The Dead Room (13 page)

They finally reached the third floor landing. Jackson struggled to catch his breath and started coughing. When the hacking stopped, the man lit another cigarette, got the door open and switched on the overhead lights.

“This is it,” Jackson said, waving the smoke out of his bloodshot eyes. “Paradise lost. You wanna touch something, that’s okay with me. You wanna take it, that’s no good at all. Now start looking, kid. I don’t wanna make a night out of this. It’s only our first date.”

Teddy stepped inside the door. He wasn’t searching for anything in particular. All he wanted to do was see the place and get a feel for it. What Holmes had done to Darlene Lewis was horrific. What happened to Valerie Kram seemed beyond the pale. Even though the evidence wasn’t in and there was still a chance the two murders weren’t related, that feeling in his stomach told him that they were. Teddy needed to understand the way Holmes lived. Was it an apartment or a prison? A refuge or a hiding place? If Holmes kept Valerie Kram here for more than a month, Teddy needed to see how it worked.

The first thing that jumped out at him was the overt neatness.

The living room was sparsely furnished with a coffee table set before a cheap couch. A chair with a slipcover sat in the corner facing the television. Teddy wasn’t sure why the place seemed so odd until he looked at the side tables and realized there was nothing else in the room. No family snapshots, no bric-a-brac, not even a magazine or newspaper by the chair. He checked the walls, noting that they were blank. The room was devoid of any humanity, even what little Holmes might possess, and looked like a rundown sitting room in a spent motel.

He felt Jackson watching him from behind his back and stepped into the kitchen. The garbage disposal sat on the counter. Teddy remembered the plumbing had been pulled at the Lewis house in Chestnut Hill as well. The detectives had been searching for the girl’s skin.

Moving to the refrigerator, he snapped it open and found it filled with food. Holmes obviously ate in, and this surprised him. Curiously, the bottom shelf was loaded with small containers of fruit drinks in tropical combinations Teddy thought were meant for kids. He felt Jackson’s presence in the doorway again. Ignoring the man, Teddy started going through the cabinets. From what he could tell looking at the variety of spices, Holmes was something of a cook. All except for one cabinet that was well stocked with junk food. Teddy quickly checked the contents of the drawers, stopping when he reached the knives.

They were imported from Germany, and looked as if they were more expensive than anything else he’d seen in the entire apartment. When he pulled one out to test the sharpness, Jackson gave him a funny look and winked.

“Blackjack,” the detective said. “Butcher’s tools. Sharp as a rabid dog’s teeth. I checked ‘em out yesterday, kid. The man’s got a thing for knives. He likes to cut things.”

Teddy felt the razor sharp blade and returned it to the drawer. Jackson had obviously participated in the investigation of the apartment with Nathan Ellwood yesterday.

“Where’d you find his uniform?” he asked. “The one with blood on it.”

“In there,” Jackson said, pointing to the cabinet below the sink.

Teddy popped the cabinet open and took a quick glance at the trash can. Then he walked out, heading down the hall for the bedroom. As he stepped inside, he was struck by the neatness and lack of personal possessions again. A lamp was set on the chest of drawers, a clock radio sat on the table by the bed. But that was it. He ran his finger across the table, checking the surface for dust and smelling the light scent of furniture polish. When Jackson entered the room and sat down on the bed, Teddy moved to the chest and sifted through the drawers. Holmes seemed to take great care in sorting his clothing by color and keeping everything neatly folded. The man was so meticulous, Teddy guessed he even ironed his boxer shorts. Something about it didn’t compute with Holmes’s hulking, even sloppy appearance last night.

Teddy thought it over as he opened the closet and saw the man’s postal uniforms cleaned and pressed on hangers. Holmes didn’t have a life. His possessions would’ve fit inside a couple of suitcases. Each day he delivered mail to some of the wealthiest people living in Chestnut Hill, then came back to the blank walls of his own drab world. From what Teddy had seen tonight, Holmes didn’t have a hobby or any interests other than food. The only thing that stood out were his collection of imported cooking knives. Teddy imagined Darlene Lewis probably took one look at the man and thought he was ridiculous or even stupid. For some reason she got off on teasing Holmes and letting him look at her flowering body. There was no way she could have been aware of what it was doing to him. Not until yesterday when Holmes finally blew.

