by David Gane
“Doesn’t seem like the friendliest place,” I say.
Charlie ignores me and digs through his bag. He usually has some sort of electronic device for these sorts of problems. Then I realize there’s a couple standing behind us waiting to go in, key fob in hand.
They buzz themselves in—and hold the door for us! I’m in disbelief.
We join them in the elevator and exchange awkward, forced smiles. They press the button for the sixth floor and Charlie hits eleven. The elevator hums along, the four of us standing uncomfortably beside each other until—ding—we arrive at their destination and they exit.
The doors close and Charlie immediately hits nine.
“What the hell was that ?” I ask.
“They assumed we lived here.”
“That’s what you were hoping for?”
Charlie nods. “I figured pretending to look for a key was just as good as having one.”
“But we could’ve been anybody!”
“Yeah, well, you know, it’s the usual,” Charlie says, watching the floor numbers rise to the top. “People are just dumb.”
I want to point out that most people would say they were being nice, but I don’t get the chance. We’re at our floor.
We step out into a dimly lit hallway.
I check the address Elaina gave me. “Apartment 912.”
We walk down the hall, the only sound the crunch of carpet bristles beneath our feet.
I can’t even hear a muffled TV or stereo blaring through a door. “This place is a tomb.”
“These suites must be soundproofed out the wazoo.”
I laugh at his old-man sayings.
We arrive, and I figure Mr. Lockpick will pull his magic. Instead, he knocks on the door.
I grab his hand. “What the hell are you doing?”
He uses his other hand to ring the bell.
I smack that one away too. “Are you nuts?”
“Is that a rhetorical question?”
“Seriously!” I expect someone to answer any minute.
“First of all, it’s normal to knock on a door but not to act all sketched-out about it.” He nods at the door across the hall. “You never know who’s watching.”
Fair point.
“And second,” he adds, “if anyone is home, they’ll now come to the door and we can get the hell out of Dodge.” He looks at the imaginary watch on his wrist before announcing, “Guess no one’s home.”
I exhale slowly to contain how exasperated I am.
He leans in and whispers, “Would you mind taking a step back behind me.”
“Why?”
“Because I need your big head to block the nosy neighbour’s peephole from what I’m about to do.”
I move over as Charlie reaches into his backpack, pulling out his lockpick set. “Oh, and I forgot. Take these.” He hands me a pair of surgical gloves and a hairnet.
I stare at them. “I thought you were joking.”
He shakes his head. “Clean scene, man. We don’t want even a hint that we were here.” He yanks off his baseball cap and stuffs it in his bag before snapping on the gloves and tucking his hair under fine mesh.
I pull on the gloves he’s handed me, waiting until he pops the lock and opens the door before quickly pulling off my hat and slipping on my own hairnet.
He steps to the side and waves me in. “After you.”
chapter 61
Anxious excitement bubbles up as I enter the condo. I try not to think about all the places I’ve gone into without permission since Charlie’s been around. I keep telling myself it’s not wrong, that our reasons are always to help people, but I know that it’s still breaking the law and that we’ll have to deal with the consequences if we get caught.
I also know that the thrill of it gives me a buzz.
As soon as we’re in, I feel like something’s off—I just can’t put my finger on it. The place is hardwood floors and open concept, and bright sunlight blazes through floor-to-
ceiling windows at the far end of the room, reflecting off every smooth, shiny surface.
There’s a closet in front of us and a kitchen immediately to our right. It’s a combination of wood and steel and stone, but it feels like there’s never been a meal cooked in it since it was installed.
We open drawers and cupboards and find nothing.
Charlie looks under the sink. “Well, the garbage is empty, but he seems to like his cleaning products.” He shows me a large container of wipes and enough bottled chemicals to clean away the worst possible stain.
“What are you thinking?” I ask.
He shrugs. “Maybe he’s a germaphobe.”
I continue the search, checking out the stainless steel fridge. It’s bare. Not even a magnet from a takeout joint. I look inside.
“Anything?” Charlie asks, already knowing the answer.
“Empty.”
We move around the kitchen island and its immaculate counters into the sparsely furnished living room.
Charlie looks at the brown wrap-around couch and single chair. “Pfft. Why even buy leather? All you do is slide off every time you sit.”
“You might be doing it wrong,” I kid.
He ignores me and studies the big speakers and the stereo they’re attached to. “That’s a solid system. Bet you could level this building before you blew the speakers out on that puppy.
He crosses to the glass coffee table, and I’m suddenly worried he’s going to try, but all he does is pick through several remotes before using one to click on the gigantic, eighty-inch television mounted on the wall.
The weather channel announces a warm front moving up from the Midwest.
“I was sort of expecting another channel. Maybe half-dressed people and kinky sex,” he says before shutting it off.
Nothing else decorates the room—no paintings, no shelves, no end tables, and no carpets. The only lights are the fixtures hanging from the ceiling.
