On impulse, I reached under the seat for my lock-pick set. I shoved it into my shorts pocket, then got out and walked up the porch to the security door. It was closed, but hadn’t latched, so I was able to walk in. So much for security. The White Pages had said that Pete lived in apartment 302. There was no elevator so I took the stairs. I ran into a young couple in golf clothes on the second floor landing. I gave them a friendly nod as they headed downstairs. I waited until they were gone and then went on up the stairs to the third floor. No one was around. 302 was easy to spot because it had crime-scene tape strung across the door. I paused in front of the door, then put my ear up to it. I don’t know what I thought I’d hear – maybe Detective Spillman and her pals Moore and Youngfield – but it was quiet.
I kept listening, but the only noise was the muted sounds of a television down the hall, so I took out the lock picks. A small light fixture near the stairwell had dimly lit the hallway, so I bent down and set to work on the doorknob. Cal had assisted me the first time I’d needed to break into a house, but the subsequent events that night had convinced him that breaking and entering was not something he wanted to be a part of again – at least not in the physical sense – so he taught me how to pick locks. Cal would never tell me how he’d learned this particular skill himself. Since then, I’d become pretty adept at this art form, and this lock didn’t present much of a challenge. In less than a minute, I’d unlocked the door. I turned the knob and quickly ducked under the tape and stepped inside, and quietly closed the door behind me.
I didn’t have any expectations of finding anything, but since I had nothing to go on so far, I figured this was as good a place as any to start.
I was standing in a small entry. In front of me was a coat closet. To the left, down a short hallway, I spied a large living room, and then another short hallway that led to a bedroom and bathroom. I started with the bedroom. It was nothing fancy, but Pete did have a nice bedroom set, with an oak bed and matching dresser. The bed was neatly made. A poster of Coors Field hung on the wall by the door. I noticed writing on it and examined it more closely. It had been signed by several Colorado Rockies players.
“Nice,” I murmured.
On the dresser were a number of signed baseballs, and leaning against it were a few used bats. A perk of working for the Rockies, I thought. Memorabilia. I checked the drawers, but found nothing unusual.
I went into the bathroom. It was surprisingly clean, the towels hung on the rods, no scum in the sink or shower. I checked the cabinets, but found nothing of interest, so I went back into the bedroom and opened the closet. Everything was neatly hung up.
I stood and let my gaze rove around the room. Nothing struck me as unusual, so I tiptoed back into the living room. Coming into the room from this direction, I noticed a dark spot on the carpet right near the kitchen. I stepped around a couch that faced a TV and stared down at the carpet. The spot was dried blood that had soaked into the carpet. It looked like a Rorschach test. Nearby was a small two-chair table underneath a window.
I crept past the blood spot and into the kitchen. It was tiny, with just enough room for a refrigerator and stove. No dishwasher, a small sink and dated cabinets. I checked it all out. It was tidy, just like the rest of the place, although Pete didn’t have much food in the cupboards. The refrigerator held some beer, bread and condiments. It was typical bachelor fare.
I rubbed a hand over my chin as I looked around. Then I went back into the living room. He had more baseball memorabilia sitting on an armoire that held a TV and some DVDs. A bike sat in the corner, but that was all.
Well, I thought, I hadn’t expected to find anything in Pete’s apartment, and I didn’t. I crossed back to the front door. I stood for a moment and listened. Nothing. So I turned the knob and eased the door open. Then I almost screamed.
Chapter Five
An older, gray-haired woman stood in the doorway glaring at me. She put her hands on her hips, pushed black-rimmed glasses up her nose, then glanced past me, attempting to see into Pete’s apartment.
“Just what do you think you’re doing in there?”
Oh, she sounded like my mother. I quickly recovered. “There was a murder here and I’m working on the case.” I ducked under the tape and into the hallway, then quickly shut the door.
“You’re another investigator?”
Another? Did she think I was with the police? I nodded, furtively wiping my suddenly sweaty palms on my shorts.
