In Plain Sight

18 The Apartment

In the main foyer of Dr. Bell’s brownstone stood a grandfather clock made of polished mahogany and burl wood. The face was over-large because it hid a mechanism that told the story of Dickens’ A Christmas Carol every twelve hours. On the hour of three, a diorama opened showing an intricately painted scene of Scrooge’ visit from Marley’s ghost. As the quarter hour progressed, the diorama turned to show the ghost of Christmas past. Similar dioramas opened on the sixth, ninth, and twelfth hours with the final scene being Scrooge dining with his nephew’s family. On each quarter hour, the clock played the first few bars of Greensleeves.

Alex always liked the clock. By the time he trudged wearily back up the steps to the brownstone, the diorama showing Marley’s Ghost, with his chains and cash boxes hovering over a terrified Scrooge, had just opened. Alex wanted nothing more than to keep right on going, upstairs to his room where his warm, comfortable bed awaited him, but there was a light still burning in the kitchen. He must have forgotten to switch it off. Thinking of that reminded him of his promise to Iggy, to clean the wreck of their kitchen. He didn’t have the strength, he knew he didn’t, but maybe he could just tidy up a bit and leave the serious work for tomorrow. He’d need a cup of coffee anyway, several in fact, for his day was far from over. Coffee and tidying could be done while he waited for Danny.

Of course, first he had to call Danny.

The aroma of freshly-brewed coffee washed over him as he passed through the library. When he reached the kitchen, he found it cleaned and scoured, with Iggy sitting at the table. He had a mug of coffee in one hand and a book in the other and dark circles under his eyes.

“You didn’t have to do this,” Alex said, shuffling to the coffee pot and pouring himself the biggest cup he could find.

“I couldn’t sleep with you out there, lad,” Iggy said. “I just laid awake for an hour and then I had to get up and do something. At least this gave me something to keep my mind occupied for a time.”

Alex downed as much of the hot liquid as he could take in one go, then refilled his cup.

“Well?” Iggy said, closing his book and setting it aside. “Are you going to tell me what happened?”

Alex drank, then poured one more time, before moving to the table next to Iggy and setting his cup down. “Give me a minute first,” he said. “I have to make a call.” He walked to where the telephone hung on the wall and gave the operator Danny Pak’s number. Six rings later, Danny’s groggy voice came at him down the wire.

“Yeah?” he said.

“Get your cop suit on,” Alex said. “I’ve got a lead on who killed Jerry Pemberton.”

“Alex?” Danny said. “You know I have a gun, right?”

“Wake up!” Alex shouted into the phone. “Get dressed and pick me up at the brownstone. We’re going to check out the apartment of the man who stole the gems out of the customs warehouse.”

Danny cursed at him. “Fine,” he said at last. “I’ll be there in half an hour.”

“So you know who killed Pemberton?” Iggy said once Alex hung up.

“No,” Alex said. “But I know who took the stones from the warehouse. Charles Beaumont.”

Iggy cocked his head to the side.

“The man who infected the Brotherhood of Hope Mission?” he asked. Alex nodded.

“I know where he lives now.”

“How did you find out?” Iggy asked.

Alex sat down, sipped his coffee, and told Iggy the whole story. The old man laughed when Alex told him about his trick with the ropes. Brewer had never been in any actual danger, of course. The rope Alex burned held about six inches of slack in the actual rope that held Brewer’s chair. Once it burned through, the chair dropped the six inches, then stopped. Brewer had believed it though, which was all that mattered.

“I left him, handcuffed to the chair, in the alley behind The Emerald Room,” Alex said.

The look of amusement on Iggy’s face evaporated to be replaced by one of alarm. “But, what if someone finds him?” he said, his voice urgent. “He knows you’re going to Beaumont’s apartment.”

“That’s why I’m taking Danny,” Alex said. “I’ll have him put a squad car on the street while we search the apartment. Since he doesn’t know my real face, he’ll probably think that the man who handcuffed him to a chair killed Beaumont and now the police are investigating.”

“Except you also have your arm in a sling,” Iggy said. “A man smart enough to run a criminal matching service for rich bastards might make the connection.”

Alex hadn’t thought about that, and Iggy had a point. Brewer wasn’t going to let this go, that much was for sure. Alex would have to be careful.

“I’ll have Danny drop me off behind the building,” he said. “I’ll just meet him inside.”

“Be careful,” Iggy said.

“Don’t worry,” Alex said, standing. He drew a chalk door on the wall for his vault, then opened it. The magelights inside bloomed into intense brightness. He went inside and took down his kit bag. It had been a while since he resupplied it, so he took his time doing that. His 1911 hung in its holster on a peg inside the cabinet where he kept his spare bags. He wouldn’t be able to put the holster on with his arm in the sling, so he pulled the pistol from its holster and slipped it inside a hidden pocket in his bag.

