building, and I’m afraid she might be dead.”
Detective Segel rounded up two officers, boarded a police cruiser, switched on the warning lights and siren, and sped out to Chesapeake Heights. And there Fred informed them that one of the tenants looked exactly like the photo-kit versions he had seen in the local newspaper last night and on a television news program. What was more, she worked nights, usually arrived home around 11:30 P.M. Yes, all apartments above the tenth floor had balconies. There was an especially large one on the penthouse floor where the lady lived.
“However, sir,” said Fred, “she wasn’t no Carla Martin. Nossir. Her name was Jane Camaro. She had been in residence for only a couple of weeks. On a four-month rental lease she had paid for in advance. Cash, the evening she arrived.”
Detective Segel nodded, unsurprised by any of this. “And why do you think she is dead?” he asked.
“Sir, we had a little trouble last Monday night. Coupla hoods broke into one of the tenants’ cars, brand-new Lincoln out back. It happened just after Jane arrived back, like I said, around 11:30 P.M., maybe a little after that.
“Anyway, I saw her come in, and then I had to go and check out the break-in. I came back in, maybe five minutes later, contacted the tenant whose car windshield had been smashed, and told him to call the police. Then I logged Miss Jane in on the computer, and no one’s seen her since. Brad — he’s the daytime doorman — has not logged her out since then, and I have certainly not logged her in.”
“Can we go take a look at her apartment?”
“Sure we can. I got keys to all the apartments here. But I sure ain’t looking forward to this. Nossir.”
“You think she’s died?”
“Well, I don’t know what else to think. No one can get in or out of this building without one of the doormen seeing ’em go.”
“How about she has a boyfriend in this building and moved in with him for a few days?” offered Joe Segel. “Just gone AWOL. That’s absent without leave.”
Fred grinned. “I know all about that, sir. I did fifteen years in the Green Berets. I wouldn’t say there was any chance of that, sir. Right here, we got mostly married couples.”
“Well, if we don’t find her, my men will have to interview the residents.”
“I understand, sir,” said Fred, as the elevator came to a halt on the twenty-first floor. The four men turned to the left and walked along the corridor, led by the doorman. At the second door, Fred inserted his key and pushed open the door, tentatively. Inside, there was nothing much to see. The apartment had been abandoned in a major hurry.
In the bedroom, the wardrobe and drawers were still wide open and there was nothing left, not even bed linens. The bathroom yielded not so much as a spare toothbrush. The kitchen was bereft, the refrigerator empty, nothing whatsoever in the cupboards. There was one clean plate, one knife, one fork, one glass, two coffee mugs. All in the dishwasher, all thoroughly cleansed in scalding-hot water. There was not one single trace of either Jane Camaro or Carla Martin.
There was not much else to do except to leave. And Fred was relieved that Jane Camaro was not dead. “Wouldn’t look good on the resume, right?”
But on the way down in the elevator, Detective Segel asked him one specific question: “How do you know that no one left the building while you were away from the desk, for maybe ten minutes?”
Fred beamed. “We got closed-circuit television right here, sir. One small camera right above the door, another at the far end of the foyer. When you gentlemen have left, I rewind the film, right there at the desk, and check out if anyone entered or left. The film displays the correct time.”
“How about someone you cannot identify?” asked Joe Segel.
“Nothing’s perfect, and that’s a flaw. But I sure as hell could identify Miss Jane Camaro. That was one great- looking chick.”
“Did you check the film after the break-in, you know, maybe catch a glimpse of her leaving?”
“No, I didn’t bother. I was only out at the side of the building for three or four minutes, and I’d have known if anyone came in or left. Headlights, car engines, and all.”
“How long would it take to run the film back right now so we could take a look?”
“Maybe coupla hours. There’s a lot of film in that system.”
“Okay. Perhaps you’d do it when you got some time and let me know?”
“No problem, sir.”
“Did Jane have a car?”
“Well, she never filled out the vehicle identification form for a reserved space in the parking lot. But she must have had a car. Ain’t no other way to get out here in the country. I guess she must have forgot.”
“Is the management strict about these procedures?”
“Hell, no. This parking lot’s half empty most of the time. Ain’t something we take very seriously. But since you mention it, I never saw her behind the wheel of a vehicle. But that don’t mean she didn’t have one.”
Joe thanked Fred for his help and said they’d be in touch, with regard to police interviews with the residents. When he arrived back at the precinct, he picked up the telephone and dialed the personal number of Lieutenant Commander Jimmy Ramshawe at Fort Meade.
The call from Detective Segel, in Jimmy’s mind, caused more questions than answers. How long after “Jane” came home did the break-in occur in the parking lot? Who told Fred it had happened? Precisely what was on that film during the few minutes Fred was out? And what the hell was someone doing smashing the windshield of the Lincoln? No one breaks into a car like that, especially one with an alarm system.
In fact, these days, very few people break into cars at all because the systems are so good. Whoever broke into that Lincoln certainly did not want to steal it and then drive around with no windshield. And through the windshield was no way to get inside the car.
He picked up the phone and called Fred, who jumped right to attention at the contact from a Navy lieutenant commander at the National Security Agency. He promised to call back in two hours with some answers. And, when they arrived, every one of those answers was precisely what Jimmy guessed they would be.
The break-in occurred eighteen minutes after Jane Camaro returned home. Fred did not hear the alarm because he was watching television. He was alerted by a chauffeur who rushed in through the front door and said he saw a couple of hoodlums running away from a big Lincoln automobile with a smashed windshield and an alarm blaring.
Fred saw the chauffeur fleetingly, and identified him as a guy who could have been Italian or Puerto Rican. And yes, he had studied a rerun of the film and identified a figure leaving the building who could have been Jane. But she had turned away from the camera as she walked through the foyer, covering her face with a magazine. It may not have been Jane, because she was walking kind of funny. But it could have been. Anyway, she was carrying a medium-sized suitcase.
Right now, he had about three hundred coincidences. And in Jimmy’s mind, they added up to one large warning light. Someone was most certainly determined to eliminate Admiral Morgan. But he doubted Arnold would believe him.
He was right about that too. “I guess it’s possible,” the great man grunted. “But I’m not running my life around the antics of some goddamned barmaid. I got a lot of security, and it’ll be as good in London as it is here. Jesus Christ, Jimmy, leave it alone. Why don’t you check out that Iranian submarine at the eastern end of the Med? I see it’s only about two hundred miles from a U.S. carrier. That’s too close. Call me.”
The phone went down with a crash. Arnold, of course, never said good-bye to anyone. Not even the president. Jimmy usually chuckled at this gruff eccentricity. But he found nothing amusing today. Absolutely
