“Don’t think so,” Torrez replied.
“Does he have a bike or something? Maybe he went for a ride. To clear his head.”
“He don’t ride a bike,” Torrez said impatiently. “That’s Pasquale does that.”
“Look,” Eddie Mitchell said, “it’s his weapon that’s missing. It’s his girlfriend who got whacked with a gun of the same caliber. And Bill’s conference room key was taken…. Mike didn’t have one of his own. And now we know something about his daddy that we didn’t know before. Maybe Hank’s made a deal with his son. ‘You get those records for me, and we’re square.’”
“And it’s entirely possible that Mike doesn’t know about his father and Janet Tripp,” Gastner said. “Hank would have known that Eduardo would never put a minor’s name in the report-if he wrote one in the first place. And Janet sure as hell wouldn’t tell Mike.”
“Let me go up there, then,” Estelle said quickly. The idea of Mike Sisneros and weapons at the ready obviously was already front and center in Torrez’s mind, despite the newest revelations from Essie Martinez. Estelle didn’t believe it for a moment…except for the awful possibility that events had pounded the young cop down into such a deep depression that he had sought the quick way out.
“Let’s find out,” she said. “If Eddie covers the inside stairs, then you and Bill can back us up from down here. Is there an upstairs back window in his apartment?”
Torrez nodded.
“Then one of you in the back, and one out here,” Estelle said, glad that the stairway was enough of an obstacle that Torrez was content to cover from below-not that either he or Gastner would be of any use if a foot chase developed.
Two and two halves, Estelle thought. She reached into the car and unlocked the shotgun. “You want this, sir?”
“I don’t think I need that,” Gastner replied.
“Take it anyway,” she said.
“Why, sure,” he said agreeably, but she could see the set in his eyes. “I’ll take the back.” He nodded toward a large air-conditioning unit that sat on a concrete slab at the end of the building. “I can watch the window from there, and you, too.”
“You’ve already tried calling him?” Estelle asked Torrez.
“Yup. No answer, no answering machine. No page. No nothing. Collins and Mears are both cruisin’ likely spots, and they ain’t found a thing. It’s like he just slipped off somewhere.”
“Then let’s take a look and see what we have.”
They kept close to the building as they moved down its length, Estelle and Eddie Mitchell moving quickly, with Gastner bringing up the rear. Torrez limped to a spot directly in front of the Mustang, and leaned against the wall beside the entrance to the inside stairwell.
The stubby.45 automatic felt bulky in Estelle’s hand as she moved up the outside stairway, keeping her body against the faded siding. The air was quiet enough that she could hear a vehicle pull out of the parking lot of Tommy’s Handi-Way convenience store three blocks away. Across the alley, in full view of the stairway, the lumberyard was Sunday-afternoon empty.
She was still several steps from the door when her radio, turned down just one click shy of silent, carried Eddie Mitchell’s velvety soft voice. “I’m here,” he said, and Estelle reached down and touched the transmit button once, sending the shortest burst of squelch as a reply.
Reaching out with her left hand, she twisted the doorknob. It turned and then stuck. She jiggled it gently back and forth, then turned hard, rocking the knob at the same time. The latch released. Oh, sí, Estelle thought. This is supposed to be locked? She glanced down and saw Bill Gastner’s rotund figure. He raised a hand. Estelle looked back at the door, trying to visualize the apartment. She’d been inside once before, and nothing about the place had struck her as out of the ordinary. The door opened inward to the right, stopping against the kitchen wall. To the right was the living room and its window that fronted the parking lot. Farther down the hall was a single bedroom and a bath.
The door outside of which Eddie Mitchell waited after climbing the interior stairway opened into the far end of the living room.
From his vantage point, Bill Gastner would be able to see several feet into the apartment beyond the door. She pointed at her eyes, then to Gastner, then to the door, and he nodded, shifting position slightly. With the toe of her boot, she pushed the door as hard as she could, drawing back instantly. The door yawned open, and she glanced back at Gastner. He stretched as tall as he could, peering through the open door. He held up a hand uncertainly, then motioned all clear.
Diving past the opening, she regrouped on the opposite side of the door, sifting through the brief image she’d seen.
“I’m clear,” she said into the radio, and a second later heard the other door slam open.
Estelle stepped inside, stopped, and listened. She saw Mitchell in the shadows by a large entertainment center just inside the interior door, doing the same. It took them no more than a moment to ascertain that the apartment was indeed empty.
“You need me up there?” Torrez’s voice sounded tired over the radio, maybe disappointed.
“I don’t think so,” Estelle replied. “He’s not here.”
“Now what?” Mitchell said, holstering his own weapon. He was standing in the doorway of the bedroom.
“I don’t know, Eddie.” She surveyed the living room, then moved into the kitchen. Lived in, on the verge of sloppy, with the owner preoccupied with far more important things than a clean carpet or washed dishes-Mike Sisneros’s home was exactly what a bachelor apartment might be expected to look like after a couple of days of neglect. The sink included a fair collection of unwashed dishes, glasses, and cutlery.
She bent over toward the trio of glasses still on the counter and sniffed.
“I didn’t think Mike is much of a drinker,” she said as Mitchell entered the kitchen behind her.
“He isn’t. Actually, I don’t think that he drinks at all.”
“Did Janet?”
“I have no idea.”
She pulled a pair of latex gloves from her jacket pocket, worked her fingers into them, and then lifted a glass gingerly by the very bottom. “Someone does.”
Mitchell crossed to the sink. Estelle placed the glass back where it had been, and he bent down and sniffed all three. “Somebody does,” he repeated. “One’s had whiskey in it, or something similar. The others don’t.”
“Was the front door locked?” Estelle asked, and Mitchell shook his head. “You didn’t try it earlier?”
“I came up the outside,” he said.
“That one sticks.”
“Apparently,” Mitchell said. “I jiggled the knob, and when it didn’t turn, I assumed it was locked. Assume, assume.”
“So,” Estelle said, surveying the room. “Where’s our man? His car’s here; he’s not.” She stepped close to the glasses again, inhaling the aroma deeply, then straightened up and methodically opened one cabinet door after another. Mitchell did the same, working from the other side.
“No booze,” he said, and opened the refrigerator. “One six-pack of beer, two missing.”
“Maybe down in the car,” Estelle said. She pulled the trash can out from under the sink and rummaged for a moment. “Not in the trash.” She straightened up. “Interesting possibilities, Eddie.” She stepped toward the living room and surveyed the simple quarters, then stooped down and looked under the table and the old sofa. No empty bottles lurked in any of the logical places where a drunk might cast them away. She stood for a moment, listening, looking, and smelling.
The image came to mind of Mike Sisneros trudging down the alley in an alcoholic shuffle, shoulders stooped, the bottle of whiskey hanging from unresponsive fingers. That didn’t work. But Hank Sisneros came to mind, and the image fitted.
She turned and looked back at Eddie Mitchell, and when their eyes met, she knew that he was thinking the same thing.
Chapter Thirty-six