Rob blushed. “It’s the neighborhood. Until the detectives sign off on the scene, we keep it sealed and we keep it guarded. If we don’t guard it, the seals won’t mean anything.”
Gregor wanted to ask who in the name of God would want to break into a house like this, but he didn’t, because there was a part of him that already knew the answer. He went up to the young patrolman at the door.
“Did you get our call?”
“Yes, I did,” the patrolman said. “Nice to meet you, Mr. Demarkian. I’ve seen you on the news.”
O’Shea and Fabereaux had just pulled up. Their car brakes squealed in that way they did when they needed a repair job, and before the car was fully stopped they got out. Gregor didn’t think he’d ever seen anybody do that except in the movies.
The two detectives came up to the door where Gregor and Rob were standing.
“You’ve looked this place over?” Gregor asked.
“Not really,” O’Shea said. “We did a cursory run through, but we’re going to keep the barriers up at least a few more days so that we can get up to speed. With the situation the way it is, with Marty and Cord, you know—”
“Yeah,” Rob Benedetti said.
“It’s okay,” Gregor said. “I won’t touch anything. I just want to see. First, I want to see something out here. There’s an alley?”
“Right to the side of the house,” O’Shea said.
“It goes to a back courtyard?” Gregor gestured in the vague direction.
“Right to the back,” O’Shea said again.
“And there’s no door directly onto the alley?” Gregor said.
“There’s a door at the back,” Fabereaux said. “You asked us to check and we did. There’s a door at the back that goes to the little space where the garbage cans and stuff are kept until somebody brings them out on garbage day. But there’s nothing directly onto the alley.”
“Let’s see,” Gregor said.
O’Shea and Fabereaux led the way, and they tromped around down the alley and into the back. There was not so much “courtyard” here as there had been at the last place. The houses were closer together and more run down. Gregor saw what he had come to think of as the usual things: used and broken hypodermic syringes, used and ripped condoms, broken bottles, crushed aluminum cans.
Gregor paced up and down the alley, then around to the back, to the door. The door was almost in the center of the building’s back wall. He counted steps. He made his way back around to the front of the house and the street.
“Do you know anything about this neighborhood?” he asked the assembled company. “Do you know if it’s likely that there would be people in the alley and the back at any time of day?”
“Not likely, I wouldn’t think,” O’Shea said. “That’s not where the junkies and the gangs hang out. They go to abandoned buildings.”
“And are there abandoned buildings in this neighborhood?”
“Several,” O’Shea said.
Gregor nodded. He gestured up the steps, and they went past the young patrolman and into the front vestibule. It was an ordinary front vestibule, not all that different from the one in his own building on Cavanaugh Street. The difference was mostly in the state of repair, which was abysmal, and the fact that several of the mailboxes had been forced open and vandalized.
The young patrolman came in, got out a set of keys, and opened the inner door. Gregor thanked him.
“All right,” Gregor said. “Let’s look at the logistics. Bennie Durban lived here, am I correct?”
“He did,” O’Shea said. “He might still. He’s just missing at the moment.”
“He’s halfway to Montana,” Fabereaux said. “Trust me.”
“Where’s Durban’s apartment?” Gregor asked.
They took him down a short hall. The young patrolman took out his keys again and opened up. The apartment wasn’t exactly on the first floor and wasn’t exactly in the basement. The windows seemed to be both underground and overground at the same time. Gregor looked around.
“Mr. Durban had a hobby,” he said.
“I don’t see why wre can’t arrest them just for doing things like this,” Fabereaux said. “I know there’s a First Amendment, but for God’s sake. Who pins up pictures of serial killers who isn’t likely to be one himself? Eventually, anyway. I didn’t mean—”
“I know,” Gregor said. “I don’t think Mr. Durban is a serial killer, not yet. Can you tell me where Beatrice Morgander lived?”