The Scent of Murder

by Barbara Block

  It was obvious from the moment I opened the building door and stepped into the small vestibule that Amy wasn’t inside. I sighed. Maybe she was in the apartment. Or maybe she’d gotten tired of waiting and left. I went over to the intercom panel and ran my finger down the buttons until I found 2F. When I read the name next to it, my finger froze. Dennis Richmond. Shit. According to the newspaper article I’d just read in his wife’s apartment, Dennis Richmond had gone missing ten days ago. So what the hell was Amy doing here at her father’s apartment? In fact, now that I thought about it, the article hadn’t mentioned this apartment at all. I’d gotten the distinct impression that Dennis Richmond had been living at home with his delightful wife in his tastefully decorated home. Well, I guess I’d find out soon enough.

  I pushed the buzzer.

  I didn’t get a reply. I didn’t get one when I tried buzzing a second or a third time either.

  Amy had probably gone. I should probably have done the same. But I knew I wouldn’t until I made sure that Amy was all right. I owed Murphy that much. Why I didn’t know, but that was the way I felt, so I pushed the buzzer for 4B. A moment later I heard a fuzzy, “yes” coming through the speaker.

  I scanned the names on the wall again. “This is Millicent Chammers in 3A,” I told him. “I’m sorry, but I forget my key.”

  “Who?” a guy asked.

  “Chammers,” I yelled, banking on the fact that the static would disguise my voice.

  “Jesus.” His voice was heavy with sleep. “Do you know what time it is?”

  “Sorry,” I replied, doing contrite.

  “I have to get up at five in the morning.” A moment later the buzzer sounded. I pushed the door open and went inside. The lobby was small. The carpeting was beige, the walls were cream. They were hung with the kind of paintings they sell in stores for sixty dollars a pop. There were no chairs or tables. Obviously sitting and waiting were not encouraged activities.

  I took the elevator to the second floor and got out. Dennis Richmond’s apartment was at the very end of the hallway.

  It seemed like a long walk. When I got there I rang the door bell.

  No one responded. The only noise I heard was the blare of the television next door.

  I tried again.

  Nothing.

  At this point most people would have left, but I’m not most people. I can’t seem to let things go—even when it’s in my best interest to.

  So I turned the doorknob.

  The door swung open.

  I took my box cutter out of my pocket and stepped inside.

  Chapter 5

  The lights were on. I could see most of the living and dining I the and area from where I was standing, and what I was seeing didn’t look good. The dining chairs were tipped over, the black leather sofa was bleeding white tuffs of cotton wadding, and the chrome coffee table had been upended. Leaving seemed like a good idea, but then I thought about Amy’s phone call, and I moved the box cutter blade up and took another step in instead. One thing was for certain, I thought bitterly. The girl definitely took after her father. Murphy had always managed to drag me into whatever mess he’d gotten himself into. It looked as if his daughter was busy doing the same thing.

  My feet sank into the carpet. Once upon a time, it had been white. Now it was dingy with what looked like months of ground-in dirt. The place smelled of aftershave and incense and barbecue sauce and an undercurrent of something dark and salty and fetid that I knew but couldn’t name.

  “Amy. Mr. Richmond.” My voice seemed unnaturally loud in the room’s silence. I heard a footstep overhead and jumped. Someone was walking across the floor. Then somewhere on the other side of the wall a toilet flushed. I wondered if either neighbor had heard anything, as I looked around.

  The apartment had the generic feel of a motel room. It consisted of a large room with a small galley of a kitchen off to the left. To the right was a door that, I was willing to wager, led to the bedroom. It was a box of a place slapped together by people who didn’t care out of cheap materials that would disintegrate over the passage of time. But whoever had been here before me had hastened the process considerably. Two big gouges in the walls marked where someone had ripped out the supports for the shelves. I headed over toward the window, taking care to step over the CDs scattered on the carpet, like so many colorful tiles, hoping, as I did, that Amy and Dennis Richmond had left before this had happened. A second later, I saw the sole of a man’s shoe protruding from behind the sofa.

