CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Rachel found a bench at the end of the block, just past the reach of the Hargrove's lamp post. It sat by what looked to be a now-defunct bus stop—a rare smear on the well-to-do and well-polished neighborhood.
The street was quiet and the cold had settled in for the night.
She buttoned her jacket and stuffed her hands in her pockets as she looked at the bare median trees for a moment.
She knew what she needed to overcome this little hurdle and waited only about thirty seconds before she took her phone out of her pocket. She dialed home and Jack picked up on the second ring.
"Hey. How's it going down there at the Hargrove?"
"Nice place, but it’s making for a very long day," she said. "Most everyone here is being cooperative but it’s just not…it doesn’t seem to be going anywhere.”
“Any idea why?”
“Well, we’ve got three victims spread out over six weeks. And because they were elderly and the first two were written off initially as likely natural causes, no real forensics work was done. So we have three bodies and are sort of starting from scratch.”
“Yeah, the notes came across my desk today. I don’t know if it was sloppy police work or just working on dangerous assumptions.”
“Maybe a mix of both,” Rachel said. “Anyway, how was your day?"
"Meetings. Phone calls. Looking over case files. The usual." She could hear him moving through the kitchen, the sound of something being set on the counter. "Your case is getting some attention around the office, by the way. People are talking about it."
"What are they saying?"
"Pretty much what we just touched on. How it’s sort of a nightmare case because no one considered foul play—much less a serial killer—until there were three bodies."
Rachel didn't respond to that directly. Honestly, she was done talking about it. "How's Paige?"
"She's right here. You want to talk to her?”
“Yeah.”
“Hold on."
There was a brief shuffle and then Paige's voice came on, quicker and higher-pitched than Jack's.
She started off strong, her voice carrying the momentum of someone who had been waiting for an opening.
Rachel knew where it was headed right away, so she was wary of it.
But really, it was just a relief to hear Paige so excited and animated about anything. It was a rare thing to hear these days.
"Mom. Okay. So. I need to tell you about my history project because it actually turned out really well and Mrs. Alderman said it was one of the strongest in the class, which I feel like she probably says to everyone but it still felt good, and also Emily and I had a thing today but it's mostly resolved, and I read three more chapters of the book for English which I actually like more than I thought I would. "
"Take a breath," Rachel said, laughing. “Lucky for you, I caught all of that and don’t need you to repeat it.”
“Ha, funny. So…tell me about this case you’re on. Dad says it’s a messy one.”
"Yes, it’s messy."
"Is it the apartment building thing? Someone at school said their mom heard something about it on the news."
"I can't talk about active cases, you know that."
"I'm not asking for details. I'm asking if it's the apartment building thing."
"Paige…"
"Fine." She didn't sound particularly bothered. "Is it dangerous?"
"No, it doesn’t seem to be.”
"Are you being careful?"
"I'm sitting on a bench outside. I'm extremely careful."
“Dude, it’s cold. Get back in there and catch some bad guys.”
“Ah, if only I were that easy.” Despite the cold, Rachel felt a flush of warmth. It was indeed great to hear Paige speaking with such passion and humor about something.
Paige made a sound that managed to convey both skepticism and affection. "Okay. Are you coming home tonight?"
"I don't know yet. Probably. It depends on how the day goes."
"Okay." There was another pause, shorter this time. "I started a new organizational system for my case notes. For the podcasts. I have them sorted by crime type and then by jurisdiction and then by investigative outcome."
Rachel closed her eyes briefly, not sure if this was something she should applaud or warn against. "That's very thorough," was all she said.
"I thought so, too." She could hear the small satisfaction in it. "Okay, I'll let you go. Love you."
"Love you too. Put Dad back on, would you?" She nearly grimaced when she referred to Jack as dad. Paige had started doing it about six months ago, out of nowhere. They’d always made it known to her that she didn’t have to call Jack dad.
Her own dad had died when she was so young and she never wanted to confuse her.
But this had been Paige’s decision and every now and then, she’d switch back and forth.
Rachel never knew why, and they’d never had the discussion.
Jack came back on the line, yanking her out of her thoughts. "Still here."
"She's sorted her podcast notes by crime type and jurisdiction. Did you hear?”
"I know. She showed me the spreadsheet. It’s color-coded.” He chuckled, but the quiet that followed told her that he was also trying to be serious. "She's fine, Rach. She's just thorough and happens to be interested in something that has caught on in certain age groups."
"I know she's fine. That's almost the problem." Rachel looked at the trees along the median again, feeling the chill creep back in. "I imagine I’ll be home tonight. Not sure when."
"Well, if you do, I’ll see you then. Love you.”
“Love you, too.”
She ended the call and sat for another minute, the phone loose in her hand. The Hargrove was visible from where she sat, its limestone trim pale against the night sky, the green canopy lit from below. The street was empty in both directions, with the exception of a young couple walking their dog.
