Page 26 of Her Last Doubt

"Agents. How'd the rest of the evening go?"

"We're still working on it," Rachel said. She and Novak crossed the lobby toward him. "What are you doing up here at the front of the place?"

He gave a slightly comical sigh and rolled his eyes. "Just signing off on a parts order for the boiler. Hale wants it on file before the end of the week." He set the clipboard down and leaned against the console. "Anything I can do to help? Do you two always work this deep into the night?"

“Only when it’s necessary,” Novak said.

Rachel looked at him for a moment. She felt a small pull of reluctance about what she needed to ask next. "Actually," she said, "there is something you can help us with, and I want to apologize in advance because I've already asked you a version of this."

He folded his arms loosely, waiting. “It’s fine. Anything you need, really.”

"You have keys to every unit in the building, correct?”

“Yes.”

“And that includes the apartments of all three victims." She spoke it as a statement rather than a question.

The slight shift in Pruitt's expression was controlled but visible. Not quite offense, but something adjacent to it. "Yes," he said. "That's part of the job. I'm the custodian. I've always had that access."

"I understand that," Rachel said. "And I want to be clear that this is a box we need to check. It's nothing more than that."

He held her gaze for a second, then let it go. "All right. Yes. I have a master key that opens every unit. It's standard for anyone in my position in a building like this."

"And can you walk me through how you'd get from your apartment in the basement to, say, the seventh floor?"

He uncrossed his arms and seemed to take the question at face value. "The basement opens onto the main hallway, but to get to the elevator I have to come through the staff door at the end of the corridor. From there, you cross the lobby, and take the elevator or the stairs. There's no direct route from the basement to the upper floors that bypasses this room." He gestured toward the lobby floor, the front desk, the elevator at the far wall. "Anyone coming up from my apartment has to walk through here. That's just how the building is laid out."

"And the cameras in the lobby," Novak said, "would pick that up."

"They would have. I wasn't on the footage during any of those windows because I wasn't in this lobby during those times." His tone remained even, but the slight emphasis on the word wasn't was unmistakable. "The detective already looked at this. She was satisfied." He then lowered his voice a bit and asked,” Did you talk to Warren Shelf?”

“We did,” Rachel said. “He’s not cleared yet, but we don’t see him as an immediate concern.” Though in the back of her head, she wondered just how quickly he would be able to deliver his list and his keys. “I just have one more question and then I'll leave you alone."

He gave a small nod. “Okay.”

"Is it possible that someone could have accessed your keys? Borrowed them, copied them, anything like that?"

Pruitt shook his head without hesitation. "I keep the master key ring on me during the day and locked in a box in my apartment at night. I've never lent them to anyone and I've never left them somewhere they could be stolen. I truly do protect them at all costs. I’m very careful about it, and I always have been.”

"Thank you," Rachel said. She had no reason not to believe him and the fact that he hadn’t gotten angry about being asked the same thing a second time—only a bit differently this time—spoke volumes in her eyes.

"Sure," he said. He picked up the clipboard again, signaling that he was done with the conversation, and Rachel and Novak moved toward Hale's office.

The door was opened about halfway as they approached it, then pulled wide from the inside before either of them could knock. Conrad Hale had his jacket on and his bag over one shoulder. He stopped short when he saw them in the doorway. He didn’t even pretend to hide the annoyed look on his face.

"I was heading out," he said. "It's been a long day."

"It has," Rachel said. "But we'll be quick. We certainly don’t want to keep you. Can we come in for a minute?"

He didn’t answer right away, and Rachel thought he might be on the verge of challenging them. After about three seconds, though, he stepped back into his office. He set his bag down on the desk chair with a bit of dramatic flair, visibly resigning himself to it.

“We appreciate it,” Novak said.

Rachel started off by telling him about their conversation with Warren Shelf, filling him in on the situation with the keys he still had in his possession. Hale listened with his hands in his jacket pockets. His expression didn't change much, but he glanced at the corner of the room when she mentioned that residents had been handing Shelf their spare keys directly without going through building management. It wasn't an involuntary look; it was brief and deliberate, the glance of a man that was trying to pretend that he wasn’t bothered by this information.

"I was aware that Warren helped out occasionally," Hale said. "In an informal capacity. I didn't think it warranted anything formal from my part."

“Did you know he had the keys of some of the residents?”