  That numb, empty feeling that trouble sometimes brings settled over me, as I walked around to get a better look. Dennis Richmond was lying on the floor. He looked just like his picture in the newspaper—except for a couple of differences. Like the big red blotch on his chest and the slash marks on his hands. If I had to bet, I’d say someone had stabbed him in the chest and he’d tried to defend himself.

  I stared down at him. He stared back at me with unblinking eyes. The whites were already flattening out from fluid loss. I shifted my weight from one leg to the other. Well, at least the poor guy would have a fancy coffin for his funeral. It stood to reason, given the business he owned. If I remembered correctly, according to the newspaper article I’d read at his wife’s house, Richmond had disappeared a week, or a week and a half ago. I forgot which. It looked as if he hadn’t gotten far.

  As I squatted down and touched one of his fingers, I wondered if he’d been holed up here during that time. His skin was still warm to the touch. He hadn’t been killed that long ago, maybe three hours at the outside. A couple of years ago, this sight would have been enough to send me running out the door. Unfortunately, dead people don’t scare me anymore. Now I feel as if I’m looking at a house with no one home. Maybe I’ve seen too many bodies. I was about to get up, when I noticed a slight demarcation on Dennis Richmond’s wrist where his watch should have been. Whoever had killed him must have taken it, I decided, as I stood up and looked towards the bedroom. The door leading to it was half closed.

  A vision of Amy splayed out on the floor rose before my eyes. Please let her be all right, I prayed, as I willed the thought away. Then that picture was replaced by one of a man standing behind the door, knife in hand, waiting for me to come through. Which wasn’t much better. My palms were sweating. I wiped them on the back of my jeans pockets, as I moved towards the door. Getting there seemed to take forever. The lamp lying on its side, the ripped copy of Time magazine, the Kit Kat wrapper lying atop the telephone book all took on a dreadful clarity. I could hear my watch ticking each second away. I kept wishing I had a gun instead of a box cutter, as I drew nearer to the bedroom. Finally, I was there. I raised my leg and slammed my foot into the door. As it thudded against the wall, I ran in. No one was on the other side. I quickly moved over to the bathroom and checked it out. It was empty. No killer and no Amy.

  I let out the breath I didn’t know I’d been holding, retracted the box cutter’s blade, and considered the havoc that had been Dennis Richmond’s bedroom. Everything that had been in the closet was now on the floor. The dresser drawers had been pulled out, their contents dumped. Dennis Richmond’s shirts, socks, and underwear lay scattered like the leaves on the trees outside. The mattress had been turned on its side. The bedding was wadded up on top of it.

  I picked up one of Richmond’s shirts. It was a narrow blue and white stripe with French cuffs. It looked expensive and probably was. I dropped it back where I’d found it, crossed over to the box spring, and began going through the pile of Kleenexes, pens, little pieces of silver gum wrappers, and loose pills on it. All I learned was that Dennis Richmond had been on Prozac, but so what? So were half the people in America. Next, I smoothed out the crumpled up squares of white, pink, and yellow pieces of paper. Two were Post-it® notes. They contained shopping lists. The other five pieces of paper were receipts. Three were from local restaurants, another from the Biden Jewelry store. Richmond had had his watch repaired. The last two were dry cleaning stubs for seven shirts and a jack
et. I put everything back the way I’d found it, got up, and glanced around again.

  What was whoever had done this looking for? Drugs? Money? The place was too thoroughly ransacked for this to have been a casual robbery gone bad, unless of course whoever had done this had been flying on Angel Dust or Meth. And then I got to thinking about Amy.

  How did she fit into all this?

  What the hell had she been doing up here?

  I could think of a couple of answers without trying real hard, and I didn’t like either of them.

  I reached into my pocket for a cigarette before I remembered I wasn’t smoking. I put a stick of gum into my mouth instead and began to chew. More questions surfaced. Had Amy called me from here? Or had she made the call from somewhere else?