He had just finished when Danny rang the bell.

“I’ll get it,” Iggy said, while Alex closed his vault and scrubbed the chalk off the wall with a damp cloth.

“This had better be worth it,” Danny said, once Iggy led him into the kitchen. The detective looked weary and his eyelids were heavy, but his clothes were neat and his hair had been slicked back.

“It will be,” Alex said.

“What happened to you?” Danny asked, pointing at Alex’s arm in the sling.

“Bad guys,” Alex said. He and Danny had long ago established this explanation for things Alex shouldn’t tell his police detective friend for fear of putting him in an untenable position.

“Gotcha,” Danny said. “Now why did you drag me out of bed at this ungodly hour?”

“Remember the incident at the east side mission? Pemberton’s partner was one of the victims.”

“The first victim,” Iggy added.

It took Danny a moment to connect all the dots, but in his defense, he was not fully awake yet.

“Does that mean that whatever killed all those people could be waiting for us at the thief’s apartment?” Danny asked, availing himself of the coffee pot. “I’m not keen on catching whatever they had.”

“Shouldn’t be a problem,” Iggy said. “The disease can’t live more than a few minutes outside a sealed container. Or a host,” he added.

Danny finished his coffee and Alex picked up his kit, then they both turned for the door.

“I think I can get some sleep now,” Iggy said, showing them out. “Once you’re done, you need the same. Those ribs won’t heal if you keep pushing yourself.”

“I promise,” Alex said, then followed Danny down the steps to his car.

The apartment building of Charles Beaumont was a well-maintained structure of dull yellow brick right up against the outer border of the middle-ring. Its position ensured it had reliable power and cheap rent. Despite its being in a cheap neighborhood, the building showed no sign of neglect by its landlord. The windows were clean and the entryway swept; even the rear entrance, where the industrial garbage bins sat, was clear of trash.

All that being the case, however, it just didn’t seem like the kind of place where a notorious cat burglar would live. Based on Iggy’s pulp novels, Alex expected Beaumont to have a permanent room at the Ritz. He should have known better since Beaumont was a Sunday regular at Father Harry’s Mass at the Mission. From this apartment, the Mission was only six blocks away. Not close by any means, but not an insurmountable distance either.

Danny called for a squad car to make sure they weren’t disturbed inside and it was already out front. He dropped Alex off in back in case the Broker had a man watching the building. Alex hoped the back door wouldn’t be locked, but it had one of the new mechanisms that engaged automatically when the door closed. He didn’t want to use another expensive unlocking rune, so he waited for Danny to go around to the front, park, and then let him in.

“I’ll use a rune to get us into Beaumont’s place,” Alex said, once they were both inside. Danny snorted and rolled his eyes.

“You’re forgetting I’m a police detective. We’ll use my key.”

Alex followed Danny down to the basement where he pounded on the building superintendent’s door until it was opened by a severe-looking woman in a fuzzy pink bathrobe. Her brown hair was done up under a hair net and she wore thick, wire-rimmed glasses. Alex imagined that if she didn’t run this building, she would have made an excellent librarian.

“What’s the meaning of this?” she demanded in a tone that suggested she was used to being obeyed.

Danny flashed his badge and cited police business, and before Alex could say Jack Robinson, they were up on the fifth floor in front of apartment 57.

“Are you going to arrest Mr. Beaumont?” the woman asked with genuine concern in her voice.

“I’m sorry to tell you this, ma’am,” Danny said. “But Mr. Beaumont is dead. His apartment may very well be a crime scene.”

“Nonsense,” the woman scoffed. “Why I saw Mr. Beaumont a few days ago and he…”

Her voice trailed off as she tried to insert her key in the lock of Beaumont’s door. It wouldn’t fit and Alex could clearly see why. Someone had forced the lock with what looked like a heavy duty screwdriver.

“Step back,” Danny said to the superintendent, pulling his .38 police special from his shoulder holster. He eased the door open, then stepped quickly inside, sweeping the interior of the room with his weapon. The lights were on in the apartment, but only the papers strewn around the floor by the writing desk showed anything amiss. A meal of steak and broccoli with a few potatoes sat, uneaten, on a small, round table in the center of the room. Next to the meal, lay an overturned cup. The chair behind the table lay flat on its back as if whoever occupied it had stood up in a hurry. There were some dirty dishes in the sink and a pot on the stove, but everything else appeared orderly and immaculate. The smell of rancid food permeated the air, a mixture of rotten meat and sour milk.

“Stay here,” Danny said to Alex, as he moved toward the bedroom and bathroom beyond it. “No one’s here,” he announced a moment later when he returned.

