Code 61

by Donald Harstad

  “Byng, you got a location for the suspect?”

  “Negative, Three. All I got is what your office said. White male with teeth.”

  “Okay. I don't see the victim here. You got any better ideas where I might—”

  I was interrupted by a female voice. “Help!” It sounded like it was coming from the building, but there was something odd about it.

  I played my flashlight along the rows of windows, hoping to see her. Byng stuck his flashlight out the window where he was, and played it down toward the ground. I got a queasy feeling in my stomach. If he was inside and thought it had come from outdoors, and I was outside and thought it had come from up where he was …

  The roof. She could be on the roof.

  The rear of the store was four windows wide at the second-floor level. Usually, there was a pair to each apartment, with the hall between. The door at the top of the stair very likely marked the division between apartments.

  I looked at the reddish brown wooden walkway over the conduit. Nothing special, and absolutely no indication of a foot track on its deck. Its rails were just two-by-fours with peeling paint. I shined my flashlight down into the wide ditch, and checked the damp, accumulated silt as far as I could see. No foot tracks there, either. Too bad. Tracks in the silt had solved at least two burglaries for me in the past. I shined my flashlight up on to the rear of the buildings, left to right. There were all sorts of color variations, pieces of black felt and tar paper dangling from unused windows and old doors. One in particular, a door that just opened up to emptiness because the stair had collapsed years ago, seemed to be packed with a black drop cloth.

  I checked the roofline for any ropes or fittings. Just making sure we didn't have somebody who had dropped in, so to speak. There weren't any. Good.

  “Where do you want me?” I said into the mike on my shoulder.

  “Nobody down there?”

  “Nobody I can see.”

  “Why don't you come on up the back way? I think … it sounds like she's above me someplace.”

  “Yeah.”

  “I'm going up the next flight, see if I can get to the roof from the third floor.”

  Great. I'm not exactly slight, and I really didn't want to haul my 270 pounds up those chancy wooden steps. Damn.

  I took a deep breath. “Be right up,” I said.

  As I reached the narrow platform at the top, I paused and looked back down, illuminating the area with my flashlight. All the way into the bottom of the drainage ditch. Looking down probably thirty-five or forty feet. Instant vertigo.

  I grabbed the railing, and forced myself to look back toward the building. Wow. I hate when that happens. I turned as I let go of the rail, and was at the door in one step, trying to look casual. It's not that I'm ashamed of my little height problem, but it's bad for the image if you're a cop. I took another deep breath, and forced myself to concentrate on the door. Swell. It was about as wide as the damned platform, and opened outward. I had to take a half step back, onto that platform again, before I could get the stupid door open. When I did, the platform creaked. I turned sideways and squeezed around the partially opened door, and found myself in a dim hallway, between two apartments, just as I had assumed. There was an open door on my left, leading into a surprisingly nice, well-lighted kitchen area. The door on my right was closed. Clear at the other end of the hallway was a stair, leading to the third floor. There was an older woman standing near the stair.

  “He thinks she's up on the roof,” she said loudly.

  “He's gone upstairs to see if he can get to the roof, but I told him he can't.”

  “Thanks,” I said under my breath.

  I heard the voice again, very muted this time, as I was now inside. But there was no mistaking it. Not panicky, but frightened.

  Byng apparently heard it as well. Excited, I could hear his voice thundering from upstairs, and on my walkie-talkie at the same time.

  “The roof! She's on the roof! Get to the roof!”

  Well, I was closest to the goddamned ladder.

  I turned, and headed back out onto that creaking platform. I stood for a second, looking at the ladder in the beam of my flashlight. Rusty iron. Bolted to the brick, but I could see the thick rust around the bolts, and some orangeish stuff where the bolts had worked in the brick. Shit.

  I could hear Byng's running steps as he came off the stair at the far end of the building, and started down the hall toward my platform. There wasn't room for both of us.

  I took a very deep breath, slipped my flashlight in my belt, grabbed the sides of the ladder, and took one step up. “Not too bad. Not too bad”—I kept repeating that as I took the second step.