  And why hadn’t she waited for me to arrive? Had someone scared her off? Or had she gotten cold feet? I tore at a ragged cuticle with my teeth. Maybe she’d gone back to her mother’s house. It was a long shot, but I decided to call and make sure. It took me a minute to locate the phone. I finally found it under the chair. I pulled it over by the cord, picked up the receiver with the hem of my shirt, and used a pencil to punch the numbers in. After four rings, the answering machine clicked on. I hung up without leaving a message. If Amy were there, she wasn’t answering. I returned the receiver to its cradle and went back into the living room. I could hear water running through the pipes in the next apartment. Another question popped into my mind. Why hadn’t the people next door called the police? What had happened here hadn’t happened silently.

  I stood near the overturned sofa and contemplated Dennis Richmond again. His skin was losing its pink hue and turning grey. His thick helmet of hair was oddly neat, as if it had been shellacked in place. He was dressed in his street clothes—dark grey slacks and a pale blue button down shirt. Had he just come in, or was he going out? It was impossible to tell. I squatted down and went through his pockets, even though I knew I should leave. I could have saved myself the trouble, though, because they were empty. So maybe this was a robbery after all. I straightened up and tucked the lock of hair that was falling over my eye behind my ear and thought about how I was going to phone this into the police.

  Anonymously seemed best. As I said, the police and I aren’t on friendly terms, and I had no intention of staying, so I could pay my lawyer an exorbitant sum of money to spend the rest of the night with me down at the Public Safety Building, while I explained why I happened to be here—especially since I couldn’t find Amy. Which meant I had no one to corroborate my story. I sighed, gave the apartment one last look, and shut the door on my way out. The tinny laughter of late night talk shows drifted out of the apartments I passed, as I walked down the hall. The elevator came quickly. It was empty. So was the lobby. And for that I was grateful.

  The temperature had fallen another couple of degrees. I shivered and hurried towards my car, taking a shortcut over the lawn. I was almost to my cab when I heard a faint hissing noise. My mouth went dry. I turned towards it. At first, all I saw were the painted white lines and the rows of cars standing sentinel. Then a few seconds later, Amy materialized from between two minivans and drifted towards me. She looked wraith-like under the vapor tail of the sodium lights.

  “Did you see my father?” she whispered. Her voice was harsh.

  “Yes.” The dull throbbing pain that had started behind my eyes got worse. I felt as if I was being sucked down a rabbit hole.

  “Someone stabbed him,” Amy said. Now that I was looking at her again, I realized she had Murphy’s eyes.

  “I know.” I took a step in her direction. She was grasping the Coptic cross hanging around her neck, as if it were her key to salvation. I was almost next to her now. She was wearing the same clothes she had worn when I saw her this afternoon. It felt as if it had been an eternity ago. I caught gusts of dope and incense and sweat and fear coming from her. “Did you do it?”

  “No.” Her voice trembled with indignation. “Of course not.”

  “Why were you up there?”

  “I wanted to tell him something.”

  “And did you?”

  “What?”

  “Tell him?”

  “No. He was dead. I just saw ...” She swallowed. “What I saw, and ran.”

  “Why didn’t you call the police?”

  “Because I can’t.” She scratched her wrist. I noticed her bracelet. It seemed to be made up of finger and knuckle bones. Something told me they weren’t plastic.

  “You can’t, or you won’t?”

  Amy stopped scratching and stuffed her hands in her jeans pockets. “Can’t. Won’t. What difference does it make?”

  “A lot.”

  “Not to me. Nobody will believe I found him that way.”

  “Why?”

  “They thought I had something to do with his disappearance before. What are they going to think now?” She wiped her nose with the back of her hand and leaned towards me. “Everyone thinks I’m crazy,” she confided.

  Maybe they were right. I remembered what the article in the Herald had said about her being under a doctor’s care. It hadn’t said for what. A gust of wind sent the leaves flying. I rubbed my arms. My denim jacket wasn’t warm enough for a night like this. “Why did you call me?”

  “I freaked,” she confessed. “I didn’t know what else to do.”

  “Let me tell you.” And I repeated my suggestion about calling the cops.