Alex set his kit down on the counter next to the stove while Danny thanked the superintendent and shut the door.

“Now what?” he asked when he was sure the woman was gone.

Alex strapped on his oculus and took out his siverlight burner. “Now, you stand there until I can clear you a place to sit.” he said. “Before we invite the Captain and Lieutenant Callahan here, we have to be sure we know what happened, so let me work.”

Alex went over the tiny living room space at the front of the apartment. Once he’d inspected the couch and the coffee table, he invited Danny to sit.

“I feel pretty useless,” Danny said. “Isn’t there some way I can help?”

“You are helping,” Alex said, examining the table and the uneaten meal. “You’re watching my back while I search this place.”

Alex examined the residue left behind by whatever liquid had been in the overturned cup. Milk by the smell of it.

“Something’s been taken away from here,” Alex said, pointing to the table. He took off his oculus and passed it to Danny so he could look. On top of the table, the residue of the milk fluoresced brightly in the silverlight. In the middle of the splash mark, there were three round voids, as if three large glasses had stood there, side by side.

“Did Beaumont move them when he spilled his milk?” Danny asked.

“Too soon to guess,” Alex admitted. He took the oculus back and continued searching. He cleared the bedroom and the bathroom next. He found a loose floorboard under which Beaumont had stashed some very fence-able odds and ends, a few jeweled brooches, seven gold pocket watches, five strings of pearls, and a bag full of loose gemstones of all descriptions. The room showed no sign that anyone but Beaumont lived there.

“Okay,” he told Danny, coming back into the front room. “I can’t see anything suspicious back there. Why don’t you search it the old fashioned way while I go over the kitchen?” Danny smiled and moved past him. As Alex turned his attention to the stove, he heard Danny begin going through the drawers and the closet.

After checking every inch of the kitchen, Alex had to admit defeat. Nothing seemed out of place. He moved to the writing desk. It looked like it had been searched, but if so, it was the only thing. Maybe whoever searched it found what they were looking for.

None of the papers seemed important. A few letters, a job offer from someone writing in the kind of code you find in pulp mystery novels. Alex picked up the papers and stacked them on the writing desk. There wasn’t anything useful in them, but he couldn’t just throw them in the trash.

He paused. In his examination of the kitchen, he hadn’t looked at the contents of Charles Beaumont’s wastebasket. When he shone the silverlight into the little basket, hundreds of gleaming crystal shards glowed back at him. Someone had thrown away a broken jar, and not just thrown it away, but swept up the pieces too. Alex picked through the can carefully with a pencil, moving the glass shards around until he found what he sought. Reaching in gently, he pulled the round bottom of a glass jar from the wastebasket.

Most glass containers had thick, heavy bottoms, much thicker than the sides, which kept the center of gravity low and helped prevent tipping. When dropped, many would shatter but leave the bottom intact. Alex carried the broken base of the jar over to the table and placed it on one of the voids left in the milk splash. It fit perfectly.

He pulled out his rune book and tore a page containing an expensive restoration rune out of the back. Moving carefully, he placed the broken base of the jar on the counter and positioned the wastebasket on the floor below it. Sticking the rune paper to the base, he lit it and then stood back. The rune pulsed with power, not vanishing like most did. It hovered above the base, trembling and glowing with a violent burgundy light. A rustling sound emerged from the wastebasket and a tiny shard of broken glass leapt up and affixed itself to the broken base. The rustling continued and more and more of the glittering glass shards were pulled up, out of the can and onto the rapidly growing jar. In the burgundy light, it looked like blood dripping in reverse.

After a minute, the rune vanished, and the jar was more or less whole. There were dozens of tiny voids, places where the fragments were too far away from the rune to be drawn back to their original place. Thousands of cracks ran through the jar, making it look like crackle glass, but despite that, the jar was solid.

“Danny,” he called, picking up the jar with his handkerchief and placing it on the table. “I think I found one of the missing jars from the table.”

“Does it look like it will fit in here?” Danny asked, emerging from the bedroom. He carried a black shipping case a little larger than a standard briefcase. He held it open so Alex could see the padded inside. There were four divots, each big enough for a jar about six inches high and three around. Just like the one Alex had repaired.

“Where did you find that?” Alex asked.

“At the bottom of Beaumont’s laundry basket,” Danny said. “Though I’m more interested in where it came from.” He closed the case and Alex could see several official-looking labels covering its outside.

“That’s a standard small shipping case,” Alex said, the truth finally dawning on him.

“What does that mean?” Danny asked. Alex grinned at him.

“It means you get to keep your job,” he said. “It means we know who murdered Jerry Pemberton, and why.”