids. He looked about eighteen, hardly old enough to shave, much less carry a gun. He should be out trying to get in some cheerleader’s pants in his parents’ garage or downing beers in the alley with his friends, not putting his life on the line everyday for people who didn’t give a shit.
I was puffing by the time I reached the last landing and heaved myself out onto the roof. I coughed a few times to clear my lungs and breathe in some cool night air. It tasted of tar and smog. I had given up cigarettes a year ago but my lungs were still full of crap. I guess I needed more exercise, but just when I might manage time for the gym, I didn’t know. I located the spot on the roof above the Stewart girl’s apartment and walked around, staying as far from the roof’s edge as I could. I don’t like heights. The gibbous moon provided a little illumination, but I used my flashlight in the shadowed corners. I found no marks above the window or along the concrete ledge, no indication that our guy had used a rope for climbing. There wasn’t anything to secure a rope to on this side of the building anyway. The chimneys and aerials were on the opposite side of the roof.
As I stood there thinking, a light winked out in an apartment across the street, someone else up late. My attention wandered to that roof one story higher than the one on which I stood. It was difficult to tell, but I thought I saw something light-colored on the ledge, flapping in the thin morning breeze. I knew it was probably nothing, a loose piece of paper or clothing left out to dry, but I was short on leads for three missing bodies and the captain was eating antacids like M&Ms and coming down on my ass like a drill sergeant. Besides, I had a gut feeling I should take a look.
Luckily, the building across the street had an elevator and I had to walk up only one flight of stairs to the roof. The locked roof door slowed me down for only a minute as I picked it with the lock tool kit I had liberated from a petty thief a few months earlier. It came in handy in instances like this. Out on the roof, a strange odor immediately caught my attention but it disappeared as quickly as it came. I walked to the edge of the roof overlooking the street, leaning back from the dizzying height until I got my vertigo under control. Below and across the street, the uniform was nonchalantly leaning against the alley wall smoking a cigarette, leaving the front door of the building unguarded. I shook my head.
“Slacker,” I muttered under my breath.
A strip of white cloth lay draped over the ledge a few feet away from me. I picked it up with an evidence baggy inside out over my hand to protect the strip from contamination and inspected it closely. The cloth appeared to be made of cotton with a row of little red hearts along the edge, smeared with blood. My stomach twisted, the over-easy eggs I had just eaten sliding precariously around the greasy link sausage. Chances were it belonged to the Stewart girl, though just how it had wound up across the street bewildered me. With my one and only clue in my pocket, I examined the roof more closely and spotted a couple of blood drops along with several deep fresh-looking grooves in the concrete ledge. An eerie sense of foreboding crept over me, as if someone was watching me. I reached inside my jacket and pulled out my .45 as I scanned the roofline but saw nothing but chimneys, a few aerials and the closed roof door. Still, the vague feeling of apprehension did not leave me. As I holstered my weapon and returned my attention to the ledge, I spotted a strange substance on the gravel of the roof. It looked like dark gray fish scales the size of my thumbnail.
“Damn, strange place for fish. How the hell did this get here?”
I tagged and bagged it for Munson, then leaned over the edge of the roof and yelled down. “Hey you!”
The uniform ignored me. I yelled louder and he jumped and looked around mystified unable to pinpoint my voice. This was wasting too much time. If I yelled any louder, I would wake up the entire neighborhood. I cursed under my breath as I stalked off the roof.
“Call the precinct,” I snapped at him as soon as I exited the building. “Have them wake up forensics and get them back out here to this roof.”
He looked up. “That roof? But I thought…”
“Don’t think. You’re still a rookie. Just call it in.” I was in no mood to argue.
He shrugged, pulled out his cell phone and dialed. As I watched him, I remembered my rookie days and police call boxes and shook my head. I was getting too old. I carried a cell phone in my pocket but hardly ever used it. I certainly didn’t know how to download all the apps Lew was always informing me about. He could use his cell phone to check his e-mail, text his girlfriends and surf the internet, though how me managed those tiny numbers and letters with his beefy fingers, I didn’t know. Half the time, I couldn’t dial the right number.
Munson would give me hell for the rude awakening but I didn’t care. We had failed to define the scope of our crime scene properly and had almost lost valuable evidence. I debated calling Lew but decided to let him sleep a few more hours. One of us needed some sleep. He would be pissed in the morning, but I badly needed a fresh perspective on all this. My mind was mush. I stood and looked across the street at the victim’s building and remembered what I had said about our perp having had wings. I wondered if I had been far off the mark.
****
I had assumed Munson would be livid at my calling him back out to the crime scene, an attack on his professional integrity. Instead, he was polite and circumspect. The clues I had uncovered on the roof were all we had to go on. Now, he was determined to find more. After an hour, he walked over to me as I stood well away from the edge of the roof looking out over the city. Someone had brought me a cup of coffee. I held it cupped in both hands to fight back the early morning chill. I had hardly tasted it as I mulled over the facts of the cases in my head, trying to get two and two to add up to four but fell short every time. I looked at Munson, noticed the fatigue in his face and wondered when he had last had a full night’s sleep.
