recesses. A steel catwalk rimmed the near side of a deep concrete chamber that was at least twenty feet square and housed the boiler itself. Steel steps led down to it. The setup reminded Dwight of the boiler room in the bowels of the old Colleton County courthouse. Parts of the original steam boiler remained, but it had been patched and added onto so many times over the last eighty years that it looked like a Rube Goldberg creation. A variety of brass, copper, plastic, and iron pipes of different diameters jutted off in random directions, and an assortment of electrical cables connected the main boiler to mysterious-looking control boxes that could have spanned an era from vacuum tubes to computer chips for all Dwight knew. He had to take his hat off to the murdered super if that man had kept this monstrosity running for the last twenty years.
He played the light over the machinery and called Deborah’s name.
No muffled cry. Just eerie silence except for a low hum from the machinery below.
The level on which he stood was neatly jammed with steel scaffolding, metal extension ladders, and a miscellany of pipes that probably came in handy for keeping the boiler working. Cartons and bins held other supplies, including a large wooden box stacked with neatly folded canvas tarps, and Dwight’s estimation of Phil Lundigren rose another notch. Too many workmen just threw their tarps in a pile. Lundigren evidently took pride in his work. This could have been a filthy cluttered space. Granted, it was not spit-polished, but the surfaces did not have a heavy layer of dust. The floor was swept clean and there were no loose bits of hardware to trip someone up.
He flashed the light behind the cartons and bins. Nothing moved.
Throughout his inspection, Horvath had hovered near the elevator. Now they were startled by the buzzer as one of the residents called for the elevator. The man seemed relieved to return to his regular duties.
Almost immediately, Dwight heard sirens out on the street and three uniformed cops barged through the basement’s outer door.
“Major Bryant?” the lead officer asked. “Lieutenant Harald sent us. She should be here in a few minutes. She said your wife’s missing from here?”
Dwight went through it again, hitting the high spots: how she would not have gone far because she was probably wearing her parka over her nightclothes, how he had found her glove by the outer door, how there was a uniformed employee here earlier who had also vanished.
“I know you’re worried, sir, but could it be that she just stepped out for a cup of coffee or something?”
The man sounded so reasonable that for the first time Dwight wondered if maybe he
“The market around on Broadway opens at six,” he said slowly. “And I think they do serve coffee.”
“There now, you see? Bet you she’s there right now. Why don’t you go look since you know what she looks like and we’ll keep searching here?”
Dwight reluctantly agreed. “I’ve covered the tool room, the boiler room, and the break room.” He gestured to each in turn. “I haven’t started on the storage area back there. Maybe you could—?”
“Yessir!”
They unclipped flashlights from their utility belts, while Dwight hurried outside and up the ramp to the sidewalk. Even though he was almost running by the time he reached the corner, his eyes searched the sidewalks for Deborah’s form. The Upper West Side was coming awake and starting another workday. Early commuters streamed past him, newspapers under their arms, cartons of coffee or tea in one hand, fare card in the other as they flowed toward the nearby subway station and down into the subterranean tunnels.
At the market, Dwight quartered the store like a birddog casting back and forth for a downed bobwhite. As he feared, Deborah was not there. Nor did he see anyone in a brown uniform.
As he returned to the apartment building, two more prowl cars pulled up with blue lights flashing to park next to the first two responders. Sigrid got out of one car, Detectives Sam Hentz and Jim Lowry emerged from the other, while three more uniformed officers joined them.
“Start at the beginning,” Sigrid said before he could thank them for coming, so once more Dwight described waking up in the empty apartment, of determining what Deborah must be wearing, of hanging over the balcony to scan the sidewalks, of seeing a man in a brown uniform help the sanitation workers load the heavy bags from this building.
“But it wasn’t the night man—Horvath—and he says he’s the only employee on duty until eight o’clock, so who the hell was it and where is he now?”
Sigrid had gotten even quieter than usual as she concentrated on his words. Now she turned to Lowry and said, “Call Sanitation. Find out where that truck is and tell them to hold it.”
“Oh, shit!” An iron band tightened around his chest as her meaning sank in and he remembered that Antoine Clarke’s body would have been set out at the curb had that porter not hunted down the missing wheeled bin.
White-faced, he described how heavy the bags had seemed and how the slender man had swung the last one back and forth until he finally got enough arc to sling it up into the maw of the truck.
He read the look that passed between the three detectives and knew they were thinking the same thing.
“Describe him again, please,” Sigrid said. “You said a hat and a brown uniform. Coveralls or jacket and slacks?”
“I didn’t look that closely,” Dwight admitted.
“But thin?”
“Yes.”
“Black? White?”
“The light was bad, but I have an impression of light skin. Certainly not real dark.”
“Any facial hair?”