“This place has just a ton of personality,” I say, letting the sarcasm show.
Charlie walks over to the wall of windows, leaning his hair-netted head against it. “This feels freaky, like the glass is going to break and you’re going to plummet to the street.”
My gut flips. “Uh. Could you maybe just step away from it, then?”
He looks back at me. “Wait, are you afraid of heights?”
“No—just falling.”
He steps away, smiling, and I know I’ll hear about this later.
He opens a door in the wall opposite the TV. “Looks like a laundry room.”
He disappears inside to look around, and I stroll down a short hall toward two closed doors. I open the one on the right.
Bathroom.
Again, nothing in the drawers or the garbage, but I do find soap and shampoo in the shower. On a hunch, I look under the sink.
“I found more cleaning supplies,” I call out.
Charlie appears at the door. “Yeah, and there’s a ton of bleach in a cupboard in the laundry room. I’m starting to think this guy’s trying to keep any evidence of himself—DNA or otherwise—to an absolute minimum.”
I give him a questioning look.
“Well, he’s got the basic cleaners, but there’s also some heavy duty acids in there too.”
“Is he murdering people here?”
Charlie shrugs. “Maybe he’s just cleaning himself after the crime.” He pauses, then looks around the shower a bit. “I don’t suppose you’ve found any tools?”
“There was a screwdriver under the bathroom sink.” I never really thought anything of it. “Why do you ask?”
“Bet all the doughnuts in the world he’s unscrewing the drain to scrub chemicals down that pipe to ensure he’s covering his tracks.”
I stare at him. “What makes
you even think these things?”
He grins at me. “Oh, I just try and figure out what it would take to outsmart someone like me.”
I shake my head, laughing. “You really do think that much of yourself, don’t you?”
Across the hall is the master bedroom. Again, the furniture is minimal. A dresser along one wall—I’m certain it’ll be empty—and a bed on the other, made smooth and flat with crisp corners.
Charlie leans over, careful not to touch the fabric, and gives the pillows a sniff. “Not a hint of B.O. Pretty sure he’s never slept here.
I look inside the closet and find nothing on the hangers, but on the shelves there’s a stack of dress shirts and slacks with the tags still on them.“He buys Italian.”
“He could get those from any high-end menswear store. Or online. What size does he wear?”
“You going to tell me you can tell his build based on his shirt size?”
“You can’t?” Charlie asks as he gets on his hands and knees and looks under the bed, opens every drawer of the dresser, checks every single hiding spot.
“There’s nothing here,” he says. “He’s probably never even lived here.”
“So we can call it quits, then?” I ask as we go back to the living room.
He pauses. “What if he really is like me?” he asks.
I realize what he’s saying.
He goes back to the laundry room while I climb up on the kitchen cupboards to look in all the nooks and crannies of the cabinets.
Nothing.
“I’ll check the bedroom closet,” Charlie says, disappearing down the hall.
I stand in the middle of the living room, trying to think like Charlie—not an easy thing to do. But if I were like him, I’d hide things in an obvious place, in plain sight.
I walk to the TV and feel along the edge where it meets the brick wall. Something catches my finger.
“I got something!”
“What is it?” he asks, rushing down the hallway.
I get a hold of it and yank it out.
In my hand is a boarding pass for Theodore Thompson on a flight from Melbourne to Toronto last September.
“Holy shit!” Charlie says.
Somewhere in the back of my head a warning bell rings. “Why printed? You put them on your phone these days.
“Who cares?” He points to the QR code at the bottom, “Those have everything: personal data, future travel plans, everything. People who don’t destroy these things are idiots.”
“So we take it to Gekas?”
Charlie shakes his head, pulling out his phone. “All we need is a picture. Let’s leave it where we found it.” He digs into his backpack and pulls out a sheet of lined paper. He lays it on the ground, sets the ticket on top and snaps a picture.
“Why’d you do that?”
“Best not to link ourselves to this place if we can help it.”
It takes me a minute to realize he means that we shouldn’t show the hardwood. Plausible deniability is always a good thing.
He hands the ticket back to me and I slide it back in place, careful to arrange it the way I found it.
“All right,” he says. “Time to go.”
chapter 62
We climb into the car.
“Gekas?” I ask.
“Two seconds,” he says, opening up an app on his phone. “Just need to strip all the EXIF data off this to cover our tracks.”
“What are you talking about?’
“Every picture has a date, location, camera info, etc. I prefer to be extra cautious.”
“Of course you do.”
“Remember the good ol’ days when our digital signatures weren’t everywhere?” he says as he pulls up his contacts.
I’m surprised to see Gekas’s name pop up. “You have her number?”
“Hey, you’re not the only one with a direct line.”
He attaches the picture to a text message and the address of the condo—no “Hello,” no “This is Charlie,” no context whatsoever—before sending it off.
It doesn’t take long before she’s calling.
