Milo said, “By that Mr. Pena means Mr. Lotz worked for him.”
“His sleeves were always down,” said Pena. “Even when it was hot. What do I know about addicts? If I wanted to deal with addicts, I’d work one of those Section Eight dumps downtown. He did his job, stayed in his hole, made no problems.”
“By hole Mr. Pena means Mr. Lotz’s room here on the ground floor.” Milo’s long arm stretched to the left, behind Pena’s back. Directing me to a fenced-off section, mesh like the gates. High Voltage. HVAC. No Entry.
Bob Pena said, “It was part of his employment package.”
I said, “What was his job?”
“Cleanup, odd jobs, gofer-stuff,” said Pena. Head shake. “Owners aren’t going to like this.”
I said, “Who are the owners?”
“Academo, Inc. Big company in Ohio. He came through their human resources, they send me someone, I don’t argue. Like with cleaning companies, electricians, all that good stuff. They send, I take.”
“Academo,” I said. “They specialize in off-campus housing?”
“That and some Section Eight and maybe other stuff, I don’t know,” said Pena. “It’s a good business, big schools, you get too many students for the dorms. The U. refers them over here when they’re full up. Also, some of the rich kids don’t want to live in dorms. We’re a lot nicer than a dorm.”
I said, “Does the company gets subsidized by the U.?”
Pena frowned. “I don’t know the details, my job is to take care of the physical plant, fix problems. Not problems like this. This is like…I don’t know what it’s like.”
Milo said, “Where’s Lotz’s car?”
“I’ll take you,” said Pena, pointing to a far corner. We followed him across the garage to a twenty-year-old gray Volvo squeezed into a space marked No Parking. Dusty, rusted in spots, the tags four years old.
Milo looked inside the car, walked back to Pena. “Okay, let’s have a look at his place.”
“I kept it locked for you,” said Pena. Eager to take credit for something.
“Appreciate it, Bob.”
“Whatever helps. No one’s been in there since the other cops last night and the EMTs and then the morgue guys. So what was it, heroin?”
“We don’t know yet, Bob.”
“Probably heroin,” said Pena. “That needle and spoon next to him?” Head shake. “Go know. You do your best to run a tight ship—I was on a dry cargo in the navy. I know what tight ship really means.”
“Could we see the hole, Bob?”
“Yeah, yeah, sorry, I’ll let you in. Then I got to send an email to Ohio.”
* * *
—
Selecting a key from a clattering ring, Pena unlocked the mesh fence and led us into a dim concrete area half filled with stacks of labeled boxes. Bulbs. Hoses. Filters. Pipes. Fittings.
A slab-metal door led to a larger storage space throbbing with pneumatic and electric noise. Both side walls hosted equipment: a bank of water heaters, another of A.C. condensers. Electrical panels, a spaghetti snarl of phone hookups, overhead conduits, pipes, insulated ducts.
Past all that, a wooden door with a cheap lock opened to a windowless afterthought. Michael Lotz’s domicile was ripe with body odor and the vinegary reek of heroin, the walls barely plastered drywall. Generous for a jail cell; as a dwelling, sad.
A doorway to the left led to a prefab fiberglass bathroom. Toilet, sink, prefab shower, all in need of cleaning. I thought about Red Dress’s final moments.
In the main room, a single-sized mattress sat on a sagging box spring, next to a fake-wood dresser and chair and a black plastic lamp. Black sheet, purple-and-black quilted covers pushed toward the foot of the bed, much of the cloth dripping onto a vinyl floor. Two pillows bent into kidney-bean shapes, one black, one yellow, leaned against the wall.
Curling, Scotch-taped posters abounded: naked women, women in bikinis, high-octane race cars and homologated street versions. Grown man living in the fantasy world of a teenage boy.
On the dresser, a hotplate, a six-pack of Bud Lite, an almost empty bottle of Jose Cuervo, a dozen candy bars, plastic dishes and pot-metal utensils for one. Nearby, tucked in a corner near the entrance to the bathroom, a brown mini-fridge burped and wheezed.
The room was pleasantly cool, the beneficiary of being belowground plus an industrial-strength ventilation system. Trade-off for the wasp-drone coursing through the walls, bottoming the refrigerator’s percussion.
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.”