Alafair Burke: Dead Connection

AMY DAVIS HAD LIVED IN A PREWAR WALK-UP APARTMENT ONAvenue C. This was the Lower East Side, not to be confused with SoHo, Tribeca, or some other fame-infused bastion of downtown coolness. In Alphabet City, gentrification had hit only building-by-building, block-by-block: The gamut ran from unmarked needle-exchange counters to Glamazon-infested martini bars. Davis’s building fell on the shabby end of the neighborhood’s spectrum.

McIlroy pressed one of the roughly twenty doorbells lined up at the building’s entrance. A voice blurted through a speaker under the buzzers. “Dígame.”

“Policía. Estamos aquí con respecto a asesinato.”

Ellie was able to make out a few of the words. They were the police and were here about something . Her Spanish vocabulary could use an influx of nouns.

The door was opened by a man in faded jeans, an oversized flannel shirt, and a coarse goatee. “You speak some pretty good español, man, but I’m fine with English.”

McIlroy took care of a brief introduction. The superintendent’s name was Oswaldo Lopez. His friends all called him Oz, he added, checking out Ellie as he said it. The detectives followed him up the steep, zig-zag staircase that ran through the center of the building.

“How long have you been the super here?” McIlroy asked between deep breaths, already starting to fall behind.

“Around eight months.”

“What can you tell us about Amy Davis?”

“Pays her rent. Comes and goes. Keeps to herself, at least around the building. Like everyone else. It’s that kind of place.”

“Any regular company?” Ellie asked.

“Not that I noticed. But I’m not a doorman in a white-glove high-rise, you know what I’m saying?”

Ellie knew exactly what he was saying. Oz probably responded to about half of the tenants’ complaints, based on who was most generous or persistent. He did not, however, make friends or keep tabs. It was, as he said, that kind of place .

“When can we start showing the apartment?” Oz asked.

“Sometime after we’ve put its current tenant in the ground,” McIlroy said without missing a beat.

“No disrespect, man. The owner wanted to know.”

“If Davis paid her rent, he doesn’t have anything to complain about until the end of the month. Now does he?”

“Like I said, no disrespect.”

When they reached the fifth of six floors, Oz removed a key ring from his belt and unlocked a door in the back corner of the hallway. Ellie and McIlroy entered, and Oz followed. McIlroy looked annoyed but too out of breath to express it.

“I think we’ll be fine here, Mr. Lopez,” Ellie said. “We’ll let you know when we’re finished.”

The super paused, no doubt wanting to get a first-hand view. Murder-related macabre was simply too titillating for even the most complacent people to resist.

McIlroy thanked her once the door was closed and they were alone. “My doc says I need to add more cardio into my workout routine.”

“Hey, at least you’ve got a routine.”

“That’s what he thinks,” McIlroy said, wiping a bead of perspiration from his temple. “I’m surprised you’re not wheezing a little.”

“I live on the fourth floor of a converted townhouse. I’m used to it.”

“Nice of you not to mention the fifteen years you’ve got on me and the obvious fact that you’re more fit than I ever was. But I don’t smoke.”

“Neither do I.”

“Okay,” McIlroy said after a pause. “If you say so.”

“I say so.” Ellie took her first look around Amy Davis’s apartment. “So give me some hint why I’m here. What am I going to lead you to that you couldn’t find yourself?”

“We’ll know when you find it.”

Whatever it was, the search wouldn’t take long. The apartment was an undersized studio, just a few hundred square feet. A double bed and a single nightstand were tucked into one corner. A love seat, tray table, and steamer trunk-cum-TV stand occupied the center of the room. A tiny desk was crammed into a poor excuse for a kitchen. Clothes and shoes were stuffed anywhere they fit.

The items in Davis’s wardrobe spoke to the double life led by so many city women. The modern business-casual workplace demanded tailored shirts, pencil skirts, and fitted pants – not unlike Ellie’s own charcoal gray V-neck sweater and straight-leg black pants. In her free time, though, while Ellie hung out in sweatshirts and Levi’s, Davis hoarded low-rider jeans, bohemian tops, and funky boots.

Ellie opened one of the kitchenette’s cabinets. No dishes, no pans, no food – just more clothes and shoes. Only two bowls were in sight, and they were on the floor – one filled with water, the other empty, with the word Chowhound printed on the side.

“What happened to the cat?” Ellie asked.

“Funny thing about that cat. The first time I came to the apartment, he led me right to the window by the fire escape and started meowing. Like he was telling me something.”

“So where is he now?” Ellie had never stopped to wonder what happened to animals after their people were killed.

“In the bunk room at the bureau.”

“You’re kidding.” No wonder this guy had a reputation as a maverick, Ellie thought.

“I tried taking him home with me, but my seven-pound Siamese was a little intimidated. Chowhound’s an absolute beast. The guys at the house aren’t too happy about the loads he leaves in his litterbox. The vic’s parents are supposed to pick him up tomorrow.”

McIlroy took a look around the apartment and shook his head. “I’ll never understand living in a place like this. Some people think the city begins and ends with Manhattan. On Staten Island, this girl could have bought a house and a yard for what she was paying to rent this dump.”

Ellie smiled to herself as she hit the power button to the laptop on Davis’s desk. McIlroy moved into the bathroom, out of her view.

“I quit,” Ellie called out to McIlroy as she scrolled through the recently viewed files on Amy Davis’s computer. “Smoking, I mean. I quit. Well, basically. Almost.”

“You don’t have to explain.”

Ellie heard rustling and guessed McIlroy had moved on to the medicine cabinet. “I know. But then I couldn’t ask what tipped you off.”

McIlroy chuckled. “You had a lighter in that box of junk you hauled into the division this morning. Plus you had that way of fiddling with your pen in the car, like you were jonesing for a smoke.”

“I’ll have to watch that,” she said, making a mental note. “We should take this laptop in to get a better look at the files.”

Ellie quickly rifled through the nightstand, the desk, and the kitchen cabinets doubling as dresser drawers. She inspected the printer on top of the desk, then walked to the bathroom. It wasn’t big enough for two people.

“Do you mind if I see the e-mails again? The ones between Brad and Amy.”

McIlroy handed her the printout.

“Was the original in black and white like these pages, or in color?”

“Color.”

“You’re sure?”

“Does Donald Trump need a haircut? Yeah, I’m sure.”

Ellie flipped open the top of the printer, removed each of the four cartridges of ink inside, and confirmed that three of them were bone dry.

“Those e-mails in her coat weren’t printed from here,” she said. “This is an ink-jet color printer, but she’s out of colored ink. With just a black cartridge, this is essentially a black-and-white printer.”

McIlroy took another look at the printout. Each message bore a time and date. “She said right in that last message that she was home from work.”

“I noticed that too. But that e-mail wasn’t printed here.” She held up a sheet of paper that was left resting on top of the printer. It was a receipt for a pair of shoes Amy had ordered off the Internet the day before she was killed. “See? No color.”