She dissected me with her eyes. “You have some ID?”
I pulled out my wallet and showed her my cheap private investigator license. It wasn’t anything official. Colorado doesn’t even license private investigators. I’d bought it on the Internet, and when people wanted to see something official, it usually worked.
“I thought we’d seen all of the police,” she said. “I guess I was wrong.”
If she’d missed that the license said “Private Investigator” and assumed I was with the police, I wasn’t going to correct her. I glanced around the hallway. It was just the two of us.
“Do you have a few minutes?” I asked. “I’d like to talk to you about Pete.”
She continued to contemplate me, so I did the same to her. She was probably in her seventies, short and plump, hair professionally coiffed, a little too much makeup, but attractive overall.
“Well, all right,” she said. “I was just coming home from running some errands, so I can spare a few minutes. I thought I’d answered all the police questions the other night, but I guess not. Let’s get out of the hallway.”
She turned and walked swiftly down the hall to the next apartment door and let herself in. I followed her inside. Her place was similar to Pete’s, but I felt as if I’d walked into a time warp. The furniture dated back to the seventies. Macramé planters hung from the ceiling, and the pictures were framed in heavy gold or dark wood. The only things missing were the colorful shag carpet and bright wallpaper on the walls. Now the carpet was a more modern short beige, and the walls were painted off-white. And there was no bean bag chair. The air held the distinct floral and woody scents of Charlie by Revlon, a perfume popular in the seventies, and one of my mother’s favorites.
“Have a seat,” she said, pointing to a yellow sectional couch. She sank heavily into a matching wingback chair that faced a TV in the corner. “So what do you want to know?”
I sat down and focused on her. “Uh, Mrs…”
“Reichel. But call me Jane.”
“Jane,” I said.
“And you’re Reed?”
I nodded. Normally I would’ve used a pseudonym, but she’d noticed the name on my license. I had to hope that Jane didn’t talk to Spillman about me or I’d be in trouble.
“So Jane, what happened the night Pete was killed?”
“I told your colleagues this the other night.”
“Sometimes you remember something new, so it’s worth going over the details again,” I said.
“Oh, okay.” She looked off into space and thought for a moment. “I came home Thursday evening after playing bridge with some friends. You play bridge?”
I shook my head.
“It’s quite a game…makes you think. I was a little tired when I got home, and I was moving a little slow on the stairs. I hardly noticed someone coming up behind me. It was Charlie Preston.”
“How do you know it was him?”
“Because I occasionally watch the Rockies games, and Pete had introduced us once,” she said a bit impatiently. “Anyway, Charlie politely stayed behind me, not like some of the people in this building, always in a rush. We got to my floor and I went to my apartment. I heard him knock on Pete’s door and go inside. I fixed myself a drink and then sat down to watch TV. A while later, I heard raised voices from the other room. Then it turned to yelling. I tried to ignore it.” She waved a dismissive hand. “It’s none of my business what the neighbors do. Anyway, it got quiet again and I didn’t think anything of it. A while later, I heard a loud pop
from next door. I grew up on a farm and I know the sound of a gunshot. It startled me, so I went to the door and peeked out. Charlie was headed down the hall to the stairs. He disappeared and I didn’t see or hear anything else, so I walked over and knocked on Pete’s door. He didn’t answer, so I listened for a moment, but didn’t hear anything. I knocked again, and then pounded on the door, but he still didn’t answer, so I called the police and told them I heard a gunshot and I thought it came from Pete’s apartment. They sent a couple of uniformed officers, and after they knocked on the door and didn’t get an answer, they got a key from the superintendent and went in. Then all hell broke loose. Once the detectives arrived, I told them the same thing I’m telling you.”
I pondered what she’d said. “What time did you come home?”
“Around eight.”
That fit the time that Charlie had said he had visited Pete.
“How long did you watch TV before you heard Pete and Charlie arguing?”
