Allison Fitch was out there, somewhere, and not knowing where she was, or what she might do, had Lewis worried for all the same reasons it did Howard Talliman. If, and when, she decided to walk into a police station and tell everything she knew, it was all over for them. All over for Howard, all over for Morris, and all over for Lewis Blocker.
Everything he and Howard had done to try to tie up the loose ends on this colossal fuckup, as Howard so aptly called it, would unravel the moment Allison Fitch decided to come out of hiding. Once she’d told the authorities about the murder, confessed to her blackmail attempt, and revealed her meeting with Howard, the shit would hit the proverbial fan.
They had to make sure that did not happen.
Several steps were being taken in that direction. First, Lewis had Nicole watching Fitch’s mother in Ohio. He figured, sooner or later, the girl would attempt to get in touch with her. What daughter in trouble didn’t want to talk to her mom? What daughter wouldn’t be wracked with guilt while her mother despaired over what had happened to her? Wouldn’t she, eventually, feel she had to allay her mother’s fears?
Lewis had decidedly mixed feelings about keeping Nicole on this project after the way she’d screwed up. His earlier confidence in her had been immeasurably shaken, and his initial impulse had been to make Nicole pay the ultimate price for her mistake. But right now, he needed all the help he could get, and Nicole, feeling her neck, had said she would help, indefinitely, to make things right. So he would use her until this mess was resolved.
Lewis also wanted to maintain surveillance, of a sort, on the Fitch apartment. Although he thought it highly unlikely the woman herself would return to the unit, he believed it was possible someone who knew her might show up at some point. Maybe just a friend dropping by to say hi. Or, and this was the eventuality Lewis most hoped for, someone Allison had been in touch with and instructed to go to her old place to see what was going on.
Either way, such a visitor might provide a clue to Allison Fitch’s current whereabouts.
Lewis couldn’t post someone in the hallway 24-7. Too obvious. And even though he’d spoken to the landlord, in the guise of a relative of one of the former tenants, and arranged to make sure the rent was paid every month for the foreseeable future, Lewis didn’t have the manpower to have someone in the apartment at all hours in case a visitor showed up. He stayed there himself for the first month, and the only person who came knocking was a guy distributing takeout menus for an Italian place down the street.
But he couldn’t shake the idea that a person of interest might, someday, show up. And when that person did, he wanted to have a look at who it was.
Which was why he installed the camera.
A pinhole affair, motion-activated, mounted behind the door, with an excellent view of the hallway. Whenever a person came to within a few feet of the apartment, it came on. At the end of every day, Lewis reviewed any images, which were automatically sent to his computer.
There was almost always something. Usually, it was the super, vacuuming the hall. One day, a pizza delivery guy at the wrong door. Lewis watched as he got out his cell phone, called his dispatcher, and sorted it out.
Lewis got a little hungry, watching that one.
On Halloween, some kids got into the building and went door to door, looking for candy. Two girls, one dressed as Lady Gaga, the other as an alien from another world—actually, he wasn’t sure which was which—struck out at apartment 305.
Every day, something. But nothing of value.
Lewis was thinking it was time to abandon this idea, take out the camera, stop paying on the apartment.
And then the guy with the Pearl Paint bag shows up.
Lewis sat at the desk in the study of his Lower East Side apartment, looking at the oversized monitor of his computer. Studying. The man knocked three times with the hand holding the bag from the art store. Lewis, in his investigation of Allison Fitch, before and after her disappearance, had never seen him before. Had no idea who he was, or whether this visit was in any way significant.
Was the guy selling something? Was he at the wrong apartment? Was he, in fact, someone who knew one of the two previous tenants, and had stopped by for a visit? If he’d known the two people who’d lived here, wouldn’t he, possibly, have shouted into the door? Something like, “Hey, anybody home?” How had he gotten into the building? Did he have a key? Did someone heading out of the building allow him access, or had he buzzed a bunch of people at random until one of them was dumb enough to buzz back?
Did it matter? Was this visitor important at all?
Then Lewis caught a look at the piece of paper in his other hand.
What was that? It had flashed twice past the lens very quickly. Lewis played the short bit of footage several times but was unable to make it out.