Golden in Death (In Death 50)

“We can and will return with a warrant—and a representative of the Division of Building Standards and Codes, as this building appears to be in violation of too many of both to count.”

The door opened an inch on its security chain. A bleary eye peered out—and the sour smell of booze flooded through the crack. “Screw you,” he repeated. “Don’t have to talk to no cops.”

“Would you prefer a conversation or a few hours in the tank while the BSC reps inspect this building?”

“Not my fucking building,” he muttered, but released the chain.

In a white T-shirt that may have been clean in some forgotten past and a pair of brown pants that strained against his belly, he had the doughy look of a man who’d gone to fat but had once been big and muscular. His hair, sparse, thin, and dirty, barely covered his scalp. His eyes, bloodshot and angry, ticked from Eve to Peabody and back.

His breath was enormous.

“Fuck you want?”

“To speak to you about Dr. Kent Abner.”

“Doctors’re bullshit artists. Don’t believe in them.”

The apartment would have been called an efficiency, but there was nothing efficient about it. The screen—the source of the argument between a group of people on some sort of talk show—took up one short wall. The rest stood naked and dingy, as did the pair of windows facing the street.

The bed sort of sprawled in the middle of the room, covered with a jumble of sheets. Take-out cartons and empty bottles appeared to comprise the decor.

“Dr. Abner was murdered yesterday.”

“So the fuck what?”

“Dr. Abner was your daughter’s pediatrician and the one who filed the complaint, testified against you, which resulted in you doing two years for child abuse.”

“That fucker’s dead? Calls for a drink.”

He walked over to the bottle and glass on the table beside the bed, poured himself some cloudy brown liquid.

“Where were you at ten P.M. night before last?”

“Right here. Got nowh

ere I wanna go, nobody I wanna see.”

“So you saw and spoke to no one?”

“So the fuck what? You thinking I killed the asshole? What the fuck does that get me? System’s rigged against somebody like me ain’t got money to grease palms. Old lady took off with the kid, and good riddance there. Who the fuck needs them?”

“Yesterday morning, about nine-thirty. Where were you?”

“Right the fuck here. I got 3B bitching about roaches, and 2A screaming about seeing a damn mouse, and what does 2C do but skip out without paying the rent. Somebody’s always beating on the door, bitching about something.”

“You are in charge of building maintenance,” Peabody pointed out.

He just snorted, drank. “Place is a shithole. Always going to be a shithole. So the fuck what? People don’t like it, they can sidewalk sleep.”

“When’s the last time you saw or spoke to Dr. Abner?”

“In court when the fucker tried to make me out to be some kind of maniac because I gave that sniveling kid a few smacks. Kid’s my flesh and blood, ain’t she? I can do what I like with my own flesh and blood. But the system’s rigged, so they tossed me inside. You’re telling me somebody gave that fucker some good smacks, maybe beat him to hell for being all holier-than-thou? I say good for them.”

He poured another glass, plopped down on the nasty-looking bed in front of the arguing screen. “We done?”

“For now.”

“Don’t let the door hit you on the ass on the way out. Fucking cops,” he muttered, and drank.