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“And if I’m right?” she said.
“I take a picture, we walk away, find the police.”
The art professor chewed the corner of her lip.
“You said you wanted to fight them,” I reminded her.
That pushed her over the top. She led the way to a four-story apartment building that had recently been sandblasted. She rang a bell and waited. She rang again, looked back at me, and made a “What do I do?” gesture.
An older man exited the apartment building. Barely giving us a glance, he walked away, the door closing slowly behind him.
I grabbed the door before it closed.
“I can’t be part of a break-in,” Michele said quietly, looking after the old man.
“All you’re doing is knocking on a door,” I said, and then told her what I had in mind.
She was doubtful, but went inside the building and started up the stairs. I went back up the street, counting doors—seven—and hung a left and then a quick left again into an alleyway I’d seen on the Google Maps app on Michele’s smartphone during the taxi ride over from the restaurant.
I counted rear exits and found scaffolding set up behind the seventh building. The workers appeared to be on break, so I started climbing. As I did, I noticed a Dumpster beneath the scaffolding and flower boxes behind it.
When I reached the fourth floor, I texted Michele. “Knock.”
I heard a dull rap-rap-rap coming from one of the windows. The shade was drawn. The window was shut and locked.
I checked the alley again and looked over my shoulder at the building behind me. I had the place to myself.
; I drew the Glock and used it to bust in one of the windowpanes. Reaching in, I tore down the shade and undid the latch.
Then I climbed inside, gun first.
Chapter 95
THE APARTMENT SEEMED to be a home for hoarders. I stepped in on a toolbox wedged between stacks of newspapers and magazines. A hodgepodge of broken furniture was piled along the walls. There were dozens of lidded five-gallon buckets too—stacks of them.
Rap-rap-rap.
I picked my way through the mess, threw the bolt, and opened the door.
Michele slipped in and I shut the door behind her.
“I don’t like this,” she said. “I shouldn’t be here.”
“All we need is a picture that confirms it. And then we go. But all this crap? Does it make sense? It feels like a storage unit for a slob.”
“Think of it as a supply warehouse,” Michele said. “These are materials.”
“You’re the artist,” I said, and then found the kitchen, which was tidy and uncluttered.
There were still droplets of water on the insides of glasses sitting upside down in a rack. Used very recently, probably within the last hour.
But beyond that, there was nothing on the counters or cabinets, and no pictures—no touch of home at all. For all the junk in the outer room, the mind behind this was ordered and operating in a stripped-down fashion. Whatever this place was, it was not a home.
That feeling hung with me when I returned to find Michele in the storage area with the lids off several buckets filled with metal parts, nails, and short lengths of iron rod. Seeing the contents, I became single-minded and walked down the hallway to the bedroom and the bath. I was positive we were in the right place; now we just needed to prove it.
In the bedroom I found stripped twin beds, two empty dressers, and bare walls. Except for a few hangers, the closet was also empty. And there was a bleach smell in the air. This was either the lair of someone who swept tracks or more likely someone who’d just cleared out.
