They returned to the fourth floor more quietly. Attentively, too, with Heat and Feller resting hands on holsters. Rook hung back on the landing while the cops flanked the door to listen. They shook no to each other. Nikki examined the lock for jimmy marks, but the serially abused relic had more scratches than shine. The two detectives shared ready nods. Heat turned the key the manager had given her and in they went, announcing “NYPD” and fanning out textbook-style to clear the compact room, closet, and lav.
In contrast to the grubbiness of the building, the Haitian’s SRO revealed itself to be tidy and immaculate when Feller peeled the aluminum foil off one of the windows to let in the sun. The futon on the floor was neatly made with a week’s worth of T-shirts, underwear, socks, and a pair of jeans folded and stacked in the blue plastic basket beside it. A so-called kitchen, really just a thirty-six-inch Formica counter with a puny, stainless steel sink dropped into it, gleamed. There was no stove, not even a hot plate, but the old microwave oven, which Heat popped open, was empty and smelled like the Mr. Clean with Febreze on the shelf above it.
Rook said, “This place would go for five thousand a month in Manhattan,” then pressed PLAY on the portable CD unit on the empty bookcase. Rap Kreyol from Barikad Crew blasted and made them jump. He switched it off and said, “Sorry, sorry.”
“What’s your take?” asked Feller after a quick once-over of the place.
“You mean beyond the fact that Fabian Beauvais was a neatnik and liked Haitian rap?” Heat turned a circle in the middle of the room. “No personal effects, no pictures, no books, no magazines, only take-out containers in the trash? I’d say he hardly lived here.”
“How does an illegal who resorts to Dumpster diving afford a place he doesn’t live in? Doesn’t make sense.”
They spread out to search the room. It wouldn’t take long with three of them and a place that size. Heat took the kitchenette, Feller the shelves and boxes, Rook went into the tiny closet, which lacked even a door. As was the case throughout the whole SRO, the primary repair element was duct tape. It was wrapped around the spigot of the kitchen faucet, it held the empty curtain rod up above the bed, and where Rook stood in the closet, dusty, gritty, and gummy old pieces of it held down the curling linoleum on the floor. But a one-foot strip of shiny and new silver tape was plastered in one corner. “What do you think?” asked Rook. When they joined him, he said, “One of these things is not like the others.”
Heat and Feller got on bent knees. She took a documentary shot with her iPhone. The other detective took out his blade and cut the length of the tape, opening up a seam in the flooring that curled up. He pulled it back, exposing a rectangular hole in the under-boards, and nested in it was an envelope. Even though she wore gloves, Heat plucked the envelope out by the edges. It was thick and unsealed. And there were several fingerprints on it in what appeared to be dried blood. She folded back the closure, knowing what she’d find, just not knowing the amount.
“Are they all hundreds?” asked Detective Feller over her shoulder.
“Looks to be,” she said, leaving the money inside. “If so, there are thousands in here.” Nikki riffled the stack and stopped when she came upon a lump that created a bookmark in the middle of the cash. Feller extracted the tweezers from his Swiss Army knife, and with them, Heat drew out of the money a small piece of scratch paper with an address and a phone number written in ballpoint. And underneath, a word scrawled in pencil. “Can you read this?” She held it out to the other detective who squinted and tilted his head, trying to make it out.
“Conscience,” whispered Rook in her ear. Startled and blushing, Nikki turned to him. But he was only deciphering the scrawl. “It says, ‘conscience.’”