Page 21 of So Deadly
“He didn’t own an animal,” Jenkins said.“I talked to the property manager, and she said he hadn’t owned an animal the whole twenty years he’d been here.”
“My point stands then,” she replied.
“What did she tell you about Thomas?”Jessica asked.
“According to her, he was a good tenant.Paid his rent on time, didn’t bother anyone, didn’t complain, kept to himself mostly.”
“So, no enemies.”
“No.Upstairs tenant was complaining about the smell the past few days.Guess we know why now.Other than that, no one had a problem with him.”
“Who’s the upstairs tenant?”
“Guy named Bobby Martin.He’s the one who actually called it in.Linda—that’s the manager—walked into this and lost her shit.Can’t say I blame her.Two bodies in one day, and the second one’s worse than the first.”
Faith turned to Jessica.“Can you crack into his computer and see if you can get a list of clients?I’m going to talk to the neighbor.”
Jessica swallowed.She didn’t look very pleased about needing to stay in that apartment, but she adjusted her mask and nodded.“I can do it.”
Faith squeezed her shoulder, then headed outside.Turk was now across the walkway from the apartment, nose buried in a hydrangea bush.He looked at her, then looked pointedly away.Faith almost smiled at the uncharacteristic behavior from her dog, then thought about just how awful this had to be for Turk to be thrown completely off his game like that.
She ascended the steps, sans Turk.If she got a bad feeling about Martin, she’d call him over to give him the sniff test, but otherwise, she was fine letting him rest his nose in the hydrangeas.
She knocked on the door.A pair of eyes pulled down the blinds.Then the door opened, and a potbellied, sideburned man of around fifty opened the door.His appearance suggested he was used to throwing his considerable weight around and bullying people into giving him his way, but the tremble in his throat and the blank stare in his eyes suggested he was in no mood to do any of that at the moment.It also suggested he wasn’t the killer, though that, of course, wasn’t foolproof.
“Damn,” he said.“They want the FBI for this one, huh?”
“It’s a pretty unusual one,” Faith said.
“Yeah, you can say that again,” the neighbor said.
“You’re Bobby Martin?”Faith asked.
He nodded.
“Special Agent Faith Bold, FBI.Mind if I ask you a few questions?”
“Yeah, sure.”He sniffed.“Fuck, the smell.Pardon my French, but do you think it’ll be a while down there?”
“We’ll have Mr.Webb’s remains out of the unit within an hour or two, but I think it’s going to be a little longer and a lot of cleaning before the smell disappears.Your property manager will better be able to answer that than me.”
“Might just take a trip north,” Bobby muttered.“Visit my cousins in Quebec.”
“I hear it’s nice this time of year,” Faith said.“But before we talk about leaving the country, I was hoping you could tell me about your relationship with Thomas Webb?”
“Didn’t have one,” Bobby said, shock making his words blunt.“Never talked to the guy.Maybe said hello once or twice, but he just kept to himself.Never had a problem with him, though.Not until the smell, and I guess that’s not his fault.God…” He shook his head.“Who does something like that?”
“Someone very, very angry,” Faith replied.“Any idea who that might be?”
Bobby laughed nervously.“I’ve never met anyone that angry in my life.I mean, forget the mold for a minute.He was cut to pieces.It looked like he was a testing dummy for a pissed-off Samurai.”
“And you can’t think of anyone who might have hated him enough to do that?”
“No.We all get along here.Well, most of us, but we just ignore the people we don’t like.”
“Who didn’t like Thomas?”
“That’s the thing.I never heard anyone talk about him.Once or twice a joke about him being a serial killer or a CIA agent or something and that’s why he never talked to anyone, but that’s it.Seems kind of fucked up now considering how he ended.”