“The three parallel grooves in the concrete parapet confound me,” he started. “They have the appearance of a sharp tool mark or something similar. The cotton cloth had a small piece of elastic waistband, like in women’s underwear. Judging from the curvature of the waistband, I’d say they would fit our missing girl. We found a similar pair in her lingerie drawer.” He cocked his head to one side. “The scales are a complete mystery. I’ll need a few hours to determine their origin and the blood type on the cloth, though you and I both know it will match the missing girl.�
�� He looked around the roof and shook his head. “How they got here, I can’t imagine.”
Missing girl. Already we had reduced her to a nomenclature, a thing. “She had a name,” I corrected him, “Patricia Stewart.” A few heads turned in our direction as my voice rose. “Calling her the ‘missing girl’ or ‘the victim’ might make it easier to deal with, but ‘missing’ sounds like she might turn up soon, pert, smiling and alive after going out for pizza or spending the night with her boyfriend. You and I both knew she won’t.”
Munson stared at me but said nothing. After a few moments, he nodded. “Patricia.”
The panty thing upset me. It stank of sexual overtones. Maybe it was a simple pervert going to extremes, but it didn’t quite ring true. There were too many missing pieces, too many unknowns. This case was less than a week old and already I was baffled, three dead or missing girls so far with no suspect and few clues. The newspapers were having a field day.
“Thanks partner.”
The rough voice startled me out of my contemplation. I turned to see Lew striding across the roof toward me. He looked angry but I knew it was mostly a bluff. He had a spring in his step that was not there last night. The few hours sleep had done him some good.
“Trying to solve the case all by your lonesome?” he asked.
My coffee was cold and my stomach was churning. I set the cup on the top of an air conditioner, rummaged around in my pocket until I found a loose antacid. I brushed off the fuzz and popped it in my mouth. I hoped it would loosen the knots tightening in my stomach. I pulled up my collar against the rising chill breeze. The sun was just beginning to peek out over the rooftops but none of its warmth was getting through the thick morning haze that shrouded the city’s outlines like a graveyard mist.
“Couldn’t sleep anyway,” I replied. “I thought I spotted something on this roof. I got lucky.”
He jerked his head back, mocking me. “Lucky? You sniffed it out just like you always do, Tack. What do you think? A zip line between the buildings?”
I had briefly considered something like that and dismissed it. “And then what? No blood on the stairs or in the hallway. If he had something to wrap her in, why not do it over there.” I pointed to her apartment. “No, he watched her from here. I’m sure of it, but why bring her back here.” I let my voice trail off. It was too early for idle speculation, especially crazy sounding speculation.
“It’s just a case, Tack.” Lew’s voice held a touch of sympathy. It was Lew’s way of warning me to keep my emotions out of it. Emotions fog the mind, something I had often reminded him. Trouble was I couldn’t back away from this case.
“She was someone’s daughter, Lew. She needs a champion. Damn it, they all need a champion.”
He nodded. “Gotcha, Tack, but try to get some sleep.” He wrinkled his nose. “And a shower. You smell terrible.”
I perked up remembering the odor I had smelled when I first came up on the roof. “Ammonia,” I blurted.
“What?” he looked at me in confusion at my outburst.
“Ammonia, I smelled ammonia earlier up here.”
“Like smelling salts? Why would he need …?”
I stopped him. I knew where he was going. Our perp wouldn’t need smelling salts to revive her if she was already dead. But why the ammonia odor? I walked over to Munson busy scraping concrete dust from the three parallel groves.
“I caught a strong whiff of ammonia when I walked out on the roof earlier. It’s gone now, but I’m sure it was ammonia.”
He looked at me as if I was going off the deep end. “Ammonia? Up here?” He shrugged. “We’ll check for it, but it’s a long shot. Liquid ammonia would evaporate fairly quickly in the open air.”
“Thanks Doc.” I smiled to let him know I was sorry for going off on him as I had.
I threw out my arms and yawned so hard my jaw popped. I was ready for some sleep. The morning sun made me feel like a vampire. My eyes burned and my skin crawled as if an army of cooties was using it for a parade ground. First, a long, hot shower; then, sleep.
“Come on, Lew. Give me lift home.”
Lew was still driving my car. He dropped me off at my apartment and then took the subway to the precinct to catch up on paper work. It had been so long since I had been home, my apartment looked strange as I opened the door. I was not the best housekeeper in the world, but after the neatness of Patricia Stewart’s apartment, other than the blood-splattered bathroom, mine looked like a pigsty. I vowed to do some house cleaning but suspected I wouldn’t. I liked to keep my thoughts neatly compartmentalized, but everything else, like clothes, stayed where they landed and dishes where I used them.
