an overstuffed couch and dug out his phone and handed it to her.
She had to get the sister’s number out of a notebook in her briefcase. While she made the call McCaleb walked slowly around the apartment, taking it all in and trying to get a vibe from the place. In the dining area he stopped in front of the round wooden table with four straight-back chairs placed around it. The crime scene analysis report said that three of the chairs had numerous smears, partials and complete latent fingerprints on them – all of them belonging to the victim, Edward Gunn. The fourth chair, the one found on the north side of the table, was completely devoid of fingerprint evidence in any condition. The chair had been wiped down. Most likely, the killer had done this after handling the chair for some reason.
McCaleb checked his directions and went to the chair on the north side of the table. Careful not to touch the back of it, he hooked his hand under the seat and pulled it away from the table and over to the china cabinet. He positioned it at center and then stepped up onto the seat. He raised his arms as if placing something on top of the cabinet. The chair wobbled on its uneven legs and McCaleb instinctively reached one hand to the top edge of the china cabinet to steady himself. Before he grabbed on he realized something and stopped himself. He braced his forearm across the frame of one of the cabinet’s glass doors instead.
“Steady there, Terry.”
He looked down. Winston was standing next to him. His phone was folded closed in her hand.
“I am. So does she have the bird?”
“No, she didn’t know what I was talking about.” McCaleb raised himself on his toes and looked over the top edge of the cabinet.
“She tell you what she did take?”
“Just some clothes and some old photos of them when they were kids. She didn’t want anything else.”
McCaleb nodded. He was still looking up and down the top of the cabinet. There was a thick layer of dust on top.
“You say anything about me coming down to talk to her?”
“I forgot. I can call her back.”
“You have a flashlight, Jaye?”
She dug through her purse and then handed up a small penlight. McCaleb flicked it on and held it at a low angle to the top of the cabinet. The light made the surface dust more distinct and now he could clearly see an octagonal-shaped impression that had been left by something that had been put on top of the cabinet and the dust. The base of the owl.
He next moved the light along the edges of the top board, then turned it off and got down off the chair. He handed Jaye the penlight.
“Thanks. You might want to think about getting a print team back out here.”
“How come? The owl’s not up there, is it?”
McCaleb glanced at Rohrshak for a moment.
“Nope, it’s gone. But whoever put it up there used that chair. When it wobbled they grabbed a hold.”
He took a pen out of his pocket and reached up and tapped the front edge of the cabinet in the area where he had seen finger impressions in the dust.
“It’s pretty dusty but there might be prints.”
“What if it was whoever took the owl?”
McCaleb looked pointedly at Rohrshak when he answered.
“Same thing. There might be prints.”
Rohrshak looked away.
“Can I use this again?”
Winston held up his phone.
“Go ahead.”
As Winston called for a print team, McCaleb dragged the chair into the middle of the living room, positioning it a few feet from the bloodstain. He then sat down on it and took in the room. In this position the owl would have looked down on the killer as well as the victim. Some instinct told McCaleb that this was the configuration the killer had wanted. He looked down at the bloodstain and imagined he was looking down at Edward Gunn struggling for his life and slowly losing the battle. The bucket, he thought. Everything fit but the bucket. The killer had set the stage but then couldn’t watch the play. He needed the bucket so that he wouldn’t see his victim’s face. It bothered McCaleb that it didn’t fit.
Winston came over and handed him the phone.
“There’s a crew just finishing a break-in on Kings. They’ll be here in fifteen minutes.”
“That’s lucky.”
“Very. What are you doing?”
“Just thinking. I think he sat here and watched but then couldn’t take it. He struck the victim on the head, to maybe hurry it up. Then he got the bucket and put it on so he wouldn’t have to watch.”
Winston nodded.
“Where’d the bucket come from? There was nothing in the -”
“We think it came from under the sink in the kitchen. There’s a ring, a water ring on the shelf that fits the base of the bucket. It’s on a supplemental Kurt typed up. He must’ve forgotten to put it in the book.”
McCaleb nodded and stood up.
“You’re going to wait for the print crew, right?”
“Yes, it shouldn’t be long.”
“I’m going to take a walk.”
He headed for the open door.
“I will go with you,” Rohrshak said.
McCaleb turned.
“No, Mr. Rohrshak, you need to stay here with Detective Winston. We need an independent witness to monitor what we do in the apartment.”
He glanced over Rohrshak’s shoulder at Winston. She winked, telling him she understood the phony story and what he was doing.
“Yes, Mr. Rohrshak. Please stay here, if you don’t mind.”
Rohrshak shrugged his shoulders again and raised his hands.
McCaleb went down the stairs to the enclosed courtyard in the center of the apartment building. He turned in a complete circle and his eyes traveled up to the line of the flat roof. He didn’t see the owl anywhere and turned and walked out through the entrance hall to the street.
Across Sweetzer was the Braxton Arms, a three-story, L -shaped apartment building with exterior walkways and stairwells. McCaleb crossed and found a six-foot security gate and fence at the entrance. It was more for show than as a deterrent. He took off his windbreaker, folded it and pushed it between two of the gate’s bars. He then brought his foot up onto the gate’s handle, tested it with his weight, then hoisted himself up to the top of the gate. He dropped down on the other side and looked around to see if anyone was watching him. He was clear. He grabbed his windbreaker and headed for the stairwell.
He walked up to the third level and followed the walkway to the front of the building. His breathing was loud and labored from climbing the gate and then the stairs. When he got to the front he put his hands on the safety railing and leaned forward until he had caught his breath. He then looked across Sweetzer to the flat roof of the apartment building where Edward Gunn had lived. Again, the plastic owl wasn’t there.
McCaleb leaned his forearms down on the railing and continued to labor for breath. He listened to the cadence of his heart as it finally settled. He could feel sweat popping on his scalp. He knew it wasn’t his heart that was weak. It was his body, weakened by all the drugs he took to keep his heart strong. It frustrated him. He knew that he would never be strong, that he would spend the rest of his life listening to his heart the way a night burglar listens to creaks in the floor.
He looked down when he heard a vehicle and saw a white van with the sheriff’s seal on the driver’s door pull to a stop in front of the apartment building across the street. The print crew had arrived.
McCaleb glanced at the roof across the street once more and then turned to head back down, defeated. He suddenly stopped. There was the owl. It was perched atop a compressor for a central air-conditioning system on the roof of the L -extension of the building he was in.
