The 6th Target (Women's Murder Club 6)

Chapter 68

CONKLIN AND I WERE WORKING phone leads on the Ricci/Tyler case when Jacobi popped out to the squad room, said to us, “You two look like you need some air.”

Fifteen minutes later, just before seven p.m., we pulled up to an apartment building near Third and Townsend. Three patrol cars, two fire rigs, and the medical examiner’s van had gotten there before us.

“This is weird. I know this place,” I told Conklin. “My friend Cindy lives here.”

I tried to reach Cindy but got a busy signal on her cell. No answer on her home phone, either.

I looked for but didn’t see Cindy among the tenants standing in tight knots on the sidewalk, giving their statements to the uniforms walking among them, looking up at the brick face of the Blakely Arms and the pale curtains blowing out of windows on the fifth floor.

Cindy lived on three. My relief was sudden and short-lived. Someone had damned well died prematurely in Cindy’s building.

The doorman, a middle-aged man with a sloping forehead and frizzy gray hair springing out from his hatband, paced outside the main door. He had a fading flower-power look, as if he’d been beached by the ’60s revolution. He told us that his name was Joseph “Pinky” Boyd and that he’d been working at the Blakely Arms for three years.

“Miss Portia Fox in 5K,” he told us. “She’s the one who smelled the gas. She called down to the desk a half hour ago. Yeah,” he said, looking at his watch.

“And you called the fire department?”

“Right. They were here in about five minutes.”

“Where’s the complainant? Miss Fox.”

“She’s probably outside here. We cleared the whole fifth floor. I saw her . . . Mrs. Wolkowski. Terrible thing to see some-one dead in real life, someone you know.”

“Can you think of anyone who’d want to hurt Mrs. Wolkowski?” Conklin asked the doorman.

“Nah. She was a bit of a crank. Complained about getting the wrong mail in her box, scuff marks on the tile, stuff like that. But she was a pussycat for an old girl.”

“Mr. Boyd, were you here all day?”

“Since eight this morning.”

“You have surveillance cameras?” I asked.

“The tenants have a picture phone for when someone buzzes the bell, and that’s it.”

“What’s downstairs?”

“Laundry room, garbage, bathroom, and a door that leads out to the courtyard.”

“A locked door?” Conklin asked. “Is it alarmed?”

“Used to be alarmed,” Boyd told us. “But when they did the renovation, it was made into a common space, so the tenants got keys.”

“Right. So there’s no real security from downstairs,” I said. “Did you see anyone or anything suspicious in the building today?”

Boyd’s laugh was tinged with hysteria. “Did I see anyone suspicious? In this building? This is the first day in a month that I didn’t.”

Chapter 69

THE UNIFORMED OFFICER standing at the door to apartment 5J was a rookie — Officer Matt Hartnett, tall guy, looked a little like Jimmy Smits. Sweat beaded his upper lip, and his face was pallid under his dark eyes.

“The vic is Mrs. Irene Wolkowski,” Hartnett said, handing the log to me. “Last seen alive this morning in the laundry room around eleven. The husband isn’t home from work, and we still haven’t been able to reach him. My partner and another team are interviewing the tenants on the street.”

I nodded, signed my name and Conklin’s into the log. We ducked under the tape that was stretched across the doorway, walked into a scene already crawling with the CSU and the current ME, who was snapping pictures of the victim.

The room stunk of gas.