It was that kind of night.
The neighborhood was quiet even though there were no private houses, but congregations of tenants, corralled under communal roofs. Then again, this was a working-folks zip code where nine o’clock was wind-down time, even on the weekends, all kinds of TV-blue light strobing in the sliding glass doors that opened to shallow, one-unit porches.
Hitting the sidewalk, he went up to the front door of the building in question and entered, passing by the mailboxes. At the second door, he took out the keys Stan had given him from before and unlocked things. It didn’t take him long to get to the missing officer’s apartment, and he snapped on gloves before breaking the seal he had put on the doorjamb.
As he hit the inside lights, he knew the layout like the back of his hand, not that it was complicated—and he went through each room, one after the other, turning on any lamp or overhead fixture that he came to. He looked under the sofa, the bed, and in all the cupboards, all over again. He went through drawers wherever he found them, in the bedroom, in the bath, in the kitchen. The closet got another deep dive as he checked the pockets in coats, and searched the floor under the hanging clothes with his flashlight. Going down on his hands and knees, he opened shoeboxes, and went through empty duffles.
Nothing.
Maybe he’d gotten her message wrong—
The knock out by the living area was soft. So was the “Hello?”
José got back up to his feet with old-man effort, his high school football injury squawking at the weight he put on that bad knee.
“Yup,” he called out as he came around into the living area.
A woman who was about six months pregnant was leaning through the main door. When she saw him, she smiled tentatively.
“Um, hi, I’m Elsie Orchard, I live across the hall.”
“Hi.” He got out his badge and flashed it. “Detective José de la Cruz.”
That smile disappeared, all kinds of worry replacing it. “Is everything okay?”
“We’re doing our best. Can I help you?”
“Yeah, so . . .” She brought forward something from behind her back. “I was getting my mail today, and the post office guy couldn’t fit this in Rio’s box? He said there wasn’t enough room because it hadn’t been emptied in days. I don’t know what it is. I promised him I would give it to her, but she’s not . . . here.”
As the woman held out an eight-and-a-half-by-eleven envelope, her hands were shaking. “Is she all right? She’s really nice. She always helped me if I were bringing groceries in—and when the lights went out from that storm back in August, she knocked on my door and made sure I had a flashlight. My husband was gone. It meant a lot.”
José wanted to make the sign of the cross as he accepted the piece of mail, but nothing good would come out of further alarming any of the neighbors, especially if they were pregnant. “Thank you so much.”
“Is there anything I can do to help? Where is she?”
The eyes that clung to his were scared rather than hopeful, and the woman ran her hand around the gentle swell of her belly, as if she were trying to soothe herself.
“Have you seen anything unusual in the building?” he asked, just to give her something to respond to. “Or at this apartment?”
“No, I haven’t. I wish I had. Our place faces the street that way and . . .”
José let her keep going, let her tell him everything she could think of. Sometimes, you just had to invite people into the investigation because it was the right thing to do. Caring neighbors and family members who were suffering deserved air space.
Plus, you never knew when a helpful tip would be dropped.
“Anyway,” she concluded sadly, staring down at his gloved hands.
“Here’s my card.” He held one out to her. “Call me if you think of anything else?”
The woman nodded and then went back across the hall. He held the door open and watched her until she gave him a wave and locked herself in. He hoped her husband was home tonight. She was going to need some support.
Closing Officer Hernandez-Guerrero’s front door, he took the envelope into the kitchen. Everything was neat and clean, so there was nothing to push out of the way to get a flat, clear space on the counter.
Unlike on Stan’s desk.
As a feeling of dread swamped him, he turned the piece of mail over. The name and address were written in fine-point black ink, and the penmanship was bad, everything scrawled and tilted to the left, like someone who wasn’t right-handed was trying to write like they were.