Pena pointed to the hotplate. “He’s not allowed to have that.”
Milo said, “How was he supposed to eat?”
Pena appeared surprised by the question. “No cooking in here, he knew the rules.”
Milo sniffed the air, walked to the corner across from the fridge, sighted down at the floor, and pointed. Granules of white powder specked the concrete an inch from the bed. A few inches away, an empty mini-baggie.
“Don’t imagine rules were that important to him.” He checked his phone. “No reception down here?”
“Uh-uh,” said Pena. “Sorry.”
“I’m asking because I’m waiting on a warrant to search this place.”
“You can try in the garage but it comes and goes there. Best to go outside.”
Milo said, “We’ll go up to the lobby until the warrant comes in, then come back here.”
“How long’s that going to take?”
“Hopefully it’ll be soon.”
“Okay, I guess,” said Pena. “No offense, but you guys just standing around could make people nervous.”
“The police make your residents nervous?”
“You know students, everything bothers them.”
“Don’t imagine someone dying here last night’s gonna comfort them, Bob.”
Pena licked his lips. “I was hoping to keep that kind of quiet.”
“Sirens last night didn’t give it away?”
“Not really, sir. There’s always ambulance sirens — like I said, we’re close to the med center. ’Specially at night. And when I found him, I opened that gate for them and they rolled right in.”
“Ten fifteen p.m.,” said Milo. “How’d you come to find him?”
“I took off to go to the doctor, made up by working late. I came back, checked around, he was supposed to bring the extra garbage to the dumpsters out back and didn’t. I went to talk to him.”
“You let yourself in here?”
Pena blinked. “I’m allowed.”
“All the doors were locked?”
“The mesh and the metal. The wood one wasn’t. I knocked first. He didn’t answer so I opened it. I needed to talk to him.”
“He always leave his door unlocked?”
“Wouldn’t know,” said Pena.
“You didn’t have a lot of meetings with him down here.”
“Right, mostly during the day,” said Pena. “After the doctor, I went out to dinner with my wife, then like I said I came back to check and found the extra garbage. She was waiting in the car, I told her I’d be right out.” Long exhalation. “I couldn’t believe it. I told her to go home, I’d be tied up. Had to take an Uber home.”
“What a thing, Bob.”
“A big thing.”
“So you knocked, he didn’t answer—”
“There was a light on — down there, a crack under the door. I figured he fell asleep. I wanted him to take care of the garbage. So I go in, and he’s there.” Pointing to the bed, then the floor. “Half on, half off, he’s all blue, his mouth’s hanging open. Then I see the spoon and the needle. I couldn’t believe it. I called 911. Not from here, like I said no reception, and like I said the garage isn’t great so I went outside. Saw my wife in the car, to be honest I’d forgot about her, she says you okay, I say no, tell her what happened, tell her to go home.”
Pena sucked saliva through his teeth. “What do you need a warrant for? He’s dead. And it was an accident, right?”
“We like to be careful, Bob. If Mr. Lotz was a longtime user, it could be an accident.”
“Could be?” said Pena. He gave a sick smile. “Okay, I get it, you guys take all kinds of flak.”
“Part of the job, Bob. So Mr. Lotz hid his secrets pretty well.”
“Too well.”
“Other than that, did he do his job okay?”
“It’s not rocket science,” said Pena. “Pickup janitorial, odds and ends. Not much heavy lifting, the main cleanup is done by a service. He was quiet — like a loner.”
“Hired by Academo and sent to you.”
Pena nodded.
“Residents pretty happy, overall?”
Pena’s eyes rounded. “Why wouldn’t they be?”
“What you said about students,” said Milo.
“Oh, yeah. What I meant was they got their needs. Got to have the Wi-Fi working, the A.C. going all the time, got to be able to watch their shows and listen to their music.”
“And no cops. Like the one’s who’d come if there was a noise complaint.”
Pena shifted his feet. “We don’t have that. We talk to them, it works out.”
Milo pulled out a photo of Amanda Burdette taken from one of the wedding shots. “This resident happy?”
Pena squinted. “Left my glasses up in the office.”
Milo drew the photo back to give him more distance.
“Her?” said Pena. “Yeah, she’s here. Why’re you asking about her? She in some sort of trouble?”
“Not at all, Bob. She just happened to be involved in another case — not as a suspect, a witness.”
“Witness to what?”
Milo waved off the question. “That’s actually what got me curious about what happened here. I saw the address in Lotz’s file and remembered it from her witness statement. I’m sure it’s nothing. Big city, big building, all kinds of things happen.”
“Exactly,” said Pena.
“Long as I’m here, though, I might as well touch base with her. Where’s her unit?”
“You need to do that? Fine, she’s in C. The third building.”
I said, “There are two other buildings?”
Pena smiled like a kid delivering a secret. “It’s one of those optical illusions. From the outside it looks like one building with three entries but it’s really three separates. When they built them, they put on a big front to cut costs. This one’s A, the others are B and C.”
“Any passage from one building to another?”
“Nope, structural walls between them.”
“Did Lotz work in all three buildings?”
“Yup.”
“Who lives in the other basement rooms?”
“No one, they’re storage.”
Milo tapped Amanda’s photo. “Building C. What unit?”
“She’s really not in trouble?” said Pena. “That’s all I need, more trouble.”
Milo said, “Perish the thought, Bob. By the way, how many units are there, total?”
“Thirty-one times three. Ninety-three total.”
“Amanda’s been no problem.”
“That’s her name?” said Pena. “I know it sounds weird but I don’t bother with the names because they come and go. To me she’s C-four-eighteen. Fourth floor.”
“Do you know if she’s in?”
“Not a clue, don’t pay attention unless they call with a problem.”
“No calls from Amanda.”
“Nothing,” said Pena. “I don’t keep tabs on them, sir. It’s not like they work regular jobs, keep regular hours.”
“Got it, Bob. Where’s the mailroom?”
“Downstairs in B. We got a service, delivers to each unit.”
“Nice.”
“That’s what they pay for.”
“Okay, we’ll pay Amanda a visit while we’re waiting for the warrant.”
“Sure,” said Pena, sounding anything but. He rubbed the top of his head and screwed up his lips.
“Is there a problem, Bob?”
“No, no problem — the company likes privacy for the residents, that’s all. It’s like a thing for them.”
“Privacy.”
“We need to be better than a dorm.”
“Don’t worry, we’re not gonna break down her door, Bob. Just a gentle knock.”
“Sure,” Pena repeated. “And yeah, I never hear from her. To me that’s a good resident.”
The three of us walked outside and over to Building C. Milo pointed to a closed-circuit camera above the door. “Saw that at A. Need the tapes, Bob.”