“Then my guess would be the killer turned them off last night,” Morales said.
“Kind of a strange thing to do once he’s already inside the building.”
“Maybe he turned them off when he was leaving. So nobody would see him, in case someone was walking by, driving by.”
“Then you’re probably not talking about Oscar doing it. Since he never left.”
“We don’t know what he did. Maybe he was in and out getting rid of shit. Like whatever was used around her neck. Where’d you park?” Morales asked.
“Couple streets away,” Marino said. “Nobody saw me.”
“Yeah, you’re real subtle, bro. Sounded like a three-hundred-pound cat climbing up the side of the building. Too bad you didn’t get here a little earlier,” Morales said. “See that lady on the phone?”
He indicated the apartment where the woman in green pajamas was still on her couch, gesturing and talking.
“Amazing how many people don’t pull down their shades,” Morales said.
“That’s probably the real reason you’re up here,” Marino said.
“The window to the left? Lights are off now, but maybe thirty minutes ago, blazing as bright as a movie premier, and there she was.”
Marino stared at the dark window as if it would suddenly light up again and show him what he’d missed.
“Out of the shower, off came the towel. Nice tits, I mean real nice,” Morales said. “Thought I would fall off the fucking roof. God, I love my job.”
Marino would forgo seeing fifty naked women if it would spare him having to climb back down the ladder. Morales got to his feet, as comfortable up here as a pigeon, while Marino started scooting back toward the edge, his heart thudding again, and as he inched his way, he wondered what had gotten into him. All those years he flew on Lucy’s helicopters and jets. He used to love glass elevators and expansion bridges. Now he hated climbing up a stepladder to change a lightbulb.
He watched Morales walk off in the direction of the satellite dish and got a weird feeling about him. Morales had gone to fancy schools. He was a doctor, or could be one, if he wanted. He was nice-looking, even if he went out of his way to make people think he was the leader of a street gang or some Latino gangster. He was one big contradiction, and it didn’t make sense he would climb up here to install a camera, with a cop sitting two floors below, securing a homicide scene, and not say anything. What if the cop had heard him up here?
And Marino remembered what the neighbor had mentioned about a roof access, about seeing service people near the satellite dish. Maybe Morales hadn’t climbed up the ladder. Maybe he’d gotten up here another way—an easy way—and was too much of an asshole to let Marino in on the secret.
Cold steel bit into his bare hands as he gripped the rungs and made his way down slowly. He didn’t know he had reached the ground until he felt it beneath his shoes, and he leaned against the side of the brownstone for a moment to calm down and catch his breath. He walked to the entrance and stood at the bottom of the steps, looking up to see if Morales was watching. Marino couldn’t see him.
Attached to his keys was a small tactical light, and he directed the powerful beam at the lanterns on either side of the brownstone’s ivy-covered entrance. He checked the brick steps, the landing, then swept the beam over bushes and trash cans. He called the dispatcher and indicated he needed the officer inside Terri Bridges’s apartment to go to the building’s front door and let him in. He waited a minute, and the front door opened, and it wasn’t the same uniformed cop who had let him in earlier today.
“Having fun yet?” Marino asked, moving past him into the foyer and shutting the door.
“It’s starting to stink in there,” the officer said, and he looked all of sixteen. “Remind me never to eat chicken again.”
Marino found two light switches to the left of the door. He tried them. One was for the outside lights, the other for the foyer.
“You know if these are on a timer?” he asked.
“They’re not.”
“So how’d the entrance lights get on tonight?”
“I turned them on when I got here maybe two hours ago. Why? You want ’em off?”
Marino looked at the dark wooden stairs leading up to the second floor.
He said, “No, leave them on. You been up there? Looks like the other residents aren’t back.”
“I haven’t been anywhere. Stuck on my ass inside the door.” He nodded at the apartment door, which he’d left open a crack. “Nobody’s been inside the building. If it was me, I’d sure take my time coming back, especially if I was a woman living alone.”
“No other women living alone,” Marino said. “Just the one whose apartment you’re babysitting. This one here.” He indicated the door on the other side of the foyer. “Two guys, both of them bartenders. Probably never here at night. Upstairs? Right above Terri Bridges, a guy who goes to Hunter College, supports himself walking dogs. The apartment on the other side, some Italian consultant with a British financial company that’s the actual tenant. In other words, one of those corporate rentals. The guy’s probably never here.”
“Anybody talked to them?”
“Not me, but I’ve run their backgrounds. Nothing jumps out. I get the impression from talking to her parents that she wasn’t the friendly type. She never talked about the other residents and didn’t seem to know them or have any interest. But hey, this ain’t the South. People don’t bake cakes for their neighbors so they can stick their nose into their business. Don’t mind me. I’m going to poke around up there for a few minutes.”
“Just be careful because Investigator Morales is up on the roof.”
Marino stopped on the bottom step and said, “What?”
“Yeah, he went up there maybe an hour ago.”
“He tell you why?”
“I didn’t ask.”
“He tell you to move your car?”
“What for?”
“Ask him,” Marino said. “He’s the big investigator with all the big ideas.”
He climbed the steps, and on the second floor, in the ceiling between the two apartments, was a stainless-steel access hatch with an inside T-handle. Under it was an aluminum stepladder with slip-resistant treads, a fold-up safety bar, and a work tray with several screwdrivers in it. Nearby, a utility closet door was wide open.
“Son of a bitch,” he muttered.
He imagined Morales on the roof, laughing as he’d listened to Marino struggling down the fire escape, when all he’d had to do was direct him to the roof access. Marino could have climbed down five sturdy ladder steps inside a lighted building instead of thirty narrow rungs outside in the frigid dark.
Marino folded the ladder and returned it to the closet.
He was halfway back to his car when his cell phone rang. The display said Unknown, and he was sure it was Morales, pissed as hell.
“Yo,” he answered cheerfully as he walked.
“Marino?” It was Jaime Berger. “I’ve been trying to get hold of Morales.”
There was a lot of background noise, what sounded like traffic, and he knew when she was irritated.
“I just saw him,” he said. “He’s sort of unreachable this very minute.”
“If you happen to talk to him, you might mention I’ve left three messages. I won’t leave a fourth. Maybe you can take care of my problem. Eighteen passwords so far.”