For Rachel, the feeling was still there—that teasing sense of something almost in reach. She turned it over a few more times and it stayed just where it was, present but not yet clear. It was being stubborn and it made her feel almost like a failure that she wasn’t able to identify it yet.
She stood from the bench, deciding that more time on the case itself was more likely to shake it loose than sitting in the cold trying to force it.
She pocketed her phone and started back toward the Hargrove.
She’d told Paige and Jack she’d probably be home tonight and unless something dramatic presented itself in the next hour or so, she was starting to think she might be home sooner rather than later.
***
The security footage from the night of Sylvia Marsh's death was running on Novak's laptop for the third time.
He'd pulled his chair closer to the screen and was working through it at half speed, watching the hallway outside 7-C from the timestamp that Purcell's team had established as the outer edge of the window of death.
The hallway was empty. The camera angle covered the elevator and the first four doors on the right side of the hall, and for the relevant two-hour window nothing moved except the slight flicker of the overhead light at 11:42, which happened again at 11:58—and that was probably an electrical issue rather than anything worth logging.
He switched to the lobby camera for the same window. The lobby had more movement — a resident returning home at 10:15, another leaving at 11:30 with a dog on a leash. But there was nothing that placed anyone near the seventh floor stairwell entrance in a way that meant anything.
The gaps Purcell had mentioned were real.
The freight entrance at the back of the building had a camera that covered the exterior door but nothing beyond the first three feet of the interior corridor.
The stairwells had no cameras at all. The basement hallway had one camera at the far end, near the storage cages, but the angle was narrow and covered less than a third of the corridor's length.
He wasn't seeing anything that suggested the footage had been edited or selectively packaged.
The timestamps ran continuously, the file metadata looked clean, and the gaps were architectural rather than manufactured.
He couldn't rule out that something had been removed, but he also couldn't find evidence of it.
What he had was a building with a surveillance system that covered the places that were easy to cover and left everything else to chance.
He closed the laptop and looked across the lobby to where Pruitt was restacking the paper cups near the credenza.
He did it with the bored detachment of someone who was simply looking for things to do.
And as he watched the man at his half-hearted work, an idea came to him.
Novak got up out of his chair and walked over to him.
"Can I ask you something?"
Pruitt turned, surprised to see Novak standing there. "Sure."
"Who else in this building knows it the way you do? The layout, the systems, the parts of it that don't show up on a floor plan?"
Pruitt looked at him for a moment, and something in his expression shifted in a way that gave Novak pause. It wasn’t evasion, exactly, but a pulling back. He looked at the credenza and straightened the cups that didn't need straightening. "That's a hard question to answer."
"Take your time," Novak said.
Pruitt was quiet for long enough that Novak was about to ask again.
Then he set the cups down and turned to face him fully.
"There's a name that's been coming to me…
I have to admit. And I want to say upfront that it makes no sense to me, because this is genuinely a good person we're talking about.
I don't want to throw someone under a bus. "
"You're not throwing anyone under anything. You're answering a question that’s been asked by a federal agent."
Pruitt crossed his arms, not defensively but more like a man bracing himself for the sound of his own words.
"There's a resident on the eighth floor by the name of Warren Shelf.
He's in his mid-fifties, and he’s been here about six years.
He does handyman work on the side, including a few for me when I've been backed up or when something needed more time than I could give it.
Small stuff mostly…things like cabinet hinges, caulking, light fixture work.
" He paused and sat with the next statement for a moment; Novak could tell he was struggling to reveal it.
"He has keys to a few of the units. Residents gave them to him directly, for jobs he did for them. I don't know exactly which units."
Novak kept his voice even when he asked: "How many keys are we talking about?"
"I don't know. That's what I'm saying. The residents arranged it with him directly. It wasn't through me or through Hale. So I have no way to know the full count."
For Novak, the frustration of it was immediate and specific.
Here was a man who had been cooperative since the beginning, who had pulled the security footage and answered every question readily.
But Pruitt had been sitting on this for the duration of the day.
He was about to say something to that effect when the front door opened and Rachel came in, cheeks faintly flushed from the cold.
“Hold on,” he told Pruitt. “I’ll be right back.”
He crossed the lobby to meet her before she'd gotten three steps inside. He got to the point right away, telling her about Warren Shelf, the handyman work, and the keys.
Rachel listened without interrupting. When he finished, she was already pulling the resident list up on her phone. She found the name quickly, nodding. “Shelf, Warren. Unit 8-B,” she said. “He’s been in the building for six years. Age 57. Interviewed by Purcell's team, no flags noted.”
“But I think this thing with the keys…that just came up, changes that.”
“Same here.”
Novak glanced back at Pruitt, who was watching them from across the lobby. He didn’t look scared or ashamed, but he did have the look of a man hoping he'd done the right thing by speaking up.
Novak and Rachel shared a brief glance, nodded in unison, and headed for the elevators.