Her face wrinkled up as she thought about that. “About fifteen minutes. I like to watch Blacklist on Thursday nights and each show is an hour, but the show only had one commercial break before I heard them arguing, so it had to be early in the episode.”
That logic made sense, and it was obvious she’d given the time frame some thought. “How long did the argument last?” I asked.
“Oh, a few minutes.”
“Could you hear anything they said?”
“No, nothing. I –” She stopped. “Wait a minute. I did hear one of them say something about it all coming out…whatever that means.” She wagged a finger at me. “I guess you were right, I did remember something new. Is that helpful?”
“It might be,” I said. She confirmed more of what Charlie had told me. That was good. “And then the argument died down and it got quiet?”
“Yes. And you want to know how long it was quiet before I heard the gunshot, right?”
I nodded.
“About half an hour. Blacklist wasn’t over yet.”
“And when you heard the gunshot, you checked it out right away?”
She pursed her lips. “More or less. I think I sat for a second, wondering if I’d really heard what I heard.”
“And when you looked out the door, you saw Charlie walking down the hall?”
“Yes.”
“And you’re sure it was him?”
“Well, I saw his back, not his face.”
I frowned. “Then how do you know for sure it was him?”
“It was a guy in jeans and a baseball cap, and that’s what Charlie was wearing.”
“You’re sure?”
“I may be old, but my memory’s good,” she said, her tone defensive. “And Charlie’s a baseball player, so,” she pointed to her head, “the hat.”
I held up a hand. “I’m sure that’s the case, but you’d be surprised how easy it is to not really notice, or to mistake, details. And since you didn’t see his face, it could’ve been someone else.”
She stared at me. “Well, I guess. But I’m pretty sure it was Charlie.”
I thought about the small light fixture at the end of the hallway. “Is the hallway well-lit at night?”
“Um, it’s kind of dim, except at the end near the stairs. I saw him pass under that light.”
“But you only saw his back.”
She hesitated. “Yes.”
If she was wrong, and she hadn’t seen Charlie, then who was it? I thought, then asked, “And you never saw anyone else?”
“No.” She seemed disappointed. “Not until the police showed up. And they wanted to know what was going on, so I told them about the gunshot.”
“Have you talked to any other neighbors since then? Did they notice anything?”
“You’d have to ask them.”
“Do you have any names?”
“You have all that information,” she said, the impatience back. I waited. She sighed. “Mason, down at the end of the hall, on the right. And I told them the other night, I don’t know his last name.”
Mason, I thought. Charlie had said that Pete was friends with Mason.
“I ran into him yesterday,” Jane was saying, “and he said he heard the shot, and how scary it was to have something like this happen in our building. I don’t know why he didn’t come out when he heard the shot, but he did when the police arrived. I don’t know what he told them.”
“Okay, I’ll talk to him.” My mind raced through the information. “And once the police came, you talked to them.”
“Yes, that’s right.”
“Did you notice anything else unusual?”
“No.” She paused. “It’s just…”
I leaned forward. “What?”
“After I called 911, I went outside to wait for the police and I saw a woman across the street, watching the building. And she stayed for a long time.”
“So? Maybe she was waiting for a ride or something.”
“I think I saw her again yesterday, just hanging around, keeping an eye on the building.”
“Did you tell the police about her?”
She jabbed a finger at me. “I’m telling you now.”
“Right,” I said. “And you don’t know her?”
She shook her head. “Never saw her before.”
So it wasn’t someone from the neighborhood, drawn to the area because of the police, I thought, then curious once she found out that Charlie Preston was the alleged murderer.
“What’d she look like?”
Jane looked off into space again. “Average height, long hair. I couldn’t tell what color.”
Not a very helpful description.
Jane glanced at her watch, and I knew I was running out of time with her.
“Tell me about Pete.”
Sadness washed across her face. “He was a nice man, friendly, funny. Well…”
“What?”
