Page 52 of The Accomplice
‘Last night, the Sandman took my friend, Kate Brooks. She’s Eddie’s partner. He sent us a note this morning saying that if we don’t get an acquittal for Carrie Miller, he’s going to kill Kate. He’ll do the same if we go to the cops.’
‘Oh my god, I’m so sorry. Where does your friend—’
‘We’re going to her apartment right now.’
They were only twenty minutes from Kate’s building and for twenty minutes neither of them spoke. But Lake said a lot.
He stroked his leather messenger bag, which he held on his lap, then drummed his fingers on it, pulled at the straps, rubbed his wrists, tapped his feet, sucked his teeth and tugged at his ear lobe. The man was a ball of anxiety, even more so today. And while Lake let those anxious feelings show, Bloch simply drove the car. She only moved her head, pumped the gas and turned the steering wheel. Her teeth were clamped together, and occasionally she could feel a vein standing out in her neck, but she kept all her fear and worry inside. Letting it simmer and boil. And when she could hold it no longer, she would find something to let it out on. If that something happened to be a person, God help them.
She hadn’t been surprised that Kate had been burgled the other night. The only surprise was that it hadn’t happened before. There was an illusion that once you were several stories above the street in Manhattan, you were safe. This was not true. Even the most secure apartment buildings had regular spates of burglaries. If you lived in the city long enough it wasn’t a question ofifyou would get robbed, but simplywhenand how bad it would be. Unlike Lilian Parker’s building, Kate’s apartment complex was not secure. There were any number of ways out of the building, into alleyways, or down fire escapes. You could walk straight out of there carrying a body and there wasn’t a single camera to catch you. Also, the street outside was quiet in the small hours of the morning. The Sandman would’ve had very little trouble accessing Kate’s apartment and kidnapping her without being seen.
When Bloch pulled up, Lake simply nodded, followed Bloch into the building and up to Kate’s apartment. Her front door was closed, but both locks had markings around the keyholes.
‘He used a key drill,’ said Lake. It was a small, valuable device that used a soft, heavily muffled motor to operate what were essentially lock picks. Some people called them magic keys.
Bloch pushed at the door with her fingertips, and it opened.
One of the drawbacks of using magic keys was that they tended to bust the lock, preventing the door from closing.
Inside, the curtains were drawn, but they were only thin and cheap, and light was still able to penetrate the room. Throwing them open, Bloch let the sunlight burn through the dust motes dancing in the air. While they swirled in the sunbeams, Bloch surveyed the apartment. Nothing out of place, apart from the unmade bed. Kate never left that bed unmade in the morning.
‘Anything I should be looking for in particular ?’ asked Lake.
Bloch didn’t speak, she was concentrating. Taking in every detail, referencing her memory to highlight anything strange or unusual. While she took her time, and examined the place thoroughly, she could see nothing out of the ordinary.
Apart from one thing.
Kate’s legal pad was on the breakfast bar, and a page had been ripped out. The page he had used to write the note to Eddie. Finally, she approached the unmade bed. The comforter had been pulled back as if Kate had just leapt straight out. Or been hauled out of it.
Bloch took the comforter, which Kate always insisted on calling a duvet, and drew it back. She decided she would make the bed. It seemed like a stupid thing to do. But Kate was fastidious about keeping the place neat. Bloch picked up her pillow, drew it to her face and inhaled. Kate’s scent. Not perfume, or hair products, it was Kate. And she had known that smell since she was eleven years old. She swallowed. Suppressing that spasm in her throat that threatened to erupt into a torrent of loss and fear that would overwhelm her. Instead, she made the bed. It was only a small and totally inconsequential action, but it had weight for Bloch. Because it would mean something, somehow, to Kate.
As she leaned over and smoothed out the comforter, her fingers touched something hard. The cover was a gray pattern of close-knit, interlacing lines with some yellow streaks. It was difficult to spot something lying on the bed, particularly if it was clear plastic, but that is exactly what Bloch found.
It was thin and cone shaped. The protective plastic cover for a syringe needle.
‘Check the kitchen drawer below the coffee machine,’ Bloch said. ‘You’ll find plastic sandwich baggies. Bring me one.’
‘What have you got there ?’ said Lake, coming close.
‘The bag,’ said Bloch.
Lake seemed to know that he wasn’t going to get anything else from her until he got the bag. He walked around the counter, found a supply of baggies in a cardboard container and handed one to her.
She opened it and scooped up the plastic cover from the bed.
‘Oh my,’ said Lake. ‘He missed this.’
‘He took her in the dark,’ said Bloch. ‘He would have had one hand out, to put over her mouth. Moving slowly and silently toward her. He would know these walls are thin, and stifling a scream was key. The syringe would be in his other hand …’
‘Smart,’ said Lake.
The question each of them wanted to know the answer to was would the Sandman have risked putting his two hands together, right at the last moment, to take the lid off the syringe and expose the needle ? The cap was right on the bed, so he had done it last minute. It was likely he grabbed Kate with one hand, holding her down, covering that scream, and he took the lid off the syringe by biting down on it with his teeth and then spitting it out, onto the bed.
‘This came from the Sandman. If he’s taken Kate, then that means she’s being held somewhere. Wherever that is, there’s a good chance that is where he’s been hiding all this time. There might be fibers, trace chemicals, something on this that might give us a clue as to that location,’ said Bloch.
‘I’ll take it right now to my guy. I have a friend who is a private forensic tech.’
She sealed the bag, held it and stood up straight, staring at Lake.
