“I like to think of it as pragmatic.”
As they approached the staircase, Tracy noted three steps leading down to an exterior door. She took them and pushed on the door, which sprang open and led into a parking lot at the back of the building. She exited the building and let the door close behind her. When she tried the handle she found the door locked and noticed, on the wall beside it, a keyless pad. She considered the light stanchions and corners of the surrounding buildings, but did not see any surveillance cameras. Retrofitted metal decks anchored by extension arms and large bolts protruded from the second and third stories and likely obstructed the tenants’ views of the parking lot, and anyone approaching the ground-level door.
Kins opened the door for her from the inside and they made their way up the staircase to the third-floor landing. They encountered the final perimeter, an officer with a clipboard and sign-in log just outside the loft door. Kins signed for both of them and again asked for Zhu.
“Hang on,” the officer said. He took a step inside the loft. “Detective Zhu? You got a couple of visitors.”
Tracy contemplated the door to the loft. Larger than a standard door, it looked solid, with metal rivets. She again noted a keyless lock pad. Neither the door nor the doorjamb evidenced any sign of a forced entry.
An Asian man with young features stepped into the hall. Kins and Jonathan Zhu shook hands and Kins introduced Tracy.
“Well, this is one way to search an apartment,” Zhu said. “What time did you talk to this guy today?”
“Right around noon,” Kins said.
“Where’d you meet him?”
“We interrupted him at some place called the Third Degree.”
“Three Degrees?” Zhu said. “Down on the water?”
“Yeah, that’s the one,” Kins said. “He was meeting someone for lunch.”
“A woman?”
“Yeah,” Kins said.
“Did she show?”
“Briefly,” Kins said.
“You get a good look at her?”
“Hard to miss. Tall, Asian, good-looking.”
“Come on in.” Zhu led them inside the loft.
The interior consisted of an open floor plan interrupted only by thick, hand-hewn wooden beams extending to triangular trusses that supported a twenty-foot ceiling. To the left of the entry, Tracy noticed a bench where people could sit and remove their shoes. Above it hung coats and jackets from metal hooks. One coat looked like the coat worn by the Asian woman at the restaurant. Tracy and Kins followed Zhu into a living area of leather couches, a glass coffee table, and a flat-screen TV. The early-evening sunlight streamed into the room through arched windows. In the far corner was a kitchen. Metal steps led up to the second-story landing. They ascended. Partitions shielded their view as they approached a room where most of the activity was centered. Stepping around the partition, Tracy encountered a team of people from the medical examiner’s office hovering over and working around a blood-soaked bed, the white sheets and bedding stained a deep crimson red.
“Is she the woman you saw him with this afternoon?” Zhu asked.
They stepped from the loft back into the hall. Streaks of light through one of the arched windows cut slash marks across the floor. The noises of the Pearl District filtered up from the street—cars and the sounds of a city. The scene inside the loft was gruesome—a young woman lay facedown on the bed, sheet lowered to reveal her bare shoulders and back, dark hair and blood forming a halo around her head.
“Who is she?” Tracy asked.
“According to her driver’s license she’s Megan Chen,” Zhu said. “Twenty-four years old, shares an apartment in inner Northeast Portland with two roommates.”
“Who found her? Who called it in?” Kins asked.
“Cleaning lady,” Zhu said. “She’s pretty shaken up. We have one of our female detectives talking with her at the station.”
“Any estimate on the time of death?” Tracy asked.
“ME says a couple hours at most.”
Sufficient time for Strickland to leave the restaurant and get home, Tracy thought. “They find a weapon?”
Zhu nodded. “9mm.”
Likely the same-caliber weapon used to kill Devin Chambers.
Kins shifted his feet, the way he did when he was upset, or frustrated. “Any word on Strickland’s whereabouts?”
“We sent a couple of detectives over to the law firm where he works. His assistant said he had a three o’clock appointment this afternoon but didn’t show.”
“That was with me,” Tracy said. “I called yesterday to find out if he was around so we wouldn’t make an unnecessary trip.”
“The assistant tried his cell but it went straight to voice mail,” Zhu said. “Apparently, he doesn’t keep a home phone.”
“You tracking his cell?” Kins asked.
“Trying,” Zhu said. “He’s had it shut off. We’re also working on getting a warrant to track his credit cards and ATM in real time.”
Zhu’s cell phone rang. “This could be the judge.” He stepped to the side to take the call.
“It doesn’t make sense,” Tracy said.