I loaded the percolator with coffee grounds and headed for the bedroom. I dropped my clothes on the floor as I walked down the hall and stepped into the shower. The hot water felt great on the knot in my back but I knew the hot water supply would not last long this early in the morning when the whole city was showering and heading off to work. I soaped up and quickly rinsed just as the water turned tepid. I glanced in the steamy mirror to see if I needed to shave and realized what Patricia Stewart had felt. Her assailant’s reflection had been no more than a blur, if she had seen him at all.
I shaved and finished the same time the percolator did, gurgling and hissing its readiness. I wrapped a towel around my waist and walked still dripping into the kitchen, savoring the heady aroma of fresh brewed coffee that filled the room. Even as a kid before I had taken my first sip, the aroma of coffee had intrigued me, watching my dad holding his giant mug with both hands, blowing across the lip of the mug to cool it’s steaming contents. Nothing spoke of mornings and a fresh start like a cup of coffee. I grabbed a clean cup and the pot and walked into the living room.
I sat back on the sofa and quickly downed one cup and started on a second. Coffee didn’t keep me awake but I enjoyed the taste, the stronger the better. I stifled a yawn and set the cup down unfinished. My bed was calling my name. I didn’t bother putting on anything. I just dropped the towel and climbed into bed nude and damp. The sheets were far from fresh but still felt cool and comforting against my naked body.
I didn’t sleep well. My dreams were about Patricia Stewart. She stood on a rooftop, a ghost moon illuminating her from behind. A dark shadow surrounded her like a reverse aura, draining the color from her pale cheeks. Blood covered her hair and ran dripping down her face. Her lips moved as if she was trying to tell me something, warn me. Horror filled her pleading blue eyes as she stared into mine, not simply fear, but deep soul-crushing horror, as if her attacker had stripped away all her beliefs, her faith in God and humankind. Red stained the white of her eyes, and as I watched, slowly painted them crimson. The shadow grew darker, larger, looming until all light was gone. With a final silent scream, she disappeared, leaving only darkness but even the darkness held horrors.
I awoke sweating, my heart racing as if I had just run a marathon. Why this case, out of the hundreds I had investigated over the years bothered me, I didn’t know. It just did.
Further sleep eluded me. Wearily I dressed, grabbed a quick snack of toast and jam and headed for the precinct, munching on my meager breakfast on the way, ignoring the looks of other bleary-eyed drivers as I snaked savagely in and out of traffic, transferring my anger and frustration to other cars. The city seemed different, unnaturally subdued, as if waiting for something to happen. Pedestrians walked with heads bowed, cowering, afraid to look at one another. I honked my horn at a tranced out jaywalker who had almost stepped in front of me. He glanced up, scowled at me and continued walking. I resisted the impulse to shoot him the bird.
When I arrived at the precinct, Lew was already deep into the paperwork, something I gladly left to him since I typed like a one-armed, dyslexic chimpanzee, while he was a computer whiz. The mood of the squad room was as subdued as that of the city, somber, with none of the light-hearted banter that usually filled the room. Even the telephones seemed to ring more quietly.
“Morn
in’, Lew,” I called out as I removed my jacket and draped it over my desk chair. I plopped down, loosened my tie and leaned back, my ancient wooden chair creaking ominously. My voice sounded loud, strangely out of place in the quiet room.
Lew finished whatever he was doing and looked over at me across his impeccably neat desk. Mine looked like an upturned garbage can. I tended to keep everything out where I could lay my hands on it quickly, a somewhat bizarre but, in my case, effective filing system. Lew, on the other hand, kept all his files neatly stowed in drawers or his computer, leaving his desk for a workspace. Only a picture of his mother, a phone and a pen set marred its polished surface. Mine had dust from the last war. I thought the cleaning staff purposely avoided it for fear of catching some horrible communicable disease.
“Good morning, Tack. Get any sleep?”
I mocked a yawn and smiled. “Like a kid with the colic. Find out anything?”
He nodded slowly, his face grim. I knew what was coming. “The blood on the street and on the cloth belonged to the Stewart girl.”
I had expected that. So why did the news churn my stomach? “Anything on the marks on the concrete or the odd scales?”
“Nothing on the marks, though the Doc said they weren’t made by steel, wood or anything he had seen before. The scales … well, Munson looked at me odd about them, said he needed to do some reading before he speculated further.”
Lew stared off into space as if mulling over Munson’s words.
“The ammonia,” I prompted, rolling my finger to keep him speaking.
Lew leaned back in his chair and drummed his pen on the desk, a habit he performed when excited and confused. “That was the really weird part. He found a small puddle of dried ammonia on the roof. He said it was organic waste, whatever that means, and he seemed very excited about it.”