Now at the bottom, Letty hunkered down to look at the dead man’s face, a flashlight in her gloved hand. Even though light was everywhere, there were still tricky shadows cast by the body itself. She rested on her hamstrings so as not to place her knees on the concrete floor of the shaft. The floor was filthy, coated with dust and grime, as was the bottom apparatus itself, the massive iron springs and cables that fastened to a steel plate and ran up into darkness.
Above her, another Ninth Precinct detective and a police captain looked down on the scene, their faces gauzy in the glow of the lights. With her—and Letty was thankful for this—was a sturdy and extremely handsome young ESU cop named Will Perry. She wasn’t freaked out by the body, but the idea of being more than twenty feet underground in a cramped and dank elevator shaft was a little unsettling. Perry stood a few feet from her, poised in the corner in an “at ease” stance, as if awaiting orders. He was over six feet tall with light hair, broad shoulders, and big, piercing eyes.
Handsome white boy, she thought, knowing it wasn’t what she should be focused on but allowing a moment’s recognition of it anyway. Yes, and also very young. Well, they were all getting younger compared to her, weren’t they? She shook her head and grinned to herself, then steadied the flashlight on the dead man’s face. The grin disappeared, replaced by an ear-to-ear, squinting grimace. She was grateful it wasn’t her job to pull the body from the deadly spring, the top of which was burrowed into the man’s chest.
There were growing spots of purple on his chin and nose, the result of blood starting to pool in those places. Under the nose was a bushy, graying mustache. He was facing downward, his head not quite touching the steel plate where the spring was attached. His eyes were wide open and pointed upward so that the tops of the irises were under the eyelids. They looked almost cartoonish, the way dead people’s eyes were presumed to be focused if encountered still open. The mouth was agape, and a wide tongue poked out. A quantity of blood had come out of his nose and mouth, she noticed, but the stream had long since stopped. The blood flow from his face looked like he’d been struck somehow. To Letty, it looked he’d been punched or headbutted, something that must have happened before he took the fall.
She shined the light at the wound. Blood was still dripping from the spot where the spring had torn through his shirt. The dripping had slowed, so there was no longer a steady pat-pat-pat sound as the drops hit the steel.
“Perry,” she said. Her hams ached. She stood up, arching her back and stretching. Perry snapped to attention.
“Yes, ma’am?”
“I think we know what killed him.”
“Seems clear, yes.”
“Were you in the military before this job?”
“The Marine Corps, yes ma’am.”
“Good on you,” she said with a clipped nod. “I’m going back up that ladder. MLI should be here anytime, and this is their job now, but you shouldn’t have to wait down here alone with him. If you want to take a break and come up after me, no one will have a problem with that.”
“I’m fine, ma’am, but thank you. I’ll watch as you go up. Please be careful. Hold on to both sides.” Now she felt a little self-conscious about her backside as she made her way up the ladder with Perry looking after her. Up top she described what she had seen, and the captain made a similar cringe face. He was red faced, heavyset, and completely bald.
“The witness says the guy ran toward the doors,” the captain said, “tore the plywood off, and jumped in. Maybe he thought there was an elevator car there.”
“The witness—the old Black guy?”
“Yeah, he says he had a tire iron. Says he was gonna scare the homeless guy with it, but then this other dude came out of nowhere and attacked him. Says he was able to whack the dude with the tire iron once or twice, then the dude ran for the elevator. That’s it.”
“And he says the homeless guy was already dead?”
“Looked dead.”
“Do we believe him?”
“So far,” the captain said with a shrug. They glanced in unison toward the homeless man’s body, with its blackened feet and clearly broken neck. Crime scene photographers and MLI techs were prepping it for transport.
“Where’s Ito?” she asked, referring to her partner, Kevin Ito.
“He’s canvassing in the building. He situated your witness. Nate Porter is his name.”
“How’s he doing?”
“Shaken up, but that’s about it. Looks like a tough old guy.” He shook his head and stared down the shaft again. “Is that ESU kid okay down there by himself?”