Except that last morning . . . there had been no one there. Nobody asleep facedown in the sheets. Or slumped on the couch. Or one-arming the toilet.
And in the days and weeks that had followed, there had been . . . nothing. No clues, no evidence, no body. Disappeared. But given the way Butch had handled himself and the hard life that he’d led? José couldn’t say he’d been surprised.
Nah, he’d just been heartbroken.
He glanced back at that couch. “Nothing worse than trying to save someone.”
As the good Catholic he was, José had spent a lot of time praying for his former partner. He’d also missed the guy, and not just on a personal level. Like Trey, he wished Butch could have been here on this scene, be back at HQ going through files, be knocking on doors and asking questions.
O’Neal had been sucky at real life, but a helluva detective.
What a haunted man.
From time to time, José dwelled on him, and when the memories got too painful—which was almost immediately—he’d switch to imagining that Butch was living in a parallel universe on the flipside of Caldwell, with a beautiful wife and a bunch of strong protectors around him—
As a sharpshooter pierced through José’s frontal lobe, he groaned and stopped going down that rabbit hole. It was just fiction anyway, something his mind coughed up when he couldn’t handle the fact that there hadn’t been a body to bury.
Rubbing his face, he knew he was never going to get over all he didn’t know about what had happened to the guy. And it had always made him feel for those families who never got their justice.
“Where did you go, Butch,” he said out loud.
He was used to talking to his favorite partner, as crazy as he knew that was—but had long ago decided, hey, people used their dogs as sounding boards, right?
Heading for the door, he flipped off the overhead light, and closed things behind himself. Picking up a roll of yellow police tape that had been left on the floor outside, he ran it across the portal, stringing the official-business banner between a set of nails that had been driven into the jamb. Then he affixed a fresh seal to the juncture and signed it with his pen.
As he went to the stairs, he jacked up his slacks again and patted his belly. Maybe he’d take up running. Touch football. How about the basketball games at church on Tuesday and Thursday nights?
The stairs were stained and dusty—but what wasn’t in this building—and they squeaked and creaked under his street shoes. Then again, as he considered the roof damage to the crime scene, the fact that the structure was standing at all seemed like a miracle. On that note, he stuck to the wall side of the steps. When he came to the floor below, he—
A shuffling sound, like rats hightailing it across a bare floor, brought his head to the right. The apartment directly below the victim’s had a closed door. Unlike the rest of the units.
Surely someone had checked to see if anybody was in?
He walked over, curled up a knuckle, and went a-rapping. “Hello? Detective de la Cruz, CPD.” He reached into his jacket and got his badge ready to flash. “Hello, do you have a minute to talk to me about your upstairs neighbor?”
It was hard to believe anyone was inside, though. The dealer clearly did so much business here that he’d want to secure the entire premises—which, according to records José had searched on his phone, had been abandoned by its commercial real estate property owners, foreclosed on by its bank, and then been left unpurchased for the last eight years.
José looked across the hall. That door was lolling open. Turning back, he knocked again.
“Hello?” he said more loudly.
A muffled shuffle was all he got in return, which suggested inhabitation by something larger than a medium-sized dog—but if the person didn’t answer, there was no way he had probable cause to enter. It could be a cat, somebody taking cover, a man or a woman just living their life.
Which had to be entwined with that dealer’s.
“I’m going to leave my card.” He took one out of his wallet and pushed the stiff square into the doorjamb. “I’d like to ask you a couple of questions.”
José waited a little longer; then he kept going down the stairs. It was frustrating, but he would try again—and set up a surveillance outside of the address. The person or people in there had to leave for food at some point. He’d cross their paths sooner or later.
Just as he stepped out of the building, a black Escalade pulled up across the street. Between its darkened windows and matte black rims, it was clear that it belonged to somebody in the same chosen profession as the victim’s.
Not a lot of Door Dash deliveries in a vehicle like that. Or Lyft rides.
Maybe a diplomat. But like they’d get rerouted to a neighborhood like this?
Well, shit was about to get more interesting, wasn’t it.
He looked left. Looked right. No other cars around, either parked or traveling over the chipped pavement. No other lights on in any of the buildings on the block. Nobody walking the sidewalks or in any window, anywhere.
Considering he was all alone, maybe meeting whoever drove that thing in the open air was better. Not that he couldn’t be gunned down out here in the street, it just made it a little less likely than in that stairwell, for example.
Where was Butch O’Neal when he needed the guy. That Southie madman had been the best backup—
The SUV’s driver’s side door opened, and a long leg extended out. Black slacks—no, leathers. And then—
José froze. And couldn’t believe what he was looking at.
Who he was looking at.
“—leave my card. I’d like to ask you a couple of questions.”
As the male voice permeated the closed door across the way, Rio strained against the gag in her mouth, trying to make a sound that the man could hear. When that failed, again, she arched against the ropes that bound her neck and her feet. She was lying on her side, her hands tied behind her back, her body strung tightly between two fixed points that she couldn’t see.