Hard Evidence. Susan Peterson
“Are you coming? I don’t have a key, so we need yours to get in.”
I followed him into the front hall, the smell of frying sausages, sauerkraut and onions hit me hard and made my stomach rumble. Memories of dinner at the Orzinskis’ house swam into my consciousness—Claire standing over the stove, sautéing onions while Charlie read her sections of the evening paper.
I pushed the thought aside. Obviously the PowerBar earlier hadn’t been enough. Suddenly, I was starving.
A door to the right swung open and a short, squat woman with pure white hair and a bulldog face peered out. “Who are you?” she demanded.
Jack smiled that charming, one-sided dimpled grin of his. “Evenin’, ma’am. We’re here to pick up Charlie’s cat.”
The woman opened the door wider; her expression was suddenly a map of concern. “How is Charlie? Edith and I have been beside ourselves with worry about him. We were going to take a bus down to the hospital to see him, but money has been a little tight this month.”
“Who’s out there, Patty?” another voice called from inside the apartment.
“It’s some friends of Charlie’s here to pick up that insufferable beast of a cat of his. He’s still in the hospital. Gonna be there for a while longer, it seems.” She glanced at us for confirmation and Jack nodded.
There was the sound of something thumping on the floorboards of the hall and a tall, skinny woman with gray hair and a sour expression appeared. She leaned heavily on a thick cane. “You sure they’re legit? Awful lot of people claiming to be Charlie’s friends been popping out of the woodwork lately, asking to get into his apartment.”
Jack reached into his back pocket and pulled out his wallet, flipping it open to show his badge. “I’m with the Syracuse Fire Department. Charlie’s a real good friend of mine.” He nodded in my direction. “This is Killia—”
“Oh, we’ve met Killian,” the shorter sister said, smiling sweetly in my direction. “Sorry, dear, I didn’t recognize you in the dark hallway.”
She glanced up at the dim bulb. “We keep meaning to get stronger lighting out here, what with all the riffraff hanging around the neighborhood and stumbling into entryways without an invite. But somehow we always forget to tell Charlie to do that for us.”
She sighed. “Charlie’s been very good to us. He was always willing to do a few chores. Help us out when we needed something done.”
“Sounds like he won’t be helping us again any time soon,” Edith grumbled. She turned and thumped back down the hall of her apartment, mumbling under her breath.
The shorter sister smiled apologetically. “You’ll have to excuse Edith. She really does care about what happens to Charlie. She just isn’t the type to show her true feelings.”
I nodded but had a strong feeling that if Edith had the opportunity to get anywhere near Charlie’s bedside, she’d whack the soles of his feet with her cane and tell him to get his lazy ass out of bed. No doubt Charlie would be grateful she hadn’t scrounged up the extra money to take the bus down to the hospital.
Patty shot a quick glance over one shoulder and then shuffled her swollen, slippered feet out into the hall. She pulled the door shut after her. “Sorry for all the questions, but my sister is right. Lots of people been claiming to know Charlie lately. I never knew the man to have so many friends.”
“What did these friends say they wanted?” I asked.
Patty shrugged. “A few asked if he was home. A few of the recent ones wanted me to let them into the apartment.” She reached up and scratched her powder-white ear. “Personally, I can’t figure it out. Charlie doesn’t have two nickels to rub together. He doesn’t have much and I can’t say I can believe they stopped by to feed that ugly, disagreeable cat of his.”
“Did you recognize any of them as visiting here before?” I asked.
Patty’s bulldog forehead wrinkled even more. “Can’t remember anyone specific. One fellow had a bad case of pimples—in serious need of a good scrubbing. And his breath wasn’t any prettier than his face. Charlie might be poor, but he isn’t the type of man to let his personal hygiene go.”
The hair on the back of my neck ruffled. “Did you let him into the apartment?”
Indignation crossed Patty’s face. “Of course not! What kind of rooming house do you think we run around here?” She fluttered her stubby eyelashes in Jack’s direction. “Of course, if the request comes from one of Syracuse’s firemen, heroes that they all are, then that’s an entirely different story.”
I snorted at the description of Jack as a hero, and he shot me a look of exaggerated woundedness. I merely raised an eyebrow and frowned. He might be welcomed eye candy for a little old Polish lady on the west side, but he wasn’t fooling me. He sighed and turned back to Patty.
“Mind if Killian and I take a look around?”
“You go right ahead, sir. Just lock up when you’re all done.” Patty smiled and disappeared back into her apartment.
Jack and I took the worn stairs to the third floor. I could hear muted voices behind the walls of the other apartments we passed and the smell of dinner cooking.
My stomach rumbled loud enough for Jack to shoot me a quick glance. “Hungry?”
“A little.”
“We’ll grab some King David takeout on the way home.”
My heart squeezed with pain. Our favorite meal—Middle Eastern—hummus-and-fried-veggie patties on pita bread. We used to set up a picnic in the middle of the bed and chow down like two wild beasts and then roll over and make ourselves hungry all over again.
“I’m more of a hamburger and French fries type of gal, nowadays,” I said stiffly.
Jack shrugged. “McDonald’s it is, then.”
We reached the third floor and stopped.
Charlie’s apartment door yawned open on its hinges. Apparently whomever the Stanziki sisters had last refused entrance hadn’t accepted no for an answer. They’d simply kicked the flimsy door open and walked right in.
Jack and I stepped around the hanging door into utter chaos. If I’d judged Charlie’s place to be a hellhole earlier in the day, it now looked as though even Satan had deserted the place, but not before he’d had a major temper tantrum.
Every piece of furniture was smashed, slivers of wood and metal littering the threadbare carpet. The tiny twelve-inch black-and-white TV—where Charlie had gotten a real black-and-white TV was beyond me—was now screenless, shards of the glass spread across the carpet. The lamps lay broken on the two cheap end tables among ripped magazines and scraps of newspaper.
Through the archway into the tiny bedroom off the living room, I could see clothes, mostly worn jeans and stained T-shirts, hanging out of the thin plasterboard dresser.
The mattress, stained and sagging in the middle, was ripped up the center, the rusted springs and thin padding bubbling up between the tear like the guts of an eviscerated pancake. I swallowed hard.
Jack lifted his hand, pushed me back against the wall and started to shoulder his way past me. I shoved back, reaching inside my coat and drawing my gun.
“If you don’t mind, I’ll go first,” I said, brushing past him.
“Stay here,” I mouthed silently.
He frowned, none too pleased. When I stepped inside, he pulled up close on my heels. I was annoyed that he didn’t listen, but I didn’t take the time to argue. I didn’t want to warn anyone if they were still in the apartment.
I poked my head into the small kitchen to the right of the living room. Actually, it wasn’t a kitchen, but a pathetic notch in the wall that served as a cooking nook.
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