and come down to open either the lobby door or this one. So he’s done something with Deborah and he has to be hiding here somewhere.”
“You said you found one of her gloves by the outer door,” said Sigrid. “If she stuck it in the door to keep it from locking, maybe she did the same on that door. If so, Jackson could be anywhere in the building. Or he could have been waiting around the corner of the lobby till Horvath left and then walked out the front door.”
Nevertheless, she sent the troops up on the service elevator to search the stairwell and the hallways. After giving them a description of Sidney Jackson, one man was put on the lobby door and another positioned at the outer door just in case he was still in the building.
Frustrated and unable to stand around doing nothing, Dwight had combed through the storage area himself, shining the flashlight from ceiling to floor, looking behind anything bigger than a wastebasket that wasn’t locked in one of the cages.
As he passed by Hentz and Sigrid on his way to check out the front part of the basement again, he saw that Sigrid had her phone pressed to her ear again.
“They find the truck?” he asked.
Sigrid shook her head and stepped away to finish listening to what Jim Lowry had to report. No way was she going to tell Dwight Bryant that the truck had been found and that it carried a bag containing Corey Wall’s body.
“I cut it open so that I didn’t disturb the knot,” Lowry said. “Looks like the poor kid was smashed on the head just like Lundigren. Probably happened around the time he went missing. No rigor anyhow. I’ve called for the crime scene unit, but we’ve gone down another layer of bags below that one and I’m pretty sure it’s nothing but garbage.”
“Good work, Lowry,” she said. “Keep me informed.”
In a low voice, she told Sam Hentz what Lowry had found, but before he could comment, they heard Dwight call to them from the service elevator.
“Look here,” he said and turned back one of the quilted plastic pads that hung from a series of hooks along the top edge of the elevator wall to protect the walls from getting banged by heavy furniture deliveries. “I noticed that one of the grommets wasn’t on its hook, and when I reached up to put it back, the first one slid off and—well, look for yourselves.”
He turned back the loosened pad and they saw a large blood spatter across the width of the pad.
Hentz stepped into the car and lifted the rear pad. More blood. Fairly fresh, too. None on the wall, though, which meant that someone had reversed the pads.
The floor of the elevator was fairly clean, but Dwight pointed his flash to the side wall where it joined the floor. “That grunge in the crack look like blood to y’all?”
“Call for a crime scene crew,” she told Hentz, “and let’s secure this elevator till they get here.”
Dwight immediately brought over a chair that stood against the far wall and positioned it so that the door couldn’t close.
“Major…” Sigrid began.
“You don’t need to say it,” Dwight said grimly. “I can see it’s not fresh enough to be Deborah’s blood. You reckon it’s from that kid that went missing?”
“I’m afraid so.”
“He came down to go sledding,” Dwight said slowly, piecing together the likely scenario. “And he probably saw Sidney stuffing Antoine in a bag, so Sidney had to stop him, too. Only why you reckon Sidney killed Antoine?”
“Because Clarke could put him in your apartment at the same time Lundigren was killed. He must have seen people going in and out. Clarke was in early, planning to spend the night because of the predicted snow. Jackson could have told him he needed a bathroom break or something, and while Clarke ran the elevator, Jackson probably intended to duck in and grab those gold pillboxes, thinking their loss could be blamed on Denise Lundigren or some of the party guests. Just his bad luck that Lundigren picked that time to bring back that painted cat. Jackson probably panicked, grabbed up that brass maquette, and hit him as hard as he could. God knows what he hit the Wall kid with. We’ll have the whole basement processed. They’ll turn it up if it’s here.”
As they spoke, the door to the stairwell was opened from the other side by one of the uniformed officers. “No sign of him here, Lieutenant. You want me to prop this door open?”
“Yes, please. What about the hallways?”
“That’s gonna take a little longer. People are going to work, and so far, none of them have seen this Jackson guy today. There’s a Mrs. Wall up on twelve who says she wants to speak to you.”
Her cool gray eyes met Hentz’s dark blue eyes.
“Want me to go?”
She shook her head. “Too soon. I want to talk to Lowry again.”
Dwight looked around. “Was he that other detective? The one that called Sanitation? Where’d he go?” He took one look at their faces and his own face tightened. “He found the truck, didn’t he?”
“She’s not there, Major,” Sigrid said. “The boy is, but she’s not.”
“Then where the hell is she?”
“If they’re in the building, we’ll find them. I promise.”
He glared at her, then turned away.
“Where are you going?”
“To look for some rat holes. That bastard’s worked in this building for almost twenty years. He’s bound to know some we’ve missed.”
