“Yes. By the custodian. She was hanging from that pipe you can see in the ceiling. The chair was knocked over. Her shoes were on the floor. They tried to make it look like suicide but failed.”
She glanced nervously at him. “Murder disguised as suicide, like Brad was talking about with you and those men in the Army who died?”
“That’s a long story that I hope one day to be able to share with you, but not right now.”
“And the guy who found Sara’s body?”
“Jerry Myers, the custodian who works here. Freaked him out. There was no one else on the floor because there was an all-hands-on-deck seminar at the Ritz that morning. And the admin folks hadn’t arrived yet.”
“Is that a coincidence?” said Montgomery. “That her body was found on the morning when no one would be up here?”
“I don’t think so. I believe it was planned that way, which smacks of inside information.”
“When was Ewes killed again?”
“The previous night, between like midnight and four.”
“So whoever killed her was long gone by the next morning. But you got the email in the morning telling you about her being dead.”
“That’s right.”
“Well, I doubt whoever killed her snuck back up in that time window you were talking about to look at the crime scene so they could write you that email. They already knew what it looked like.”
Devine thought this over. “You’re right about that. But the message did mention that a custodian had found her body. That led me to believe that the person was there that morning, because how else would they know about who found the body and when?”
“But why would it be important for you to know who found the body? Wasn’t it enough to tell you that she was hanging in a storage room?”
Devine started to say something and then stopped. “You’re right. I just never thought about that.”
“So why wait until the next morning to tell you about it? Why not email you that night, as soon as she was dead? You would have called the cops and they would have found the body.”
“I don’t know. The way you set it out, it makes no sense.”
“But it does make sense if the killer and email sender were two different people,” said Montgomery. “The killer murdered Sara. And told the email sender about it.”
“But we get back to the same issue. How would the killer know a custodian found the body the next morning? And if he didn’t know that, how could the person who sent me the email know about it?”
She looked around the space. “So this guy Myers found her. Why did he come into the storage room in the first place?”
“To get a printer cartridge that someone on the floor told him they—”
Devine stopped and looked around at the supplies on the shelving units before glancing at Montgomery.
She said, “Only you just told me there was no one on this floor on Friday. Then who told Myers to get a printer cartridge?”
“Let’s go ask him.”
CHAPTER
77
DEVINE GOT MYERS’S HOME ADDRESS from the company database he had previously hacked into. He lived on Staten Island. They cabbed over, and Devine had the driver drop them off about a block from the house. It was situated in a neighborhood of working-class homes.
“He’s got a new ride,” said Devine, eyeing the silver Ford F-150 pickup truck in the driveway with temporary tags. “Wonder where he got the money for that?”
“I doubt he’ll volunteer it,” said Montgomery.
“I can be persuasive.”
They knocked on the door, but no one answered. They looked in the small backyard. It was empty except for an old pickup truck up on cinder blocks. There was a one-car garage, but the doors were locked. Devine peered in the window but didn’t see anything helpful.
“Maybe he has another car,” said Montgomery.
“Maybe, but I doubt it. He’s not married and lives alone, the security guard at Cowl told me.”
“Can I help you?” the voice said.
They looked around to see a woman standing on the front porch of the house next door. She had on leggings and a long T-shirt. She was in her twenties with a baby riding on one hip.
“We were looking for Jerry,” said Devine. “We were supposed to meet for a beer, but he didn’t show.”
She gazed over at the house. “It’s funny. He was supposed to help my husband with a project we’re doing in the backyard. When he didn’t show up this morning we called and went over there, but it’s all locked up and Jerry didn’t answer his phone.”