Stepping off the elevator again on the third floor of the Weehawken high--rise, Detective Steve Lindgren pauses to take a deep hit off his asthma inhaler.
The hallway is bustling with activity. At the far end, an officer is talking to a -couple of neighbors who knew the victim. A crime scene investigator is removing equipment from a duffel bag as an officer stationed at the open door of apartment 3C talks into his cell phone.
Steve tucks the inhaler back into his pocket alongside his Marlboro Lights. Ordinarily, he’d have stepped outside to smoke both before and after meeting with Kurt Walker, but he’s cutting back to a pack a day. Doctor’s orders.
Well, actually, doctor’s orders were to quit altogether. “You have asthma and you’ve had one heart attack already. You have a death wish?”
Steve doesn’t have a death wish, no.
Apparently, Richard Walker did.
Suicide is the immediate assumption when someone slits his wrists in a bathtub and is found with note—-in what is almost definitely his own handwriting—-that reads: I can’t do this anymore. You’ll be better off without me. I’m so sorry.
Still, all unattended deaths are investigated as potential homicides when accidents and natural causes have been ruled out, and in this case, they have.
There’s always a suicide spike at this time of year, and it’s not a stretch to think that this guy might have been depressed. Divorced and living alone, he’d been laid off back in October, which was news to his son. Plus, his ex--wife killed herself almost exactly a year ago using the same means, according to her son. Maybe even the same razor. Kurt Walker seemed to think so.
Losing one parent to suicide is bad enough, but two? And only a year apart? Steve feels for the guy, he really does.
He offered to accompany the poor guy to notify his brother in Brooklyn, and also offered to send local law enforcement in Texas and California to notify the younger siblings.
“No, thank you.” Kurt shook his head, eyes solemn behind his glasses. “I have to tell them myself. It’s my responsibility. My father taught me to do whatever has to be done, no matter how hard it is.”
“He sounds like a wise man. I’m sure he’d be proud of you.”
As they shook hands in the lobby, Steve promised to be in touch later today. “You let me know if you or your family need anything at all, okay?”
Kurt nodded and walked out into the cold, head bent, hands shoved deep into his pockets.
Thinking of what lies ahead for him and his siblings now, Steve sighs to himself as he reenters apartment 3C. The place is bustling with investigative activity, most of it centered around the body in the bathtub.
“The ME will be here in about twenty minutes,” one of the officers, Jimmy Hogan, informs Steve. “I’m just confirming we’ve got an ID on the victim and it’s Richard Walker, the guy who lives here?”
“Yeah, that’s him, according to his son. He’s the one who found him.”
“That’s rough.”
Steve shakes his head. “You don’t know how rough. The mother did the same thing, same way, last year at this time.”
Jimmy’s response is a colorful curse—-followed by an even more colorful one as he steps back to let a police photographer pass by and knocks a water glass off a table in the process. It shatters on the parquet floor.
“Cleanup on aisle six,” Steve announces through cupped hands.
“Yeah, yeah, funny. See if there’s a broom in that closet behind you there.”
Steve opens the door. The closet is jammed. He begins pulling things out, finds a broom, and hands it to Jimmy.
“Got a dustpan?”
“What do I look like, Molly Maid?” Steve continues rummaging in the closet.
He doesn’t find a dustpan; he finds something that’s a hell of a lot more interesting.
“What the hell . . . ?”
He swiftly pushes his way into the bathroom to take another look at the body in the tub.
“Hey, hey, careful, Lindgren,” the photographer protests. “I’m setting up a shot here.”
“Sorry, hang on. I just gotta check something.” Steve checks, and nods. “Hey, fellas? I think this one’s a homicide after all.”