files.
“Nothing yet. I get the impression that he wasn’t all that comfortable with computers. Nothing’s password protected. There are some records for the building, and there are emails going back two or three years, but none of them look personal. Mostly it was business-related or tenants asking him to come change a lightbulb or do something about a leaky faucet.”
She wiped her lips and took a sip of coffee. “Mrs. Wall mentioned that their antiquated security system’s been on the fritz for the last few weeks, which is why we have no videotapes of who came and went last night. He seems to have been researching new systems and had narrowed it down to two companies. The rest of his Internet history is mostly reading the
While they ate, Hentz brought the other two up to speed on their own interview with Mrs. Wall. “That watch she ‘misplaced’ had to be worth at least fifteen thousand,” he said.
“Easily,” Sigrid agreed, looking up from a color copy of Jani Horvath’s photograph. “Run her son’s name through the system, Albee. Corey Wall. See if he’s the reason his mother keeps a lock on her bedroom door.”
Elaine Albee wiped cheese from her fingertips and made a note of the name. “Corey Wall? He the kid that hijacked the elevator this morning?”
“Sidney thinks so,” said Hentz, adding his crumpled napkin to the debris on the table. “And he seems to have crashed the party last night. Sounds like a kid with a healthy sense of entitlement. If he steals from his own parents, maybe he stuck his nose inside 6-A, too.”
Sigrid took a final swallow of what had been surprisingly good coffee and pointed to the phone number on Antoine Clarke’s file. “Invite Clarke to come speak to us tomorrow. And while you’re at it, run a check on him, too. In the meantime, Lowry, you and Albee can go talk to the people in 7-A.”
She repeated what Mrs. Wall had told them about the Rices and their anger that Lundigren had reported them for various violations of the co-op rules. “They tried to bribe him not to and then threatened to sue him for slander when he did. The board has begun the eviction process and the Rices probably blame Lundigren for their troubles.”
Lowry nodded. “The Bryants did say that Lundigren was in their apartment looking for water damage from 7-A, right?”
Albee saw where he was going with that. “You think he could have brought one of the Rices in through the service door to prove negligence and it got out of hand?”
“Except that there wasn’t any new damage,” Sigrid reminded them. “Not last night, anyhow. But ask them.”
They put their dirty napkins and coffee cups on top of the uneaten pizza crusts and Jim Lowry carried the box to a wheeled bin lined with a large plastic bag. On his way back past the locker room, he stepped inside where two bulky men sat watching television. The porter, Vlad Ruzicka, wore the building’s brown coveralls, but the other man was in his own street clothes, thick black corduroy pants and a green wool sweater.
The television was so loud that Lowry had to shout. “Horvath? Jani Horvath?”
The man nodded, stood up heavily, and joined Lowry out in the passageway. “Lieutenant Harald wants to talk to you about last night,” Lowry said.
“Wait a minute,” said Horvath. His thick white hair covered his ears and he fiddled with the hearing aid in his left ear. There was a high-pitched squeal that faded as he adjusted the volume. “My pal there keeps the TV so loud, I have to turn this thing down or it’ll blast my ear off.”
His walrus mustache was as thick and white as his hair. It flared across his top lip and drooped longer on each side of his mouth. Could use a trim, thought Lowry. “I think you’ve got mustard in your mustache.”
Horvath pulled a grease-stained rag from his pocket and vigorously rubbed it across his upper lip till all the mustard was gone. “Now what’d you say before?”
“Down there,” Lowry said, pointing to the other end of the basement as Elaine Albee rang for the service elevator. “Lieutenant Harald.”
“Going my way, sailor?” Albee said from the doorway of the service elevator. She batted her eyes flirtatiously and Lowry laughed as he joined her. There was a time when he had tried to get past the banter, wanting a personal relationship; but she had dialed it back, refusing to get involved with someone on the job. These days they were each seeing someone else and their partnership was strictly professional. Except that sometimes Elaine would look over at his farmboy face when they were winding up the paperwork on an intense case or relaxing with colleagues at the cop bar down from the station and she would find herself wondering if it had been such a wise decision.
As the door of the elevator closed and she pressed the button for the seventh floor, she was swept with such a sudden urge to turn and kiss him that it took all her willpower to keep her voice steady and her hands in her pockets, to look as if she actually gave a flying flip about how they should play the Rices when all she wanted to do was stop the elevator, stop time, and say to hell with being sensible.
When Jani Horvath reached the card table, Sigrid had his file open and invited him to sit. He parked his wide bottom on one of the metal folding chairs across from her while Hentz leaned against the wall.
They had met the night before, so without ceremony Sigrid verified his name and address, then said, “I see that you’ve been working here fourteen years?”
He smoothed the ends of his mustache and nodded. “Fifteen this June. I worked as the day man, but when they fired the night guy and hired Antoine to take his place, I asked to switch. Not as much walking back and forth to let people in, no packages to haul in and out of the elevator. Not as many tips either, of course. My wife’s gone, so the night shift’s fine. The new kid said it was okay by him. He likes the tips. Likes the nightlife, too, see? So it works out for everybody.”
“Last night you said you hadn’t seen Lundigren come up to the sixth floor.”
“No. He would’ve used the back elevator, though.”
“So when did you last see him?”
“I got here about eight. Stopped off to pick up a beer and a cheeseburger for my supper. I like to have something to eat about four in the morning. Phil came in while I was putting them in the fridge and he loaned me a Sharpie so I could write the date on it, ’cause Denise checks by every few days and tosses anything that’s been in there a week. Keeps the fridge nice. Is she gonna be okay?”