  I let my breath out. Piece of cake. Well, so far. The problem was that this ladder went up a whole 'nother floor, and then to the roof. I took another breath, held it, and kept going. Then, about six or seven steps up, I felt the ladder shift. Instant vertigo again. I could feel myself pressing against the ladder rungs, my hands beginning to hurt as they squeezed the flat side rail. “Keep yourself against the ladder, Carl. Press against the ladder, and your weight won't overbalance it and tear it away from the wall,” I whispered to myself. Everything in me said to go back down. I honestly think that, if I hadn't been in uniform, I couldn't have done it. But I went up. Over the years, I've learned that, if I can convince myself that I'm pushing the building down into the ground with each step, as opposed to me rising farther and farther above the ground, I can sometimes fool myself all the way to the top. I mean, I know I'm fooling myself, but with sufficient concentration that doesn't matter. I started to do that now. One step at a time, I'd grab the next rung in a death grip, and then gingerly shift the opposite foot up one rung. Pushing the huge building down into the ground. Ridiculous, but it worked. All I needed was concentration. I was moving as fast as I could, and still not getting more than half an inch from the wall. Progress. My thigh muscles were getting shaky, and my forearms hurt from squeezing, but I was going up.

  Then I felt the ladder begin to vibrate, and heard Byng's voice below me. “I'm right behind you, Carl.”

  Well, that shot my concentration all to hell. I tried to move faster, and thought I was doing pretty well, until he said, “Something wrong?” He sounded closer, but I was damned if I was going to look.

  “Ladder was moving,” I said between gritted teeth. “Not sure about it.”

  “Hell, they always move. Those bolts go clear through the wall, and they fit loose. Don't worry.”

  Don't worry, my ass. But I was encouraged. I should have thought about the bolts going through the wall. I stepped it up a bit, and was just fine until I got to the top. The ladder only extended about six inches above the edge of the flat roof. No rail, to speak of, above the edge. I was going to have to shift my center of gravity over the edge without any support. I almost stopped.

  “I'm up here!” Her voice was much clearer now.

  “Police! We're on the way up!” That was Byng.

  “Can you come down here?” I yelled. Christ, why hadn't I thought of that earlier?

  “No!” There was a pause. “You let me see you!”

  Of course. I gritted my teeth. Just as well. I really wanted to be on that roof. Anywhere but that ladder.

  I went up two more steps, my eyes cleared the roof edge. I leaned forward and stepped and found myself on hands and knees on the roof. I crawled about three feet, just to get away from the edge, and then got to my feet. I could see a light-colored figure half crouched behind a skylight.

  “Deputy Sheriff,” I said.

  “Where is he?” came the reply.

  I heard Byng on the roof behind me.

  “Who?” I asked, moving toward her.

  “I don't know,” she said in a fairly conversational tone.

  “But whoever he is, where is he?”

  “We don't know, either,” I said. “But you'll be okay now.” I distinctly remember thinking, until you have to carry me off this roof.

&
nbsp; Many people don't realize just how dark the rooftops in a business area can be. You rise above the streetlights after about the second floor. I could just barely make her out in the shadows.

  She stepped toward us. I shined my light on her. She looked about twenty or so, light brown hair, barefoot, and wearing what appeared to be a pair of faded yellow flannel pajama bottoms covered with pink and blue teddy bears and balloons. She was wearing a black, sequined, short-waisted bolero sort of jacket with big silver buttons.

  It was probably the sheer relief of having lived to get to the top of the roof, but I said, “Slumber party?”

  “What?”

  “Nothing. Sorry. You stay right here, and we'll take a look around.”

  We did a pretty good search of the roof area. With our lights, we could see most of the way to either end of the block, and look through some of the lower trees on the bluff. Nothing in sight.

  “What's your name?” I asked our victim.

  “Alicia Meyer.”

  “Mine's Carl Houseman. Is there a particular reason you came up here? I mean, as opposed to going down the stairs or staying in your apartment until we arrived? Did this guy get in?”

