“Was anyone in the apartment when you left?”
“I suppose there could have been,” he said, sounding dubious. “But I didn’t see or hear anyone. I must admit that my tummy kept me in the loo for quite some time and I did hear the other toilet flush at least twice before I emerged.”
“And what time was it when you think you locked the door?”
He pursed his lips in concentration. “Bang on twenty till ten. I looked at my watch because I was supposed to meet someone at ten.”
“Did the apartment seem chilly to you when you were here?”
“No, but you Americans keep your buildings so bloody hot.” The front of his open vest swung back across his scrawny bare chest. “I was quite grateful to Luna for an excuse to dress comfortably.”
“I don’t suppose you glanced into the living room?”
“Sorry, mate.”
They checked his ID, then sent him over to be fingerprinted.
“Did you notice the chill when you got here?” Hentz asked.
Sigrid nodded. “And I was wearing a coat.”
“So if they’re both telling the truth,” said Hentz, “the murder probably took place between nine-forty and eleven.”
Sigrid glanced at her watch. Almost one. By now, the hallway was nearly empty except for a small cluster of guests who lingered down by Luna DiSimone’s doorway and four uniformed police officers who were ready to turn over the lists of names they had collected.
“I think we got them all, ma’am.”
“Anyone see the victim enter the apartment?”
“Not that they said. Before we let people leave, we asked them for as many names of the other guests as they could remember,” said a veteran patrolman who seemed to have taken the initiative. “I figure you guys can cross- match and probably come up with the names of everybody that was here tonight. I also had them send the pictures they’d taken with their cell phones to the address I got from Detective Hentz.”
“Good thinking, Officer”—Sigrid leaned in to read his nameplate—“Huppert. Nice work.”
She passed the yellow legal pads over to another detective and asked him to finish talking to the remaining guests Officer Ted Huppert had seen fit to send in for extra questioning.
“If you don’t need me anymore, Lieutenant, I’m going to shove off before the snow gets too deep,” said Jarvis Vaughn.
They all glanced toward the balcony and saw that snow had indeed begun to accumulate.
“Don’t you want someone to drive you home?” she asked.
“All the way to Sheepshead Bay?” He grinned. “Thanks, but the subway’s quicker and I’m only two blocks from the station. Good seeing you again. Just sorry it couldn’t have stayed social.”
“I’ll walk with you,” said Josh Cho. “Call me, Dwight, if you or Deborah change your mind. Friends tell us it’s a comfortable couch.”
Dwight Bryant had put his arm around Deborah and Sigrid heard him say, “We’ll be fine. Right, Deb’rah?”
By which Sigrid gathered that they meant to go on staying in this apartment. For some reason she had thought that this Southern woman would be too squeamish to sleep here tonight, but the judge shrugged and said, “This building must be close to a hundred years old. I’m sure he’s not the first person to die in it.”
Knowing this would be their last chance at the apartment before it was thoroughly contaminated by the Bryants, Sigrid instructed her team to give the room a final examination.
Her dread of emotional confrontations made this next part of the job difficult for her, but knowing it could not be put off any longer, she signaled to Sam Hentz and said to Vaughn and Cho, “We’ll ride down with you.”
On the ground floor, Lieutenant Vaughn and Dr. Cho headed out into the falling snow. The elevator man on duty earlier had been relieved by the night operator, one Jani Horvath. He was big and beefy, with a snowy white walrus mustache. When Hentz asked him when he’d last seen Lundigren, the man seemed genuinely surprised. “Phil? That was
“Did you see him tonight?” they asked.
He shook his head and his mustache seemed to droop mournfully. “No. I came in early on account of the snow. The weather channel said we were gonna get at least twelve inches. I sacked out for a few hours downstairs and relieved Sidney early so he could get home before it got too deep. I heard somebody got killed, but I never thought it was Phil. Poor bastard. You coming to tell Denise?”
“Is that his wife?”
Horvath nodded. “You’ll go easy on her, right? She’s real shy. I forget what they call it—where somebody can’t stand to be around new people?”
“Social anxiety disorder?”
“Yeah, that’s what Phil called it. There was a time that he was the only one she could talk to or relax with, but then a psychiatrist bought into the building and he helped her a lot. She’s okay with people she knows good or in a crowd that’s not paying her any attention, but she still has a little trouble with new people where she has to talk or answer questions, so—”
A loud buzz from someone on the sixth floor interrupted him and he stepped back into the cage.
