That was the reason why I was here.
I ducked through the opening, the rancid smell of garbage overpowering, unseen animals scurrying away as I made my way along the path. It was probably just New York’s mascot: the cat-sized rat. As my eyes adjusted to the dark, I could see the crumbling brick exterior of the building, a door to my left. I stepped toward it, tripping on an old bicycle, some plastic bottles, and pulled it open.
It was a large warehouse, dim light trickling in from somewhere illuminating walls covered with indecipherable graffiti. The place was putrid and filled with junk, newspapers and cans, Sheetrock and insulation, sweatshirts and boxes, pots and pans. Squatters had clearly been living here — though they appeared to have vacated, probably from the recent police presence. I stepped inside, letting the heavy door screech closed behind me.
Now that Beckman’s deadly vodka had worn off, I realized how unwise this was, coming here without so much as the switchblade I used on my Central Park jogs. I hadn’t even thought to bring a flashlight. I took a deep breath — ignoring the voice in my head reminding me, Didn’t we just establish you were off your game? — and headed to the back in search of some stairs.
They were corroded. I grabbed the railing to see if I could pry the structure off the wall, but the bolts were surprisingly sturdy.
I started up, the metallic echoes of my footsteps jarring. I paused every now and then to look around, make sure I was alone, taking a few snapshots with my BlackBerry. With my every step, the old building seemed to growl and cough, protesting my scaling its rusted spine. This was where Ashley had climbed. If her intention had been to commit suicide — a conclusion I didn’t accept as gospel, no matter what Falcone said—why had she come here, to this derelict place?
I passed the sixth floor and then climbed the final, steepest flight into a claustrophobic attic space, a stained futon slung across the floor. Where the sloping ceiling met the wall, there was a square hatch. I heaved my shoulder against it, the door gave way with a gasp, and I hoisted myself outside.
It was a deserted rooftop, a mangled sofa in the far corner. Landscaping the view was lower Manhattan’s bristled bed of skyscrapers: blunt stumps of low-income housing, fat municipal building boulders, water towers sprouting like buds of black thistle — all of it fighting for a piece of the night sky.
The back of 9 Mott Street abutted this building, the space between them only a foot wide but cutting straight down to the street. I stepped onto the low wall ringing the roof’s perimeter, and after making the mistake of looking down—if I fell, I’d die lodged like human parsley between brick teeth — I jumped onto the adjacent roof.
I made my way around a massive water tower — and there was the skylight. It was a rectangular pyramid, most of the glass missing. I walked over to it and, crouching down, looked through one of the shattered casements.
About twelve feet below me was a dark floor. Farther to my left, I could see directly into the empty shaft of a freight elevator, which extended seven stories below, the concrete brightly lit at the very bottom. It was like gazing down a throat, a corridor between two dimensions. The fall looked to be about a hundred feet. Even from this high angle, I could make out patches of rusty stains on the floor. Ashley’s blood.
She’d allegedly climbed in through this skylight, removed her boots and socks, and stepped to the elevator’s ledge. It must have been so fast, wind in her ears, her dark hair protesting in her face — and then nothing.
Falcone was absolutely right. The skylight’s blown-out metal casements were so narrow, it would’ve been hard to force Ashley down there against her will. Hard, but not impossible.
I stood up, inspecting the ground. There was no evidence, no cigarette butts or scraps, no debris of any kind. I was about to leave, heading back to the Hanging Gardens, when suddenly something moved, far below at the bottom of the elevator shaft.
A shadow had just swept across the floor.
I waited, wondering if I’d imagined it, staring at that empty, lit-up space.
But then, again, a silhouette slowly slid into view.
Someone was standing in the mouth of the elevator, his shadow tossed in front of him. He remained there for a minute, immobile, and then stepped all the way inside.
I spotted dirty-blond hair, a gray overcoat. He had to be a detective, back to inspect the scene. He ducked down, ostensibly to study the blood patterns on the concrete. Then, to my surprise, he actually sat down in the corner, propping his elbows on his knees.
He didn’t move for some time.
I leaned forward to get a better view, dislodging a shard of glass. It fell, smashing to the landing just below.
Startled, he looked up, then scrambled out of sight.
I lurched to my feet and took off across the roof.
He couldn’t be a detective. No detective I knew — with the exception of Sharon Falcone — moved that quickly.
10
I raced around the corner back to 9 Mott Street, fully expecting to find the entrance unsealed.
But the police tape remained intact, the door still padlocked.
How had he gotten in? And who the hell was it? A Cordovite? Some death-scene gawker? I checked the windows — every one nailed shut. The only other possibility was a narrow alleyway blocked with mountains of garbage. I pushed some of it aside, trying not to inhale, squeezing through. Sure enough, in the very back was an open window casting light on the opposite wall.
Whoever he was, he’d used a crowbar — lying on the ground — to pry away the old boards, leaving a space just wide enough to crawl through.
I stepped over, looking inside.
It was a brightly lit construction site, bare white neon bulbs dangling from an unfinished ceiling, plastic barrels and tarps piled by the front entrance. Hundreds of studs for building walls lined the expanse. Toward the back, on the right-hand side, a band of yellow POLICE LINE tape was strung across the elevator’s entrance.
There was no sign of the man.
“Hello?” I called out.
Silence. The only noise was the insect buzz of the lights. I grabbed the crowbar—just in case—and scrambled through, falling into a pile of concrete bags.
It was a wide-open expanse. Along the back wall there was just a stack of metal beams and mixing barrels, a plastic tarp covering something.
I stepped cautiously toward it and yanked it aside.
It was a wheelbarrow.
“Anyone here?” I called out, looking around.
There was no answer, no movement.
The guy probably got scared off.
I stepped toward the police tape, was about to duck it, when suddenly a hand seized my shoulder and something hard hit me on the side of the head. I wheeled around but was shoved to the ground, dropping the crowbar.
My eyes went white, blinded, though I managed to make out a man staring down at me. He shoved his foot onto my chest.
“Who the fuck are you?” he shouted. It was a young voice, slurred with rage. Bending over me again, he reached out as if to grab my throat, though I wrenched free, pushing him off balance, grabbed the crowbar, and socked him with it in the shoulder.
It wouldn’t exactly have made Muhammad Ali proud, but it worked. He tried to grab a metal stud for support, missed, and stumbled backward.