They would take separate vehicles and converge on the house at a predetermined time. The crime scene investigators would arrive later, once the building was secure.
Elise tried to call David again.
Still no answer.
She assigned Starsky and Hutch the task of picking up the warrant, which allowed her the time she needed to stop by David's.
Ten minutes later, she pulled up in front of Mary of the Angels, immediately spotting his black car in the parking lot.
At the door, she rang David's apartment-and wasn't surprised when she got no reply. She rang the apartment manager and introduced herself. He buzzed her in and met her on the third-floor landing, a set of keys in his hand.
'I need to see your ID.' He was white, about seventy, with gray hair and gray stubble on his jaw.
Elise pulled out her leather case and flipped it open. He nodded and she tucked it back in her pocket.
Down the hall, to David's apartment.
'I told him he had to be out by tomorrow,' the manager said. 'Don't know if he killed that woman or not, but everybody in the building's scared. Nobody likes being scared.'
Somebody was baking a cake. Elise could smell it.
A small dog was barking.
The manager unlocked the door and stepped back. 'I'm not going in there. Last time I unlocked a door for a cop, I found a dead woman. I tell you, I'm tired of this country. I'm tired of living a life of fear.' He turned away from the door, arms crossed.
Elise stepped inside and immediately smelled the rotten-egg scent of sulfur.
'David?'
On the floor, she spotted a dusting of something that looked like fine brown powder.
A trick. A spell.
She stepped around the powder to avoid getting it on the soles of her shoes.
A few feet away was David's cell phone.
'Is he dead?' the manager whispered loudly from the hall.
The living room and kitchen were empty.
Elise reached inside her jacket, unsnapped her holster, and pulled out her handgun.
She checked the bathroom. Then the bedroom.
On the foot of the bed was an open suitcase, as if David had been interrupted in the middle of packing. She slipped her weapon back in the leather case.
David's cat, Isobel, appeared from under the bed, meowing pitifully. Elise picked her up.
'Don't allow anyone in the apartment,' she said, stepping into the hall and closing the door behind her. 'It could be a crime scene.'
The manager stared at Isobel.
'Cats and crime scenes don't mix,' Elise explained.
He shook his head. 'I should never have rented a room to that guy. I knew he looked shifty.'
She ignored his complaints. 'When did you last see David Gould?'
'Let me see…… This morning, I think. I came up and told him he wasn't going to get his deposit back.'
Isobel was purring loudly.
'Early morning? Late?'
'Late. Around eleven as I recall. But don't hold me to that. My memory's bad.'
'I need to see the basement.'
'Basement?' The shift in conversation clearly puzzled him. 'I'd better call the owner-'
'Now!'
'Okay, but I'm not taking responsibility.'
Inside the elevator, Elise punched the basement button. From their earlier ride, she knew the elevator was slow; she would have run down the stairs if she hadn't needed a guide.
They hit bottom with a jolt. The door clanged open and they stepped into the basement.
'Where's the oldest part of the building?' Elise asked.
The manager led her through a catacomb maze of stone and damp, crumbling mortar. In the final room she discovered a wall where bricks had been removed, then replaced.
'Here-' She handed the cat to him and began digging at the loose bricks, dislodging several, causing them to tumble at her feet.
She straightened, pulled the two sections of map from her vest, and unfolded them.
It was a poor image, and the basement was dim, but she finally located Mary of the Angels.
She ran her finger along the line indicating the tunnel. From where she stood, she could get almost anywhere if the tunnels weren't blocked. To the Hartzell, Tate, and Hartzell Funeral Home, to Strata Luna's, and to Laurel Grove Cemetery.
She put in a call to dispatch and requested that they reroute the officers heading for Strata Luna's and send them to Mary of the Angels instead. Then she called Starsky and gave him the new location.
Officers at every possible exit would have been the ideal situation, but they didn't have that kind of manpower. And if David was unconscious, Strata Luna couldn't be moving very quickly…
She checked her watch. 'Wait upstairs for the patrol unit and the detectives,' she told the manager. 'When they arrive, show them down here.'
'You think the person who killed that woman got in through there?' the manager asked, all of his earlier impatience gone, replaced by fear and a sudden reluctant respect.
Elise dislodged more bricks until the hole was large enough for her to pass through. She pulled out her flashlight and handgun.
In the broad beam of light, red dust particles curled toward the ceiling. She directed the beam to the ground inside the tunnel and immediately spotted parallel tracks and footprints.
Holding the gun and the light together with both hands, she paused. 'Feed the cat,' she said over her shoulder, then ducked through the opening.
Chapter 43
They always lost weight.
I touched his bare arm.
Cold as marble.
From somewhere behind us, cockroaches scuttled.
I have to admit they used to bother me. But then I started thinking of them as extensions of myself and pretty soon I began to actually like them.
I held the lantern to his face.
His closed eyes were cast in deep shadow. His lips were blue.
Skin like paste.
He looked dead.
I swung the gurney to the left, toward the cemetery.
I had a special place there. A secret place. A place where we could both play dead.
The tunnel smelled like mildew and sewage. Five minutes in and Elise's shoes were saturated, her pants soaked to the knees. Along with the odor of sewer was another smell. Something herbal and slightly medicinal, a mixture of ingredients a conjurer might use.
Elise had done a quick mental calculation, and she estimated it was a mile, maybe more, to Strata Luna's house. The indirect route of public streets would have been over two.
The powerful flashlight created extreme contrasts. There was the bleached area where the beam fell; outside that beam was absolute blackness.