Charlie answers, hitting the speaker icon so I can hear too.
“I’m assuming the two of you are together?” she asks.
I can tell already she’s not amused.
“Hi, Detective,” I say meekly.
“What is this you sent me?”
“Information.”
“Regarding what exactly?”
“Um. Your serial killer.”
There is a pause, long enough to be uncomfortable.
I break the silence. “You asked if we had heard anything—”
“Boys—”
“So we asked around—”
“I didn’t— Wait, who did you talk to?”
Charlie shakes his head, but I already know I can’t share anything about the s’kids.
“Sorry. I can’t tell you that,” I say.
“Why not?”
“Please, Detective, just listen. They gave us information and it led us to the airplane ticket—”
“They gave this to you? You have it?”
Charlie answers. “Let’s just say we saw it.”
“And this address? Is this where you saw it?”
“We thought it might be of interest to you.”
“Wait a second, did you boys commit a B&E?”
“We didn’t say that, Detective Gekas,” Charlie says.
I notice how he’s phrased that answer—even though we committed it, we never actually told her.
Plausible deniability.
She’s too flustered with us to call him out on the evasion. “You’ve corrupted a potential crime scene—?!”
“But, don’t you realize?” he interrupts, “it’s an international flight. You can track his passport. They’ll have photos of him. You’ll be able to catch him!”
“How stupidly irresponsible can you get?”
She’s pissed.
“Detective …” I struggle with what to say and end up with a lame, “we thought you’d be happy.”
“Happy ? Why would I be happy?”
“We gave you information. We helped you out—”
“Anthony, Charles. Stop talking.”
We fall silent.
“What you’ve done is act stupid and reckless. You shouldn’t have been anywhere near this.”
We stare at each other quietly. Could we have misread her so completely?
“If this screws up any chance of us catching this guy—” She sighs. “Stop pretending to be something you’re not, all right? Leave this to me. Let me catch him. Do you understand? Both of you?”
I’m speechless, but Charlie pulls the phone close.
“Look, Detective, we were just trying to help. You’re the one who came to us with all your useless dead ends. You can check the address or not. I don’t really give a rat’s ass what you do. But don’t worry,” and he’s nearly shouting now, “because we’re absolutely done doing your job for you!”
And he hangs up on her.
chapter 63
We drive home in silence.
Whatever I’d thought was going on, I was absolutely wrong. Gekas didn’t want our help. She didn’t want us anywhere near the case. And now she’s pissed at us and Charlie’s pissed at her and I feel like the shit’s been kicked out of me.
By the time we get home, however, Charlie doesn’t seem fazed at all.
He pauses inside the front door, inhaling the savoury aroma of garlic and sauces. “Ah, Chateau Shepherd.”
“Hello, gentlemen,” Dad calls from the kitchen.
“Hey, Dad!” I say, doing my best to cover my pissy mood.
It must not be enough, though, because Charlie gives me a sideways glare. He dr
ops it a split second before Dad comes to greet us. “Hey, Mr. S. Need anything from us?”
“Just an appetite.”
“I can do that,” he says. “I’m ready to feast like a king!” Charlie says as we follow Dad back to the kitchen.
“Keya will be home soon. She had a meeting after work.”
“I think we should wait,” Charlie says, hopping up on a stool at the island.
“She’ll appreciate that.” Dad’s looking at me. “You all right, son?”
Man. Parental radar never fails.
“Aw, he’s fine,” Charlie waves him off. “Just stung a bit because I kicked his ass—sorry, his butt—in some one-on-one.”
“Ah. Well, let it go, son. You can’t win all the time.”
Charlie pulls over a bowl of homemade tortilla chips that Dad’s prepared for tonight’s meal, and grabs a handful. “I’m not going to lie, Mr. S. I’m impressed that you got to see Pink Floyd when they were on tour,” he says, changing the subject.
Not obvious at all, Charlie.
But Dad seems to go for it.
“It was amazing.” Dad pulls the bowl of chips back toward himself and takes a few. “Of course, we couldn’t afford it, but we maxed the credit cards anyway. Took us forever to pay them off.”
“Wait, you made an irresponsible choice?” Charlie asks. He’s handling the conversation for both of us.
Dad shrugs. “Well, sort of. I was working for the provincial park service at the time, so I had money coming in, but we definitely had to stretch our dollars. Shared driving costs with four others and picnicked on PB & J en route.”
Charlie’s grinning, enjoying the story. “And I looked it up. They opened with “ ‘Astronomy Dominé’ ?”
Dad’s eyes light up. “Absolutely. Oh, and ‘Shine on You Crazy Diamond.’ Talk about a sound experience.”
“Was that your only ‘experience’ ?” Charlie hints.
“What? Are asking if I partook in the pot?” Dad pauses for effect. “No! Never!” he smirks. “Besides, Keya would kill me!”
This shakes me out of my head. “Dad!”