April moved into the bedroom and exhaled. The bed was made, and on it no dead body was waiting for her. There was no body in the bathroom, either. The towels were carefully folded on the towel rack. Hairbrush on the sink with light brown hair in it. She looked in the medicine cabinet. The large quantity of prescription medicines indicated that Atkins either had health problems or was something of a hypochondriac. None of the drug names were familiar to her.
Back in the bedroom, she found his plastic hospital ID and his wallet under the gray suit, white shirt, and blue-and-red striped tie he must have tossed on the bed before he went out. April looked through the wallet quickly. Stuffed in the billfold compartment were two foil-wrapped condoms that looked as if they'd been mashed in there a long time. She put them back before Woody could see them and make a smart remark. On the floor were black loafers and discarded black socks. It looked as if the doctor had come home, changed, and gone out without his identification. She frowned and moved on. The air conditioner was off. It was hot in the apartment, and a powerful smell of rotting Chinese food emanated from the kitchen. April checked the refrigerator. Diet Coke was the only food group represented. In the garbage were white containers with the gluey leftovers from a Chinese meal that must have been eaten several days ago.
Back in the living room, Woody hit the play button on the answering machine. By now Regina was in the apartment. All three of them listened to the messages. Two were from Jason, asking him to call right away no matter what time he came in. Two were from the same girl. The first time she said, "I'm-um-really sorry for walking out. You upset me. Please call."
The next few calls were hang-ups.
The last call was the same girl voice again. "I don't want to explore it in the next session. I need you to talk to me now so I don't do something."
Woody gave April a look. Girl threats were not his favorite thing. April jerked her head. "Let's go."
"Disgusting." Regina was sniffing around the garbage.
"Please leave it for now." April said.
"Are you finished here?"
"Not quite. I want to talk to the doorman who was on duty last night."
"That's a lot of trouble for me."
April gave her a little smile. "You can give me his number at home."
"I don't have to do that. He's on the day shift today."
"Fine. Let's go talk to him, and no one else in here until further notice, okay?" April left it to Woody to close up. She was upset by the wallet with Maslow's ID on the bed. This was a sticky situation. As far as she knew no sixty-one had been filed. The missing doc was not her case, not her jurisdiction, but he had become her problem. She had a bad feeling about it and knew she'd have major explaining to do if further investigation of his work, his life, his patients, and the contents of his computer became necessary.
Eight
It turned out that Ben, the four-to-eleven-p.m. doorman last night, was filling in on the back elevator today. April and Woody talked to him as they rode up to the fourteenth floor with a Federal Express driver delivering a package.
"Dr. Atkins came in at seven," Ben told them importantly as the manually operated elevator jerked its way up. "These guys are cops," he told the FedEx driver.
"No kidding," the man replied without interest.
The elevator stopped. Ben heaved the doors open, the driver got out, went through the door out into the main hallway, and disappeared. The elevator bell rang, but Ben didn't close the doors.
"At seven," Woody prompted.
"Yeah, I remember everything. I have a memory for details. Ask me anything. It rained pretty bad in the afternoon. I had to take the mats out to cover the carpets. Thems are new carpets, and it's a big lobby out there, I have to put down two sets. Takes twenty minutes to get them all placed just right. So I place the mats. Then at five, all them damn dogs have to go out. Let me tell you, those dogs make a mess when it rains."
April took out her notebook and began writing in it. She had a lot of things on her mind now and let Woody do the talking.
"How about telling us about Dr. Atkins," he said.
"I was telling you." Ben gave Woody a dirty look, then leaned his shaggy white head April's way. April's nose twitched. The man smelled of sweat and stale beer. She hated beery breath on people who supplied information.
The elevator bell rang. Ben ignored it.
"The rain stopped at five-fifteen. By six-thirty I was thinking about taking the mats up. But I was starving. I thought I better wait to see if we were going to get some more. I went out on break for a sandwich. I go to that deli around the corner on Columbus. There's two, but I don't like the Korean one."
"Stick to the facts. We don't need a novel," Woody grumbled.
The bell rang a third time. The FedEx driver returned minus his package. Ben closed the doors and got the elevator moving again. He was in a bad mood now. "Cops. Who knows what they're after."
April didn't comment. The FedEx driver didn't comment. Ben stopped on ten. Two uniformed maids speaking Spanish got on with four bulging bags of laundry. "Hola," they said to Ben, then continued a lively conversation as the elevator went down to the main floor. There, the FedEx driver took off without looking back.
"Nobody gives a shit," Ben complained.
The maids kept up a heated argument as the elevator continued down to the basement. When the doors opened, they hoisted the bags off the elevator still going at it. April felt a pang of sisterhood. The topic was lying, cheating hombres.
The bell rang a few more times. Several floor numbers popped up. Ben closed the doors.
"All we got here so far is a time frame. Let's finish up," Woody said.
Ben gave him another dirty look and spoke to April. "You take this down. I don't want no trouble later. Here's the fucking time frame. I just came back from my break. I had a cup of coffee. I ate the sandwich. It was bologna on rye, four pickles."
All the people waiting for the elevator upstairs leaned on their bells at once, but April didn't care. After the elevator man started treating her like a secretary, April lost her patience.
"Just take us up to the lobby and leave the door closed until we're finished," she told him.
Ben took the elevator up without a word, then went on as if there had been no interruption. "I ain't had time to drink the coffee when Dr. Atkins comes down the street. If you don't let me get these calls, I'm going to lose my job," he whined.
"What time?" Woody asked.
"Seven, I already told you it was just seven. I opened the front door for him. He went upstairs. I drank my coffee. A few minutes later he came out in shorts and took off."
The bells sounded like a swarm of angry bees.
"Then what?"
Ben shrugged. "That's it."
"What time did Dr. Atkins come back?"
Ben scratched his cheek. "He didn't come back."
"Are you sure?" Woody asked.
"Of course I'm sure. No one gets in here unless I let them in."
The swarm got angrier.
"Can I do something about this?" Ben was getting desperate.
April shook her head. "What about when you go to the bathroom?" she asked.
"The door's locked. They have to wait. Just like now." He licked his lips.
"So Dr. Atkins went out in his shorts. Did you see where he went?" Now Woody.
"Of course I did. I watched him. He went across the street to the park. A girl was waiting for him. They spoke. They went into the park together. He didn't come back."