The Dark (A Detective Alice Madison Novel)(39)

Madison played it again. On the way out the man with the boots had placed one hand in the middle of the back of the man with the Velcro straps, the other hand gripping his arm above the elbow. When the third man appeared, wheeling the case, he cut through the crowd, and just before reaching the glass doors he turned. Madison appreciated for the first time in her life the subtle and timeless beauty of a four-way split screen: the instant the man had turned and looked across the ticket hall, the guy who had created the commotion kicking the vending machine had somehow calmed down, raised his hands in apology, and made his way out. The guards had just stood there, managing to look both menacing and relieved, totally unaware they had just witnessed a kidnapping.

It was a lot of energy to expend on a man like Ronald Gray: at least three men in the station and—Madison could have sworn to it—one waiting in a car outside, motor running, eyes on the rearview mirror. Four men to grab an unarmed, unremarkable, fifty-year-old guy, take him to a deserted warehouse, beat him with a piece of wood they found there—Sorensen had called to confirm the find—and then shoot him in the head twice. A lot of energy, Madison considered. She did not try to shape the facts into a story; for now all she had was a sequence of events—the story would come later.

She got busy with station staff again, this time with pointed questions and the position of each of them as the kidnapping had occurred. Kelly did the same.

Practically all the people in the ticket hall had been watching the exchange between the guards and the guy with a grudge against the vending machine. His actions had been perfectly calibrated: enough noise to draw attention but not enough damage that the guards would attempt to hold him when he wanted to leave. And when that moment had come, he had made it out of the terminal very swiftly. A black baseball cap and turned-up collar had made sure his face was not identifiable.

Frank Lauren and Mary Kay Joyce arrived with their kit; they were Sorensen’s best and brightest. As they stepped through the glass doors, Madison went to meet them.

Lauren didn’t bother with greetings. “Please tell me it’s not the restroom,” he said to Madison.

“I’m sorry, Frank,” she replied.

“Oh, man. Is it the ladies’ restroom, at least?”

“Nope.”

They sighed. Madison led them down the corridor; she was already wearing a double layer of gloves. She pushed the door open with the toe of her boot; so far she had managed not to touch a single surface except with her shoes, which she might have to burn at the end of the shift. Lauren and Joyce, already wearing their hazmat suits, snapped on face-protecting masks. Ancient dirt and grime coated every inch of every surface, as if mops and scourers had barely brushed against the tiles and no detergents had ever crossed the threshold. The smell was indescribable.

“Of course, you realize we’re going to pick up everything and anything here. The last time they cleaned this place—we’re going to pick up Jimmy Hoffa’s prints off that sink over there.”

“I know. We don’t know what the kidnappers touched or if they touched anything, but whatever you can find would be gold.”

“Gold ain’t what we have here, Detective,” Joyce replied.


Ronald Gray’s apartment was downtown, a 1930s building with some but not much of its old charm. The super let them in, a short man in his early thirties with a neat blond buzz cut and pale eyelashes. He had started working there only ten days earlier and didn’t know anything about Ronald Gray except that he lived on the fourth floor, at the back. The super wore very bright T-shirts in layers, was glad to help and sorry for the reason they were there. Climbing the stairs, he ignored Kelly’s bulk and directed his conversation to Madison. She could see he was pleased to leave them by the threshold.

The light on the landing was not enough for their needs: she shone her small flashlight on the lock and around it. Untouched. No one had come visiting after Gray had left.

Madison turned the key in the lock, and they walked in.

The apartment—one bedroom, living room, kitchen, and a small bathroom to the side—had been left in haste. Kelly wandered from room to room, but Madison stayed by the front door and took it all in. The dishes had been washed—white china with a fine green line; the plain blue cover on the bed had been pulled up over the pillow; the surface of the dining table—beech, big enough for six—was not polished but clean and dust-free. A broom closet held domestic cleaning products, some white paint with a brush, and a roll of wallpaper. In spite of all that, or maybe because of it, it felt as if a gust of wind had spread things all over the place, things that normally would have been tidied away: bills, letters, a couple of picture frames with no pictures, two drawers that had not been shut properly and stuck out a couple of inches. Then there was the smell. The smoke alarm was high in a corner of the room, quietly manning its post. However, the scent hung in the air, acrid and sharp.