“I don’t like the idea of her being dead to begin with,” McLaughlin said. “I don’t mind having the apartment back, but suppose nobody else wants to rent it once they find out a dead girl was living in it?”
It seemed not to occur to him that Marcia Schaffer had been very much alive while she’d lived in his precious apartment.
“Homicide can be difficult,” Carella said.
“Yeah,” McLaughlin agreed, missing the sarcasm. “Well, I’ve got the key, let’s go. I hope this isn’t going to take forever.”
“Couple of hours maybe,” Hawes said. “You don’t have to stay with us. If you leave the key, we’ll see that it’s returned to you.”
“I’ll bet,” McLaughlin said, leaving unvoiced the suspicion that every cop in this city was a thief. “I’ll take you up, come on,” he said.
They followed him into the building.
The truth of what Jenny Compton had told them became immediately apparent in the small entrance lobby. A lighting fixture hung loose from the ceiling; there was no light bulb in it. The locks on several of the mailboxes were broken. The glass panel on the interior door was cracked, and the doorknob hung loose from a single screw. Further corroboration of McLaughlin’s attempts to make life difficult for his intransigent tenants was manifest in the worn and soiled linoleum on the interior steps, the unwashed windows on each landing, the rickety bannisters and exposed electrical wiring. Carella wondered why someone in the building didn’t simply call the Ombudsman’s Office. He exchanged a glance with Hawes, who nodded bleakly.
McLaughlin stopped outside the door to 3A, fished in his pocket for a key, unlocked the door, and then looked from one detective to the other, as if trying to measure character in a few swift glances.
“Listen, I have some other things to take care of,” he said. “If I leave the key, will you really get it back to me?”
“Scout’s honor,” Hawes said, deadpanned.
“I’m at McLaughlin Realty on Bower Street,” McLaughlin said, handing him the key. “Well, I guess you know that, that’s where you called me. I want you to understand I’m not responsible for any damage you do in here, case the girl’s relatives start complaining later on.”
“We’ll try to be careful,” Carella said.
“Make sure you get that key back to me.”
“We’ll see that it’s returned,” Hawes said.
“Yeah, I hope,” McLaughlin said, and went off down the hallway, shaking his head.
“Nice man,” Carella said.
“Wonderful,” Hawes said, and they went into the apartment.
As Jenny had suggested, the apartment was larger than those in many of the city’s newer buildings, the front door opening onto a sizable entrance hall that led into a spacious living room. The apartment seemed even larger than it actually was because of the sparse furnishings, exactly what one might expect of a college girl attending school on a scholarship. A sofa was against one wall, two thrift-shop easy chairs angled into it. A bank of oversized windows was on the adjoining wall, splashing October sunlight into the room. A row of potted plants rested on the floor beneath the windows. Hawes went to them and touched the soil; they seemed not to have been watered too recently.
“You don’t think McLaughlin wanted her out of the apartment that bad, do you?” he asked.
“Whoever pulled her up on the end of that rope had to be pretty strong,” Carella said, shaking his head.
“Fat doesn’t mean weak,” Hawes said.
“He look like a murderer to you?”
“No.”
“There’s a smell,” Carella said.
“I know. But he’s sure trying hard to get these people out of here.”
“We ought to make some calls, put somebody on it. I hate to see him getting away with this kind of shit.”
“You know anybody in the mayor’s office?”
“Maybe Rollie Chabrier does.”
“Yeah, maybe.”
They were referring to an assistant district attorney both men had dealt with in the past. They were roaming the living room now, not looking for anything in particular, sniffing the air, more or less, the way animals in the wild will when they enter unfamiliar territory. Technically, this was not the scene of the crime; the scene of the crime was some four miles uptown, where they had discovered the body hanging from a lamppost. But the medical examiner had posited the theory that Marcia Schaffer had been killed elsewhere and only later transported to where they’d discovered her. It was within the realm of possibility that she had been killed here, in this apartment, although at first glance there seemed to be no signs of a violent struggle of any sort. Still, the unspoken question hovered in both their minds. Hawes finally voiced it.
“Think we ought to get some technicians in here? Before we mess anything up?”
Carella considered this.
“I’d hate like hell to touch anything that may be evidence,” Hawes said.
“Better call them,” Carella agreed, and went to the phone. He tented a handkerchief over his hand when he picked up the receiver. He stuck the eraser end of a pencil into the receiver holes when he dialed the Mobile Crime Unit number.
The technicians arrived some twenty minutes later. They stood in the middle of the living room, looking around the place much as Carella and Hawes earlier had, just sniffing the air, getting used to the feel of it. Carella and Hawes hadn’t touched a thing. They hadn’t even sat on any of the chairs. They were standing almost where they’d been when Carella placed his call.
“We the first ones in here?” one of the technicians asked. Carella remembered him as somebody named Joe. Joe Something-or-other.
“Yes,” Carella said. “Well, we’ve been in here a half hour or so.”
“I mean, besides us. You and us.”
“That’s it,” Carella said.
“Touch anything?” the other technician asked. Carella did not recognize him.
“Just the outside knob.”
“So you want the whole works?” the first technician asked. “Dusting? Vacuuming? The twelve ninety-five job?” He smiled at his partner.
“Reduced from thirteen-fifty,” his partner said, returning the smile.
“We’re not sure this is the crime scene,” Carella said.
“So what the hell’re we doing here?” the first technician said.
“It might be,” Hawes said.
“Then take the two-dollar job,” the second technician suggested.
“Quick once-over,” the first technician said. “Superficial, but thorough.” He held up a finger alongside his nose, emphasizing the point.
“Better give ’em some gloves,” the second technician said.
The first technician produced a pair of white cotton gloves and handed them to Carella. “In case you decide to do any detective work,” he said, and winked at his partner. He handed another pair of gloves to Hawes. Both detectives pulled on the gloves while the technicians watched.
“May I have the first dance?” the second technician said, and then they went downstairs to the van, to get all the paraphernalia they would need for tossing the apartment.
On a fireplace mantel on the wall opposite the sofa, Carella and Hawes studied the several trophies attesting to Marcia Schaffer’s running ability — a silver cup, a silver plate, several medals, all earned while she was on her high school’s track team. The engraved inscription on the silver plate recorded the fact that she had broken the Kansas track record three years earlier. There was a framed picture of a man and a woman, presumably her parents, reminding Carella that he had not yet called Manhattan, Kansas. That would have to come later. He did not relish having to make that call.