We got out and entered a postage-stamp lobby. The air smelled of mold and rugs not cleaned in a decade. Of chemicals used to perm and dye hair.
To the right, past an inside door, was a tax accountant’s office with not a single employee or customer present. A narrow stairway lay straight ahead. To the stairway’s left, a hall led to another hall cutting sideways across the back of the building.
Lonergan’s unit was on the second floor, beside a beauty salon and across from an aesthetician who also did nails. Both doors were shut. Beyond them, no indications of human life.
A sign on Lonergan’s door offered massage therapy and instructed patrons to knock. Slidell did.
We waited. My gaze wandered. Landed on a spiderweb that could have made Architectural Digest.
Slidell knocked again.
A voice floated out, female, the words unclear.
Slidell gestured me to one side, out of view. Then he banged again, this time with gusto. After some rattling, the door opened.
Laura Lonergan was a portrait titled The Face of Meth. Fried orange hair. Rawhide skin peppered with scabs. Cheeks sculpted with deep hollows created by the loss of dentition.
Lonergan smiled, lips closed, undoubtedly to cover what unsightly teeth she’d managed to retain. One hand brushed breasts barely altering the topography of a pink polyester tank. Her chin rose, and one shoulder twisted in under it. The coy seductress.
“Save it, Princess.” Slidell held out his badge.
Lonergan studied it for about a week. Then she straightened. “You’re a cop.”
“You’re a genius.”
“I’m closed.” Lonergan stepped back and started to shut the door.
Slidell stopped it with one meaty palm. “Not anymore,” he said.
“I don’t have to talk to you.”
“Yes. You do.”
“What have I done?”
“Let’s skip the part where you play innocent.”
“I’m a masseuse.”
“You’re a tweaker and a whore.”
Lonergan’s eyes skittered up and down the hall. Then, softer, “You can’t talk to me like that.”
“Yes. I can.”
Lines crimped Lonergan’s forehead as she thought about that. “How about you cut me some slack?”
“Maybe.”
A beat as she considered what that might mean. “Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
“You won’t bust me?”
“That depends on you.”
The skittery eyes narrowed. Bounced to me. Back to Slidell. “A three-sixty-nine is cool. But it’ll cost.”
I felt the urge to scrub down with antibacterial soap.
“Let’s move this inside,” Slidell snapped.
Lonergan didn’t budge.
“You feeling me, Princess?”
“Whatever.” Trying for indifference, not even coming close.
The front entrance gave directly onto a small living room. Lonergan crossed it and dropped onto a couch draped with leopard-skin fabric, one skinny-jeaned leg outstretched, the other hooked over an armrest.
The sofa faced two ratty wicker chairs and a coffee table scarred by dozens of cigarette burns. Beyond them, against the far wall, which was red, a desk held a TV and a plastic banker’s lamp repaired with duct tape. Black plastic trash bags lined the walls, bulging with treasures I couldn’t imagine. An unshaded halogen bulb threw sickly light from a pole lamp twenty degrees off-kilter.
Through a door to the right, I could see a shotgun kitchen, the counter and table stacked with dirty dishes and empty food containers. I assumed the bedroom and bath were in back. Had no desire to view them. I eyed the chairs. Chose to remain standing.
Slidell balanced one ample cheek on the edge of the desk. Folded his arms. Stared.
“This gonna take all day?” Picking at a scab on her chin. “I got things to do.”
“Talk about Colleen.”
“Colleen?”
“Your niece.”
“I know she’s my niece. You here to tell me something bad about her?”
Slidell just stared.
“Where is Colleen?”
“You tell me.”
“I don’t know.”
“You heard from her lately?”
“Not since she split.”
“When was that?”
The ravaged face went slack as she searched through the rubble of her mind. “I don’t know. Maybe Christmas.” Back to the scab, the perimeter now smeared with blood. “Yeah. She was here for Christmas. I got her a six-pack. She got me the same. We had a laugh over that.”
“Where’d she go?”
“To crash with friends. To shack up with a guy. Who the hell knows?”
“Hard to imagine her leaving, you providing such a nurturing environment and all.”
“The kid got tired of sleeping on the couch.”
“Tired of watching you tweak and bang johns.”
“That’s not how it was.”
“I’m sure you prayed the rosary together.”
“Colleen was no angel.” Defensive. “She’d spread her legs if a dude made it worthwhile.”
“She was sixteen.” Sharp. I couldn’t help myself. The woman was repulsive.
“Colleen’s a survivor. She’s probably dancing in Vegas.” Flip. But I could hear question marks in her voice.
Slidell withdrew a clear plastic vial from his jacket pocket. Handed it to me. “We need your spit,” he said to Lonergan.
“No way.”
“The procedure is painless.” I pulled the swab from the vial and showed it to her. “I’ll just run this over the inside of your cheek. That’s it.”
Lonergan swung the armrest leg down to meet the floor leg, drew both in, and sat forward, arms wrapping her knees, head wagging from side to side.
Slidell drilled her with one of his tough-cop looks. Wasted effort, since she was staring at the floor.
“This is a trick to prove I’m using.” Gaze still on her boots. Which had heels higher than the wheels on my car.
“Don’t need no swab to see that.” Slidell’s tone said he was out of patience.
“I’ll puke.”
Slidell spoke to me. “The witness says she don’t feel good. I should take a spin around the premises, see if there’s something might be making her sick.” He pushed to his feet.
When Lonergan’s head snapped up, the cartilage in her throat stood out like rings on a Slinky. “No.”
We waited.
“Why are you doing this?” The skittish eyes bounced around the room and settled on me, a less threatening foe.
“We need your DNA on file,” I said gently.
“In case Colleen—”
“It takes only a second.” I pulled on surgical gloves and stepped closer. I expected Lonergan to turn away. To clamp her jaw. Perhaps to spit at me. Instead, she opened her mouth, revealing teeth so rotten that I wondered how she could chew.
I scraped her cheek, sealed the swab in the tube, and marked it with a Sharpie. Slidell took the specimen without comment. Then he turned on his heel and headed for the door.
Looking at Lonergan, I felt a bubble of pity rise in my chest. The woman had nothing. Her sister was dead. Her niece was missing, probably dead. She had no present. No future. Only enslavement to a habit that would inevitably take her life.
“I know you care about Colleen,” I said softly.
Lonergan’s snort was meant to show apathy. What I heard was guilt and self-loathing.
“You did the best you could, Laura.”
“I didn’t do shit.”
“You haven’t given up.”
“Yay, me. I leave the porch light on.”
“You didn’t let it drop.” Desperate to find something comforting to say. “You reached out to check on your niece’s case.”
“No, I didn’t.”
“According to Colleen’s file, you phoned last August to ask for an update.”
Lonergan looked at me in genuine confusion. “Phoned who?”
“Pat Tasat.”
“Never heard of him.”
“Do you know a woman named Sarah Merikoski?”
One bony shoulder rose, dropped. “Maybe.”
“She reported your niece missing. Tasat was the detective looking into it.”