“Up until a few months ago. Then he seemed to change.”
“How so?”
“He seemed stressed a lot, and when I talked to him, he’d snap at me, or ignore me completely. That wasn’t like him. And he had a couple of fights with his girlfriend.”
I jerked my head up. “Girlfriend?”
“Yes. She was cute. Except for when they fought. Then she could get mean.”
“What’d she look like?”
She thought for a moment. “Tall, with shoulder-length red hair. Her name was Maggie Hollenbaucher.”
Charlie had said that Pete had been dating a woman named Tara. Had he been wrong?
“That’s an unusual last name.”
“That’s why I remember it.”
“Do you know how it’s spelled?”
Her face scrunched up in disapproval, just like my mother’s. “I didn’t ask her to spell it.”
“Right,” I said. “Are you sure Maggie was his girlfriend?”
“They acted like it, holding hands, kissing.”
“But they fought.”
“Yes,” she said.
“When was this?”
“A few weeks ago. I remember one fight in particular.”
“What were they fighting about?” I asked.
“Money.” She held up a hand. “And before you ask how I can be so sure, I’ll tell you. I came home at the same time that Pete and Maggie were leaving. I heard them in the hallway. She said something about Pete needing to get her the stuff and he said he couldn’t, that he’d already moved forward with the other deal. And she cussed him out and said he was doing fine, that the money was coming in, so he didn’t need more from her. I could still hear her even though they were going down the stairs.”
“What stuff?”
She sighed. “Beats me.”
“Did Pete seem like he had more money lately?”
“Now that you mention it, yes. He’d bought a new car and some better clothes, so I suppose he got a raise or something.” Her lips formed into a thin line. “I think I’ve told you as much as I know.”
A not-so-subtle indication I’d worn out my welcome. I stood up. “Thanks for your time.”
“I’ll see you out.” She heaved herself out of her chair and walked me to the door.
I wanted to leave my card with her, in case she remembered anything more, but then she’d know that I was a private investigator rather than a cop. I thanked her again for her time and left.
Chapter Six
I thought about my conversation with Jane as I slowly walked down the hall. It was entirely possible that she had not heard Charlie leave Pete’s apartment and that she’d seen someone else at the end of the hall. Just because the man was wearing a hat didn’t mean he had to be a ballplayer. It was also possible that she’d seen Charlie.
I stopped at the end of the hall at the apartment of Mason, the neighbor Jane had mentioned. I knocked on Mason’s door, but he didn’t answer, so I tramped down to the first floor, where there was a small foyer with mailboxes. I checked the labels on them, hoping to find a last name for Mason so I could call him. But the mailboxes had apartment numbers only, so I didn’t have a way to contact Mason, other than to return another time.
On that dead end, I left. I wasn’t due to meet Detective Spillman until four, so I ran a few errands, but my mind was on Pete Westhaven. It was looking like he might not have been quite the perfect guy that Charlie had portrayed him to be. And Pete had his secrets, like his girlfriend Maggie, unless Charlie knew about her and was lying to me.
I got to the Starbucks early, so I ordered a caramel macchiato, took it outside to a table in the shade, and called Cal. I hoped he might have completed the background check on Pete and Charlie. But the call went straight to voicemail, which likely meant Cal had turned off his phone. He was known to work crazy hours, so it could be he was busy and didn’t want to be interrupted, or it could be that he was sleeping. I didn’t bother leaving a message.
I needed to know more about Pete and about Maggie, the girlfriend. The best people to talk to about her, and any other friends or acquaintances of Pete’s, would be his family. But it would be insensitive for me to call them out of the blue, so I decided I would talk to Charlie after my meeting with Spillman. Maybe he could let them know about me and arrange a meeting, where I could ask about Maggie and Pete’s other friends. I called Charlie, but he didn’t answer. I didn’t leave a message, but sipped my macchiato and waited.
The Reed Ferguson Mystery series Box Set 3 Page 37