  “I think so. Then I thought he was waiting for me down there,” she said, pointing toward the edge of the roof.

  “Reasonable,” I replied. “Any idea who 'he' is?”

  “No.”

  There was sort of a pregnant pause. Obviously, we were going to have to go back down. Look as I might, there was absolutely no sign of any stair leading down into any of the buildings. It was going to have to be the ladder again.

  The trip down was easier. For her protection, Alicia traveled between Byng and me. Also for her protection, I went first. I felt it was better to look silly as I crawled backward to the ladder than to fall on her. I kept my eyes fixed on her bare feet as we came down. The rungs of the iron ladder were octagonal, and I kept thinking about how much that must hurt anybody without shoes. I must have distracted myself just enough, because my right foot striking the deck jarred me.

  I went into her apartment first, then her, then Byng. We looked the place over very well. Nobody but us folks.

  “Now,” I said, “what's going on?”

  “I saw this guy,” said Alicia. “At the window. I know I saw him. Right there,” she said, and pointed a trembling finger toward her bedroom window.

  I looked at the window, then at Byng. He shrugged. The window she had pointed to was the one adjacent to her kitchen window, and about ten feet from the rail of the platform outside. I knew; I'd just been there.

  “That window, Alicia?” I asked. “You sure?”

  “Yes, that window.” She glared at me, brushing a strand of brown hair aside so she could see me better. “I know what I saw. I know. He couldn't be there, because there's nothing to stand on. I know that. But that's what I saw.” Her exasperation was pretty evident. That was normal. She couldn't figure out what she had seen, either, and that was making it damnably difficult to explain it to us.

  I was thinking reflection in the window glass at that point, and glanced around the room. The TV was off.

  “You didn't have the TV on at the time, did you?” I tried to sound friendly and reassuring. Not accusative.

  “No.”

  “Okay. Huh. Well, okay, look. Just tell me exactly what you saw, and show me just exactly where you were when you saw it.” I thought that was being reasonable.

  She took a deep breath. “All right.” With that, she stood, and walked over to the mirror. “I was standing right here,” she said. “Like this.” She demonstrated by turning her back to the mirror and looking over her shoulder at her reflection. “I turned my head like this,” she said, and looked over toward Byng and me. And also right at the window in question. “That's when I saw his face in the window.” She gave a very genuine shudder. Whatever else, I was certain that she believed she was telling the truth.

  I walked over to her, and asked her to move a little, so I could stand in her place. I bent my knees, as I'm about six-four, and she was about five-eight, and tried to get my eye level on the same plane as hers. I looked toward the window. Clear view. No obstructions. And no reflections.

  “These are the lights that were on?”

  “No, the ceiling light was out.”

  I motioned to Byng. “Get the ceiling light?” He did. Still no reflections. I straightened up. “You recognize him?”

  “No.” She said it hesitantly. Either she was thinking really hard, or she found it difficult to lie.

  “Can you describe him?” I asked.

  “He was white,” she said.

  That struck me as a bit odd. Nation County's population, while becoming a bit more diverse, was still about 99 percent white. It was unusual to have a witness describe anybody as “white.” It was just assumed.

  “White?”

  “Really white,” she said, and her voice trembled a bit. “Like clown white. You know, like paint or makeup.”

  “Ah.”

  “But not paint or makeup. I don't think. I don't know. If it was makeup it was really good. And black hair, or really dark brown, I think. Close to his head, kinda like it was wet or oily. It looked black, like his shirt or whatever it was…. ”

  “Good.” Always encourage your witness. “Anything else?”

  She paused. “Yeah. He had these teeth.”

  “Teeth?”

  “Yeah,” she said, and sat down abruptly on the edge of her bed. “God, those teeth.”

  “Like, what? Big teeth? Crooked teeth? Missing teeth? Anything … ”

  “Yeah. Long, sharp. Really sharp teeth, you know?” She looked up at me earnestly. “Long, pointy teeth.”

  I tilted my head. “I'm not sure what you mean.”

  “Like a snake. Long, pointy teeth like a snake or something.” She actually shuddered. “I know what I saw. Just like a snake.”