Teddy shut the closet door, looking back at the furniture. Holmes didn’t own much, but seemed to take unusual care of what little he did.

“You missed one,” Jackson said, laying out on the bed and yawning.

“Missed what?”

“A room. Between the living room and kitchen there’s a door.”

Teddy walked out, spotting it as he turned the corner. He’d thought the door opened to a rear entrance because of the deadbolt. As he turned the lock and grasped the handle, he found the door swollen in its frame. It took a measure of strength, but he gave it a hard yank and broke the seal. Swinging the door open, he could feel cooler air rushing past him from the darkness, the familiar scent of oils as he switched on the lights.

Holmes was an artist. A painter.

Teddy froze, his eyes taking in the converted sun porch in ravenous bites. There was a love seat, a work table, canvases leaning face down against the glass pane walls in stacks ten deep. He noticed a stereo in the corner and grabbed a handful of CD’s. Beethoven and Mozart, Coltrane and Coryell. None of it was working, none of it making sense.

He moved to the easel, staring at the dust cloth draped over a work in progress. He lifted the cloth and looked at the canvas, expecting to catch a glimpse of Holmes’s path through the darkness.

It was a landscape. And the violent man he’d met in a city jail last night was more than a weekend painter. Holmes had an eye and a talent. He had a life—all crammed into this one room.

Jackson tapped on the door. When Teddy turned, he saw the detective in the middle of the living room and looked down. A little girl stood in the doorway dressed in her pajamas and holding a stuffed bear. Her light brown hair was braided, her golden brown eyes staring up at him and sparkling as if in sunlight. She couldn’t have been more than five or six years old.

“May I have my paintings, mister?” she asked. “They belong to me ‘cause I did ‘em.”

Jackson shrugged like it was okay. Teddy nodded at her, unable to speak in the face of her innocence.

She flashed an excited smile. “Thanks,” she said, scampering across the room.

He watched her knee her way onto a chair at the work table. As she began to sort through the stacks of watercolors, Teddy tried to get a grip on his emotions.

“Do you spend much time here?” he asked in a hoarse voice.

“Mr. Holmes is teaching me paints,” she said.

“Where’s your mother and father?”

“I don’t have a daddy, and Mommy’s not back from work yet. Mr. Holmes used to pick me up from school and then we’d paint. When Mommy got home, he’d make us dinner. Mommy says Mr. Holmes is still our friend, and I shouldn’t listen to anybody that calls him bad names. Sometimes even nice people like the police make mistakes. Mommy says sometimes good people are wrong.”

It hit him in the center of his chest. Watching her. Seeing her trust. Taking it all in. Holmes’s life had a wider reach than the sun porch.

The girl climbed back down to the floor, then tore across the studio with her paintings and the bear. Zipping into the kitchen, Teddy heard the refrigerator door open. After a moment, she ran out with a fruit drink and flew through the front door. Now he knew why the drinks were on the bottom shelf. He heard the door across the hall open and slam shut. When the lock turned, he looked back at Jackson staring at him like the grim reaper from hell.

“Kids,” the detective said. “She’s lucky Holmes didn’t eat her for lunch.”

Teddy’s legs felt weak, and his head started spinning. He sat down at the table, feeling something deep inside him begin tumbling forward. It was clawing at the surface, flailing at the shadows into the light.

Oscar Holmes was innocent.

Even the thought of it cut all the way down.

Innocent.

In spite of the evidence—the fingerprints, his lip prints, a strong motive and an eyewitness—there it was in his gut. The possibility, however faint, that everyone had been consumed by the details and missed the whole. The chance that somewhere along the way, someone had been distracted by the obvious and made a horrible mistake. Just the way they’d been mistaken about his own father.

