The door opened, not forebodingly at all.
“Chester Schumer?”Chadwick said, smiling pleasantly.The expression made the back of Joey’s neck tighten.“Hello, we’re from the SCTF.My colleagues and I are doing a canvass of people from your firm for some extra information on some of your clients.Do you mind if I come in?”
“We can’t do this out here?”Schumer asked, and while he kept a pleasant smile on his own face, it was the same smile Chadwick was showing.
Joey knew his assignment.Tightening his glutes and affecting an impatient bob and weave, he gave his best look of apology.“I’m sorry, man.I’ve really gotta hit the head.We’re so far away from a gas station, my only other option’s behind a tree, you know what I mean?”
“Besides,” Chadwick told him, giving a nod to Joey, “I’ll be recording your answers so my colleagues and I can compile a timeline with what they get from their interviews, and the breeze out here”—it was something, actually; there was a storm brewing this early April day—“will play havoc with the sound.”
Schumer scowled.“You’re interviewing everybody?”he said, as Joey gave an impatient little bob.
“Yessir,” Chadwick said.“It’s standard procedure.Your coworkers will report the same thing.”And oh, hadn’t Chadwick been smart about that.Joey had thought it was a stupid precaution, doing all the interviews at the same time, but immediately their boy’s shoulders relaxed, and Schumer seemed to relent.
“I did not know that,” he said with dignity.He had a good voice, Joey thought.Joey had expected it to be high and squeaky, but it was low and cultured and mellifluous.Schumer probably got lots of people to trust him as a stockbroker on his voice alone, but Joey’s entire alert system was suddenly on high.The back of his neck, his thighs—his sphincter was so tight he’d be squirting diamonds for a week.
Chadwick didn’t wait for the rest of the invitation.He took a step forward and Schumer gave way.Joey followed him into a cavernous foyer with a staircase to the right and what seemed to be a sitting room to the left.
“I hate to impose,” Joey began, and Schumer gave him a disgusted look and gestured curtly up the staircase.
“Top of the landing, third door to the right.”
“Cannot thank you enough,” Joey said and practically hurtled up the stairs.
For one thing, he really did have to pee, but he made short work of that and took his time flushing and running water afterward.While the water ran, he put on gloves and gave the three closed doors in the hallway a try.
The locked one got his immediate attention.
For one thing, it was back-to-back with the bathroom in a way that indicated it also had plumbing.For another, while the other two doors hid a master suite and a guest bedroom and opened easily, showing off rooms done in cream, beige, and ecru, with wood accents, this one was, well,locked.
And while part of Joey wanted to toss Schumer’s bedroom and look to see if there was anything in the drawers, Joey had never been one to let a locked door keep him out.
He kept his lockpicks with him always.He’d mentioned to Gail Pearson, who had helped him check out his weapons and tactical gear, that he had a set, and she told him to consider them like a drop piece or an extra knife, so he didn’t mention the 3-inch Schrade blade tucked against his back or the .38 Berretta in his ankle holster either.
Now the picks fit against his fingertips like they’d been missing all along, and he did that carefully orchestrated fiddling dance, thinking, “How long can I wash my—”
Plink.And he was in.
He swung the door open, expecting to do a quick assessment of a dark room or a closet, and then he gasped.
The SCTF had an up-to-date situation room, in which everybody had iPads hooked up to a projection screen, and a “murder board” or bullet-point list of the team’s reasoning could be called up on a moment’s notice.There were even, in the background, whiteboards, and Joey was sure that they’d gotten hard use before electronics had come along to render them obsolete.
This place had whiteboards, with the victims’ pictures mounted on them, almost like a legitimate murder board, because these were pictures of bodies.
And Joey’s blood ran cold as he scanned each picture, because he knew that his entire doubt about this case had stemmed from the fact that the police hadn’t seen a single drop of blood.
And according to the 8x10 glossies affixed to the whiteboards with magnets, there had been considerable blood—all of it from a small wound at the base of the jugular.
A narrow knife?Astiletto?Oh my God.Oh myGod.The pale balding man with the big wet eyes and the baritone voice was exactly what Harding and Chadwick had pegged him as and….
And Joey had left his partnerdownstairs with a serial killer.
Oh God.Chadwick, with his love of musical theater, who had slept on his couch and made sure he’d landed in his apartment and had set asidethis caseto make sure Joey had been welcomed to the unit as a whole and….
Joey left the water running in the bathroom and the door open to the murder room and bolted down the stairs.
To his horror, he could hear his own footsteps above the beating of his heart.
Teething