  It took me a second. “You mean fangs?”

  “Yeah. That's it. Fangs. Two of 'em.”

  “His front teeth were fangs?” It's rare, after more than twenty years at this, to find yourself asking a question that's never even occurred to you before.

  She thought. Visibly. “No, not his front teeth. I could see those because he smiled, like. Not a smile, but like a smile. The ones kind of beside the front ones. You know.”

  “Sure. Upper teeth?”

  “Yes.”

  “Hmm. Okay, then, why don't you start at the beginning, for me.” My legs were still feeling a little unsteady, and I sat down at her vanity.

  It turned out that she'd been in front of the mirror examining a new tattoo she'd gotten the day before. She didn't say of what, or exactly where. We didn't ask. She'd been topless, at first, and then with various tops that she'd be wearing. Just trying to get some idea what parts of the tattoo certain items of clothing would reveal. She thought she detected a movement out of the corner of her eye. She looked up, and there he was. Looking in the window, and just grinning or smiling. Revealing fangs.

  It would have startled the hell out of anybody. Alicia just froze. No scream or anything. She said he disappeared after a few seconds, and it took her a few more seconds to get up the courage to turn away from the window and call 911 from her bedside phone. She apparently answered the first few questions posed by Sally, and then thought he might come back through the window, so put the phone on the cradle and ran to the bathroom and locked the door. A short time later, she thought she heard him at the front door of her apartment, so she fled to her kitchen door and tried to hear what he was doing. She then thought she heard him enter the living room door, so she fled into the hall. Afraid to go down the hall and past her living room door, she went out the back. She was just starting down the rear stair when she thought she heard something in the shadows at the bottom. Up she went, climbing the ladder so fast she didn't realize her feet were bruising until after she'd reached the top. She hadn't seen him again. She hadn't really looked too hard, either. />
  As we put the sequence together, it became pretty obvious that it had been Byng at her living room door.

  He'd announced himself and knocked, but since she was in the bathroom, she only heard sounds. He hesitated, then tried the door, and it was unlocked. He'd just entered when she got into the hallway. Or so we figured. I think both Alicia and Byng were a little embarrassed.

  “He say anything?” asked Byng. “When you saw him at the window?”

  “Yeah. He did. He kind of mouthed something, but I'm not sure what. Not for sure.” She shuddered. “Jesus, this just creeps me, you know?”

  “So you sort of read his lips?” Byng raised his eyebrows. “Kind of?”

  “Yeah, sort of. Look, I can't say for sure, and this sounds so dumb. But, well, I thought he said something like 'Can I come in?' or something like that.” Alicia looked at each of us. “It just sounds so dumb.”

  “That's what you think he said?” I asked. “Something along those lines?”

  “Well, I guess I was pretty sure then,” she replied. “I remember saying 'No!' once or twice. I answered him, you know, so he must have said something. Right?”

  “Must have. Hey, did he look like he was dangling from a rope or anything?” I had to ask, because I could think of absolutely no other way for anyone to get up there without a ladder.

  “No. I couldn't see his arms or hands. Just his face.”

  “And you didn't recognize him?”

  “No.”

  “Did he,” I suggested, “remind you of anybody?”

  She thought. “I don't know. Really. It's one of those things, you know? The more you think about it, the more he might. But I don't think that would be accurate.”

  I had Byng take most of the rest of the information. After all, it was a Freiberg case, and I was just assisting. While he did, I stepped back out on that godforsaken little platform, and looked at the back for possible handholds. Four big bolts, which were common in these old buildings, protruded from the wall. They were several feet apart, in a straight line across the back, at about eight to ten feet from the ground. They probably ran under the flooring of the second story, and were simply reinforcement. No rings, no hooks, and, anyway, they were well below the windowsill. A couple of hollows where the red brick had decayed and flaked away. A few cracks where the mortar had crumbled out. But nothing else. And my original estimate had been about right. It was a good ten feet from the edge of the platform rail to the window where she'd seen the suspect.