Teddy looked at his hand and noticed he was trembling.

He’d been a part of it, too. Part of the rabble. Part of the mob adding it all up like it was a simple math exercise. Only it didn’t add up because everyone involved had been disgusted by the crime and either wanted something out of it, or like Teddy, needed to move on.

Jackson stepped into the doorway. “You okay, kid? You look a little pale. You’re not gonna faint on me, are ya?”

Teddy didn’t respond. He couldn’t. He pulled his cell phone out and punched in the number Barnett had given him for Nash. When he hit Nash’s service, he cleared the call, checked his watch and entered his own number at the office. It was already past seven. In spite of the hour, Jill picked up on the second ring.

“I need you to find Nash,” he whispered. “Then call me back.”

“What is it?” she asked. “What’s wrong?”

He noted the panic in her voice. She must have picked up on his as well.

“I’ll tell you later,” he said under his breath. “I don’t care what anyone has you doing. Just find Nash and give me a call.”

“Done,” she said.

Teddy stared at the phone. After a moment, he got up, switched off the lights and closed the door. Jackson seemed pleased that the night was over, locking up the apartment and leading the way downstairs. As they reached the sidewalk, Teddy thanked the detective for coming. He heard the Cadillac start up, the muffled sound of Frank Sinatra singing through glass, and turned to watch Jackson gun it down the street like a broken-down hot-dog cop who was still pissed off. He heard his cell phone ring, felt in vibrating in his pocket. As he brought it to his ear, he heard Jill’s familiar voice in the cold night air.

“He’s at the Skyline Club,” she said excitedly. “It’s a nightclub. Nash will be there all evening.”

He could feel himself being reeled back in. She’d found him.

“I know where it is,” he said. “It’s private.”

“That’s right. What’s wrong with your voice?”

He cleared his throat. “Nothing.”

“Barnett’s looking for you,” she said. “He’s lost your cell phone number.”

“Don’t give it to him, okay? Don’t say anything.”

“I didn’t. I turned on the TV and saw the news. They found another body.”

“Yeah,” he said. “They did. Let’s talk in the morning.”

“Take care of yourself, Teddy.”

He closed the phone and turned the corner, spotting his Corolla in the middle of the block. His dizziness had passed, and he started for the car. Slowly at first, then picking up speed.

FIFTEEN

It was an exclusive club on the top floor of a high-rise building just off Rittenhouse Square, and the man at the front desk seemed adamant about not letting him in. He kept looking down at Teddy’s shoes and pants, still damp from the river. When reason didn’t work, Teddy grabbed him by the collar and shoved him aside.

Hurrying down the hall, he found the dining room and spotted Nash at a corner table by the window. He was seated with a beautiful, exotic-looking woman. Her clear skin was a deep brown, her face refined and gentle.

The light in Nash’s eyes glowed a little as Teddy approached the table. When Nash looked past him and nodded, Teddy turned and saw the man he’d just pushed straighten up his jacket and vanish down the hall with a shake of the head the way little men do.

“Have a seat,” Nash said. “We were just enjoying a little wine. Would you like a glass?”

Teddy nodded even though he didn’t want any wine. A waiter appeared with a third glass and a bottle of Williams & Selyem Pinot Noir. As the glass was partially filled, Nash introduced Teddy to his friend, Lynn Guzmon. She smiled warmly and offered her hand. Teddy shook it gently, noting her British accent, and was happily surprised when she excused herself to make a phone call. It was an act, of course, an elegant gesture made by someone who understood something was up without being told.

“Let’s go outside,” Nash said. “Better bring your glass.”

He followed Nash onto the terrace. Gas burners kept the space warm with benches and chairs arranged in small groupings along the entire side of the building. Nash stopped at the rail, gazing at the city. Teddy joined him, thinking that the name of the club was a perfect fit with its setting. The view from the terrace of the Skyline Club was tremendous. He could see the entire city, from the Museum of Art all the way down to the blue lights framing the Benjamin Franklin Bridge.