Detweiler would like that, after all, and Alex wanted to deny him any such pleasure.
He dismissed the rune during the elevator ride up to the thirtieth floor. The man operating the elevator was short and built like a fireplug, with a square jaw and big hands. He wore a tuxedo and maintained an air of quiet dignity despite having to ferry cops and P.I.s up to a murder scene.
“The Gordons’ apartment is to the right,” he said when they reached their destination.
Alex stepped off the elevator and found himself in a short hallway with only three doors. One was the door that accessed the stairs. The other two were for the apartments on this floor. That idea made Alex shake his head. How big were these apartments?
At the right end of the hall, a policeman in a blue uniform stood guard at an open door. Alex could see many more officers moving about inside.
“Lieutenant Detweiler sent for me,” Alex told the man at the door.
“You Lockerby?”
When Alex nodded, the man stepped aside.
“There you are,” Detweiler growled as soon as Alex came in. “It’s about time.”
“Sorry Lieutenant,” Alex said, keeping his voice and expression neutral. “Your boys went to my apartment, but I was at my office.”
“Spare me the details,” he said, clearly in a foul mood. “I need you to look over this crime scene.”
Alex looked around. At least half a dozen officers and detectives that Alex could see were milling around. The apartment was enormous. From where he stood, Alex could see a sitting room, formal dining room, a solarium, and what looked like a library in the distance.
The elevator man had said the crime occurred at the Gordon residence. Marcellus Gordon was one of the names on the North Shore Development articles, and Alex knew from the research Leslie had done that he was married.
“Where is Mrs. Gordon?”
“She was in hysterics,” Detweiler said. “I had some of the boys take her over to the hospital.”
“Is there a back way out of this apartment?” Alex asked.
“There’s a back door that goes out to a stairwell, but it’s locked and barred from the inside.”
“Did you double the guard here like the Chief said?”
Detweiler’s face turned red and his eyebrows knit together.
“I didn’t bring you here to ask stupid questions,” he exploded. “Of course I did. There were two uniforms in the lobby and three up here, one outside the door and two in the apartment.”
Alex wanted to find fault with that just to be a contrarian but he had to admit, five officers should have been plenty.
“What did your men say happened?” he asked.
Detweiler looked like he wanted to stay angry, but his color faded and he sighed.
“Come with me,” he said, then headed off through the parlor to the formal dining room. A huge table of light wood with gold art-deco inlays occupied this room, with seating for six. A mahogany sideboard held a full service of gleaming silver and a china cabinet opposite shimmered with dishware.
To the left a door on a swinging hinge led into the kitchen. It was bigger than the dining room with massive countertops, an electric stove and range, and a cold box big enough to keep a side of beef. In the center of the room was a simple dining table with four chairs around it. A tea service had been laid out on the table and Alex saw four cups and saucers along with bread and butter and the teapot. There were scuff marks on the tile floor around one of the chairs.
“So your men were here, having tea with Mrs. Gordon when it happened,” Alex stated, assessing the scene.
Detweiler’s face went red again, but Alex held up a placating hand.
“Just an observation, Lieutenant,” he said. “No judgement.”
“Mr. Gordon went upstairs to his office,” Detweiler explained. Alex wondered just how big this apartment was that it had an upstairs. “About five minutes later, the officers report that they heard him fall down.”
The Lieutenant led the way through a door on the far side of the kitchen and into a long, paneled hallway. This ran down to a spiral staircase that led up to a small sitting room. Another door and short hall later let them to Mr. Gordon’s office. It was quite the most elegant office Alex had ever seen, with a small mahogany desk, comfortable-looking chairs, a gas fireplace, and bookshelves on the side walls. Frosted glass sconces lined the walls, radiating white light, but reflecting purple light back on the walls through a bit of colored glass. The only thing out of place in the room was Mr. Gordon’s corpse.
He lay face up next to a thick pool of his own congealing blood. Alex could smell the tang of iron in the air. There was far too much blood for the ghost’s usual stab wounds. On top of that, a red line of spatter ran up the wall near the body.
“Our ghost was in a hurry,” Alex guessed.
“That’s the way we figure it,” Detweiler said, nodding at the body. “His throat’s been cut.”
“You kept your men out,” Alex said, noticing that the carpet was mostly undisturbed.
“Once my men called it in, yeah,” Detweiler said.
Alex looked at him with a raised eyebrow.
“There are only two ways into this apartment, Lockerby,” he said. “Through the front door and the back stairs. I checked the door to the stairs, it’s locked and bolted. That means that the ghost got in here past five alert policemen.” He shook his head. “I don’t buy it. Unless this King fellow is really a ghost, he must be using magic. That’s your department, so get in there and find out how this maniac is doing his disappearing act.”
Alex set his kit down on the floor and took out his multi-lamp, ghostlight burner, and oculus.
“What’s that for?” Detweiler asked Alex as he readied his gear.
“This lets me see magical residue,” Alex explained. “If someone used magic to get in here, this should reveal it.”
“How would someone do that?” the lieutenant asked. “I mean if it was a sorcerer doing this, they’d just turn these guys into toads or something, right?”
Alex agreed. This didn’t seem like something a sorcerer would cook up. With their power they could exact much more painful and personal revenge without leaving a trace. Whoever was doing this was getting the best revenge they could manage.
So, Alex thought, if I wanted to murder someone to avenge my dead wife, how would I do it?
“A powerful runewright could do it,” Alex said, sweeping his lantern carefully over the body. “There’s a thing called a linking rune that allows a runewright to connect a person with an anchor.”
“And that lets you walk through walls?”
“No,” he admitted. So far there were no traces of magical residue on the body, so he expanded his search to the room. “But when the rune is activated, it moves the recipient from where they are to wherever the anchor is.”
“Like when sorcerers teleport?” Detweiler said.
“Exactly like that.”
“What?” Detweiler almost yelled. “You knew that all along, but you didn’t say anything until now? That would explain everything.”
“No, it wouldn’t,” Alex corrected him. “King might be able to use it to escape from the murder; runewrights even call these things escape runes. That said, how did he get in?”
“The same way,” Detweiler said, as if it were obvious.
“In order for that to work,” Alex explained, “King would have had to get into this room at some point and draw an anchor rune in here to connect the spell.” Alex swept the ghostlight around the room. “If there was an anchor rune in this room, it would have left magical residue that would be obvious. Think of it as the magical equivalent of a scorch mark.”