Littlewood’s apartment was located on the tenth floor of a fourteen-story building on the corner of Los Feliz Boulevard and Hillhurst Avenue. Hunter had acquired a spare set of keys from his secretary. The building’s entrance lobby was large, well lit, and very clean and welcoming. The porter, a black man of about sixty with a carefully trimmed goatee, was sitting behind a semi-circular reception counter. He raised his eyes from the paperback he was reading, as Hunter entered the building and pressed the elevator button.
‘Visiting someone?’ he asked without getting up.
‘Not today, sir,’ Hunter replied, displaying his badge. ‘Official business.’
The porter lowered his book, intrigued. ‘Has there been a burglary I’m not aware of?’ He started rummaging through a few sheets of paper around the confined space where he was sitting. ‘Has someone just called 911?’
‘No, there’s been no burglary, sir. No one has called 911. Just routine.’ That was all Hunter offered as the elevator doors slid open and he got inside it.
The corridor on the tenth floor was long, wide, well illuminated, and it carried a nice exotic air-freshener smell. The walls were cream with a light-brown skirting board, the carpet beige with triangular patterns. Apartment 1011 was towards the end of the corridor. His secretary had told Hunter that Littlewood had no home-security alarm. He unlocked the door and slowly turned the handle. It opened onto a dark entrance vestibule.
Hunter switched on his flashlight and checked the small space from outside. There was a medium-sized mirror fixed halfway up the wall, just above a narrow, see-through console table with an empty wooden bowl on it. Probably the place where Littlewood deposited his keys once he got in. To the left of the mirror a set of three wooden coat hooks was mounted on the wall. A gray blazer hung from the last hook.
Hunter pushed the door all the way open, stepped inside and flicked the light switch on. The entrance vestibule led into a small kitchen directly ahead, and an average-sized living room on the left.
Hunter quickly checked the pockets on the gray blazer. All he found was a credit card receipt for a Chinese restaurant. It was dated a week ago. According to the address on the receipt, the place was just a block away.
Hunter placed the receipt back into the blazer’s pocket and moved carefully towards the center of the living room, taking everything in. The centerpiece was a large plasma TV on a shiny black module against the south wall. Underneath it, on a shelf, a DVD player and a satellite-receiving box. The space to the right of the DVD player was occupied by a micro-stereo system. The rest of the shiny module was taken up by CDs and DVDs. The module shared the room with a dining table for four, a plush black leather sofa, two matching armchairs, a glass coffee table, a wooden sideboard unit, and a huge bookcase overflowing with books. The room wasn’t messy, but it wasn’t excessively tidy either. There were no feminine touches to anything, or any overly masculine details. Neutral, average, were the words that came to mind. The curtains were drawn, filling the space with dark shadows.
In the living room Hunter saw only one photo frame, half hidden in the corner, behind some CDs on the shiny module. The picture was of Littlewood with his arm around a kid no older than eighteen. The kid was dressed in a graduation gown, and he and Littlewood were sporting great big, proud smiles. Hunter had two similar pictures of him and his father back in his apartment – one after his high-school graduation, the other after his college one.
‘What the hell are you looking for, Robert?’ he whispered to himself.
Eighty-Seven
Lightning lit up the dark sky outside. A monstrous thunderclap followed just a split second later, with a crash that rattled the building. Rain came pelting down, smashing against the windowpanes.
Hunter spent a few more minutes in the living room, going through a few drawers and bookshelves, but found nothing of any interest. The kitchen gave him nothing special, either – mismatched crockery and cutlery, enough for four people at the most, and a half-empty fridge. A small hallway linked the living room to the rest of the apartment. There was one room on the left, halfway down the corridor, and one right at the end of it. The bathroom was on the right, directly opposite the first room.
Hunter moved deeper into the apartment. He decided to start with the main bedroom. It was large and comfortable, with an en suite bathroom. A double bed with a wooden headboard was pushed up against the wall. There was a small working desk, a built-in wardrobe, and a high chest of drawers. Again, no feminine touches and no picture frames – nothing precious, no memories. Hunter took his time going through everything. The wardrobe was well organized – suits and shirts took up half of the space. There were only four pairs of shoes, two of them sneakers. Ties and belts had their own little corner. Hunter checked the pockets of every suit jacket – nothing.
The rain was getting heavier, hammering the windows like evil ghosts trying to get inside. Lightning zigzagged across the sky every couple of minutes.
Hunter carried on checking the room. The chest of drawers held T-shirts, jeans, sweaters, underwear, socks and two bottles of Davidoff Cool Water cologne.
He checked the wastepaper basket on the floor by Littlewood’s desk. There was nothing there but junk mail and a few candy-bar wrappers. The laptop on the desk was password-protected. Hunter wasn’t sure if they’d find anything that could help with their investigation in Littlewood’s hard drive, but right now anything was worth a shot. He would hand the laptop to Brian Doyle at the Information Technology Division. The bathroom was even less adventurous in its décor than the bedroom.
Hunter stopped by the window and spent a moment watching the rain castigate Los Angeles. Another bolt of lightning split the sky, branching out into five different directions. It didn’t look like Hunter was going anywhere for a while.
He left the main bedroom and walked back down the corridor, entering the room opposite the bathroom. It was small but tidy. No doubt it was the guestroom. The main piece of furniture in this room was a single bed with a metal headboard pushed up against a wall. There was a small bedside table to its right. The whole east wall was taken up by a built-in wardrobe. The curtains were also drawn in this room, but they were different from the ones in the living room. These were heavier and thicker. No light or shadows came through them.
Hunter left them as they were and approached the bed, running his hand over the linen. It felt and smelled fresh – recently cleaned. He checked the drawer on the side table. Nothing. Completely empty. Hunter closed the drawer and moved over to the wardrobe, sliding its doors open. Inside, it looked like a mini garage sale. Everything was old – a vacuum cleaner, books, magazines, lamps, a few raggedy coats, an artificial Christmas tree, and a few cardboard boxes.
Wow,’ Hunter said, taking a step back. ‘It doesn’t look like Littlewood threw much away.’
He turned his attention to the cardboard boxes stacked up on the right, pulling the bottom one out. It was relatively heavy. Hunter placed it on the bed and opened its lid. The box was stuffed with vintage vinyl LPs. Out of curiosity, Hunter looked through a few – Early Mötley Crüe, New York Dolls, Styx, Journey, .38 Special, Kiss, Led Zeppelin, Rush . . . Hunter smiled. Littlewood was a metal head when he was young.