It was far enough from campus and the main bus routes that Tony doubted that it was student housing. He had driven past some small factories and warehouses and crossed a pair of railroad tracks to get to the tiny crowded parking lot. As he turned the corner for the last flight of steps he heard a Spanish-language TV program blaring from behind the door nearest the stairs. The canned laugh tracks sounded like all of the others he had ever heard. Laughter, he thought, the universal language.
Angela Arkwright’s apartment was at the far end of the building. He passed doors of different colors as he walked down the hallway and heard muted snatches of different televisions shows and conversations as he strode past. He turned his head at the sound of an opera recording behind a pea-green door to his right. He felt like he was walking through a brief nothing moment; the actors, anonymous and hunkered down for the night behind hollow wooden barricades, never to know or care of his passing. It was oddly unsettling and made him a little anxious.
Tony missed his uniform again. He just had a few questions to ask and didn’t want to waste a lot time to establish rapport. He just wanted a couple of answers and no bullshit. He wanted to go see Sue Ellen. He wanted to call it a day.
He knocked on the door like he was in his blues, authority-hard and urgent. The door was flimsy and hollow, not code, not a real barrier.
A woman appeared in the chain gap. Tony could see just a slice of her face. It looked as tired and makeshift as the building. He held his gold shield at eye level.
“Angela Arkwright? I’m Detective de Luca.”
It took a beat for it to register on her face. Her brown eyes were dilated and red rimmed. He smelled marijuana and something else he couldn’t put his finger on. The look on her face wasn’t fear or surprise. It was a look of resignation. He thought he noticed her slump and heard a quiet sigh. The door closed. Tony waited for the sound of the chain being removed. Finally, he knocked again.
This time the chain rattled and the woman opened the door. She wore a wan smile and a wrinkled Cuervo Tequila tee shirt. Her blond hair needed a touch-up. A brown stripe bisected the top of her head where her shoulder length hair was parted. Her face showed where she had lost a battle with acne; not the whole war, but one or more skirmishes, for sure. Dark eyebrows were separated by frown furrows of worry and curiosity. She wasn’t wearing any makeup Tony could find. She held the door half open with one hand. The other held a smudged glass tumbler, a quarter-full of clear liquid. There were two nearly exhausted ice cubes and a road-kill lime floating in it.
“Help you?” she said and took a sip from the glass. Tony traded his shield for the notebook.
“Just a few questions if you’ve got a minute.”
“Is this about the car?”
Tony didn’t want anything to do with the car. He smiled and shook his head. “Do you know a Sean Stuckey?”
A door opened down the hallway. An old woman with frizzy gray hair peered around the jamb. Angela gave her the finger and the woman retreated back inside her apartment. Then she grabbed Tony’s jacket and pulled him inside, muttered something that sounded like ‘nosy fuckin’ bitch’, and slammed the door.
“Why do you guys always say it like that?” Angela was drunk, or stoned, or maybe both Tony figured. She tried to take another hit off the drink and frowned. It was empty. “This way.”
She walked through a jumbled living room toward the kitchen. Tony took a quick look. She’d either emptied or hidden the ashtray with the joint in it. The pot smell was strong in the apartment. He had no choice but to follow.
“Say what like what?” he asked when he caught up to her in the dingy kitchen.
“Like, do you know ‘a’ Sean Stuckey? How many could there be?” She was leaning against the counter now, arms crossed beneath heavy breasts. She tried to take a sip from the empty glass again. Tony didn’t take any pleasure in her nervousness.
“I guess I could have asked if you knew the Sean Stuckey, but I didn’t know that he was famous.”
Angela laughed and scratched her backside. “More like infamous. Yeah, I know him.”
She turned and reached above the stove for the vodka bottle that was on a shelf up there. Tony looked away, embarrassed. Angela wasn’t wearing anything but the tee shirt. He remembered Sue Ellen flashing him like that two nights ago, reaching for his shirt behind the sofa, the white sheet riding up, the laughing. That was sexy. This was just sad.
“Was he here with you Sunday night?” He watched her struggle with the ice cube tray. Tony took the tray from her and cracked the cubes himself to help move things along.
“Sunday night?”
Angela went off somewhere looking for Sunday night. She splashed vodka in the glass and took a thoughtful sip. Tony noticed she didn’t wince or grimace when she swallowed the straight warm liquor. Kharkov. Cheap stuff. Sunday night seemed to be hiding across the room somewhere above the refrigerator.
“Sure. Sunday night.” She nodded thoughtfully and then smiled, like she had earned some small victory. “Sean was here Sunday. Monday night, too. God, I’m still sore.” She giggled. Tony held the ice cube tray out. Angela studied it like it was a box of chocolates before picking out two for her drink.
“Sunday, was he here all night? Did you see him in the morning on Monday?”
“You want a drink?”
Tony shook his head. He remembered Sean teasing him when he asked for her number. He remembered him saying she was hot. Angela looked like she should have been in her twenties, but it would take some work to sell the deal. Her skin was grayish. Wrinkles were already hinting at the corner of her eyes and at the corners of her mouth. She looked to be a haggard thirty. Maybe she was. She wasn’t hot though. Not by a long shot.
“Monday morning?” he reminded her. She’d gone off somewhere again. Probably working her way up to Monday.
“Why do you want to know?” She was braver now, hiding behind her vodka.
“I’m with the Homicide Unit, Miss Arkwright. We’re just trying to clean up some loose ends.”
Angela started laughing, head thrown back. It was a mean raucous laugh that tailed off in a coughing fit. “He finally killed someone with that fucking spear?” she asked, once she was done hacking.
Tony was confused for a minute. Then he remembered the odd conversation with David Hong. They had a laugh about…damn it. He couldn’t pull it out.
Angela looked over her glass, bleary-eyed but serious. “Did Sean kill someone?”
“No. I don’t think so.” Tony caught himself. He’d been puzzling over what Hong had said that cracked them up and what Angela had said. He’d answered without thinking.
“Maybe an accident?” She giggled again. Then Tony remembered what had embarrassed the big Samoan kid.
“Miss Arkwright…”
“Angie.”
“Angie. What am I missing here? Did Sean say something? Something about a murder?”
“I’m sorry.” She took another big swallow. The vodka seemed to compose her some. “Private joke. Murder, huh? Who got killed?”
“Monday morning?” He tried to get it back on track, get his answers and get the hell out of there. Tony finally figured out what the other smell was. It was sex and body odor, a desperate feral musk.
“He might have been here. I was sleeping. I slept in.” Tony bet she slept in a lot of mornings; that and woke up with a hangover more often than not.
“So you’re not sure?”
“He was gone when I got up.”
“Which was what time?”
“I don’t fuckin’ know. Maybe ten?” The drink was empty again. Tony stared hard at his notebook when she reached up for the bottle. She was slurring her words more now, getting a little belligerent. “You too good to drink with me?”