It surprised him when the cop agreed without hesitation. “Okay. I’ll get the key and meet you over there. I’ll call you back with a time.”
This wasn’t what Landry wanted, but he had no choice if he wanted to get inside legally. The cops had combed the place for hours over two days and found nothing. Now he would have a cop tagging along as he fumbled around pretending to look for something they’d missed. He didn’t know if he’d find Jack there, but given what had been going on, he had to find out.
“Good deal. See you soon.”
Landry arrived at the building first. He stood across the street and forced all preconceived notions from his mind about Jack’s whereabouts, Empyrion Richard and the supernatural aspects of the building and its spirit inhabitants. He started with a clean slate, took a deep breath, and looked at the Toulouse Street building as if it were the first time.
He started on the ground floor with its three arched doorways. Two on the right were boarded up, and the third was the wooden gate that led into the corridor. The second-floor windows seemed higher than they should be, and that was because there was an entresol between the two floors. It was invisible from the front, but he knew it was there.
The second floor was the living area. There were five tall doors, each with windowpanes and shutters. In front of them a wrought-iron balcony ran the length of the building. Above those windows was the gabled roof and three dormer windows that opened into the attic.
Is there anything about the exterior I’m missing?
He ticked off what was behind every window and door. Now that they’d breached the attic, he’d set foot in every room, and he named off the rooms one by one, window by window. Three doors on the first floor. Five tall window/doors on the second floor. Three dormer windows in the attic.
Allowing his right brain to take charge, he wondered if anyone had ever fallen off the front balcony like they had in the back.
Why were the three doorways on the first floor arched? Was it just for looks, or was there some other purpose to that feature?
When Lucas LaPiere built the structure, did he plan to house slaves in the attic? If so, did the dormer windows open to allow a little air inside, or were they closed tight? They were so small that an adult couldn’t have escaped onto the roof through them, and if a child tried it, he would surely slide off the steeply pitched slates and fall three stories to his death.
I wonder if that ever happened? Not that it matters to the issue at hand, but I wonder if a prisoner tried it out of desperation.
Shane Young turned the corner, waved and met him at the gate. “Okay, Sherlock. Where do we begin?”
They went straight to the attic, where Landry believed he had missed something. With no idea where to begin, he used the same tactic as when he was on the street. He stood at one end of the room and let his mind wander. He moved his eyes along the wall to a corner, turned and repeated the exercise until he was back at the beginning.
Something niggled at his brain. He was overlooking an important clue, and he struggled to figure it out. Perhaps a different point of view was what he needed. He moved to the center of the room and faced each wall. Brick wall on one end. Longer brick wall with six beds and six restraints bolted to the wall. Two closet cells at the far end with a brick chimney between them. Street-side wall with two high dormer windows and six more beds and restraints.
Dammit. There’s something I’m missing — something I can’t quite put my finger on.
“Holy shit!” he yelled, and Detective Young put his hand on the butt of his service revolver. “Holy shit, I’ve got it!” He turned and ran down the stairs with the cop right behind him.
Landry popped out into the sitting room and walked to its brick fireplace. Just to its right stood an open door, and he motioned to Young to come with him. “How about that?” he gloated. “Look at this room and tell me what you see.”
“I see an oversized bathroom with a clawfoot tub and a sink, both with plumbing that shows they were added after the building was built. I see closets to one side —" He walked to an open door and peered inside. “There’s nothing left in them except piles of dusty rags on the floor.” Young knew that wasn’t what Landry was talking about, so he examined the floor, ceiling and walls. “There are no windows, and one wall is made of brick. That’s the back of the chimney, like we saw upstairs —"
He paused and Landry said, “And there you have it!”
As they went back into the sitting room, Young figured it out too. “I’ll be damned. I’m pissed that we didn’t catch it, but thank God you did. Let’s get back upstairs!”
At the far end of the prison room, Detective Young took one side of the brick chimney and Landry the other. They were looking for an opening because another room lay behind the wall. The dormer windows were the first clue Landry missed — there were three windows visible from the street, but this room contained only two. The second clue was the fireplace in the sitting room below them. The brick wall above