  “No,” Amy replied. “I already told you, I can’t do that.” She set her mouth in a stubborn line.

  I studied her for a moment. Suddenly I felt incredibly tired. “Fine. If that’s the way you want to play it.” I turned towards my cab. It had been a long day, an even longer night, and I wasn’t in the mood to deal with crap. All I wanted to do was call the homicide in and leave.

  “Where are you going?” Amy cried.

  “Out of here.”

  “You can’t,” she wailed.

  “Just watch me.”

  “But Murphy said you’d help me.” She sounded like a little girl who’d just been told she wasn’t going to the circus.

  The hairs on the nape of my neck rose at the mention of Murphy’s name. I couldn’t help myself. I turned back. “When did he tell you that?”

  Amy raked her hand through her hair. “About two weeks before he died. We’d gone to a movie, and I was telling him about how my father was always yelling at me for everything and about how he and my mom were always fighting. And he said, not to worry, that he’d always be there for me and, if he wasn’t, you would be.”

  “How nice of him,” I said, sarcastically.

  “He was a nice guy,” Amy replied. The glimmer of a smile playing around the corners of Amy’s mouth made me feel small and mean. “He was always buying me stupid little stuff.”

  I don’t know why I felt like crying. Maybe I should just have “sentimental idiot” tattooed on my forehead. “I can’t help you, if you won’t tell me what’s going on.”

  She grasped the cross again and looked straight at me. “I don’t know.”

  Unlike her mother, the kid was a lousy liar. “I think you do.”

  She twisted her heel in the dirt. “I don’t. Really.”

  I tried another tack. “What did you want to talk to your father about?”

  “Stuff.”

  “What kind of stuff?” I asked through gritted teeth, controlling an impulse to throttle her.

  Suddenly Amy startled. Her eyes widened. “What’s that?” she hissed.

  “What?” I glanced around. I didn’t see or hear anything. Then I heard it too. A car was coming towards us.

  Before I could ask Amy what was going on, she ran over to my cab and crouched down behind it. A minute later a Jeep came into view. I experienced a frisson of fear, as its headlights swept over the parking lot. But it kept going. It followed the road to the complex’s upper level and disappeared.

  Amy reemerged. “I’ve got to get out of here,” she told me. Her voice was sh
aking. She sounded close to tears.

  I took a step towards her.

  “Why? What are you afraid of?”

  I should have seen it coming, but I didn’t. Instead of answering, Amy whirled around and ran for the copse of trees beyond the parking lot. I ran after her, but the ground was uneven. I tripped over a rock and fell. By the time I got up, she had disappeared.

  Great. I was dealing with a punk Houdini. I blew on my scraped palm to ease the pain. Amy’s taking off was the perfect end to the perfect day. I started walking back towards my car. My headache was worse. No big surprise there. All I wanted to do was to go home, have a drink, and go to sleep. Unfortunately, I still had to phone Richmond’s death in to the cops.

  I took my cell phone out of my glove compartment. Then I put it back. It just wasn’t worth the risk of putting this call through on an unsecured line. A minute later, I found a pay phone at the corner of Rainbow Boulevard and West Street, dropped my quarter in the slot, and dialed. As I drove back to my house, I kept on thinking about Amy and Murphy and Dennis Richmond.

  I was still thinking about them, when I pulled into my driveway and walked across the lawn to my front door.

  Which is probably why I didn’t see the man standing by the spruce tree until he stepped out in front of me.

  Chapter 6

  The guy startled me. He was about five foot eleven, a little was five a on the plump side, but maybe that was because of the bulky down parka he was wearing. His hair was dark and he had a long, full beard that made him look as if he’d been up in the mountains too long. I instinctively reached for my box cutter as he came towards me. He stopped when he was about five feet away and I stayed my hand.

  “I’m looking for Amy,” he told me. His breath made clouds of smoke in the air. He smelled as if he’d taken a bath in pine-scented air freshner.

  I should have known. “You and everyone else.” I could feel my jaw beginning to tighten.