Chapter 21
Darnell hadn’t taken Vaughn’s advice to lay off the booze. The smell was back—sweat and alcohol.
Or maybe it never left.
The cans had returned, though.
“Darnell, time to go.”
Darnell didn’t fart, snore, or hiccup. He had no reaction.
“Darnell?”
Worry set in and Vaughn shook the man’s bare shoulder. He stirred. Opened his bloodshot eyes.
“Time to go, Darnell.”
A simple nod.
No jokes today. No silly outfit.
Recalling Darnell in his underwear sporting only his police belt inspired Vaughn to look around for it. Like yesterday, the belt was on the side table. Except today, the holster was empty.
When Darnell slowly started to rouse, Vaughn saw the gun.
It was lying in the bed beside the mostly naked man.
Darnell noticed his partner’s gaze. Didn’t offer an explanation other than, “Rough night. Gimme five.”
Vaughn left the room, started coffee again. Didn’t bother cleaning up.
When Darnell emerged from the bedroom, Vaughn handed him a cup.
“Hey,” Vaughn began, staring at the pitch-black liquid in his to-go mug. “I think—”
“I’m going to get help, Vaughn. After this case.”
Things had never been this bad. Vaughn had heard stories about the type of detective that Darnell had been prior to the tragedy, but they were difficult to believe.
This man? Once a prized PPD detective?
Perhaps seeing something in his face, Darnell continued, “I get help now, the department is gonna put me on leave again. I can’t do that. This is all I got, man. We wrap this up, they’ll go easy on me.”
Vaughn wasn’t sure if it was deliberate or just habit, but Darnell’s hand dropped to his holster—his service pistol was back in place—and he adjusted it slightly.
“Okay. After this case. I just want you to get better, Darnell.”
“Me too.”
Vaughn had his doubts. Some people lived inside their tragedy for so long that it fused to them, became their identity. Even if they wanted out—forward, backward, anywhere—it was impossible. Like telling a kleptomaniac to stop stealing. A pyromaniac to stay away from fire.
Vaughn hoped it wasn’t too late for his partner.
In the car, he gave his partner an update on some of the work he’d done himself last night while nursing a bourbon, though most was Delaney’s doing.
He omitted the latter, figuring that mentioning the PPD officer would only trigger Darnell.
Trigger . . . Why was his gun in bed with him?
“Got an address for Treadman,” Vaughn began, then fired off the details, bullet-point style.
“Have the names of three more victims, still working on the rest. Nothing remarkable about them. No links to the university. Nothing notable about the victims’ footwear, either.
No crushed fruits. Don’t think that they walked far.
I made a list of the most likely locations they would have parked and walked to the barn from.
” Vaughn reached into his pocket and passed Darnell a sheet of paper torn from his notepad.
His partner gave it a once over. “I figure we go by these places after we finish.”
“Finish with what?”
“Visiting Aaron Treadman’s house.”
“Delan—”
“Don’t say it.”
Darnell didn’t.
“What about the barn?”
Vaughn shook his head.
“Nothing there. The high-tech router made everything digital untraceable. No luck contacting the owner of the LLC either. To be honest, I’m surprised someone hasn’t scooped the barn up yet. Property taxes haven’t been paid going on three years.”
As Vaughn pulled up to the address that Delaney had provided him with after doing some social media research/doxxing he realized he had misspoken. Aaron Treadman didn’t live in a house but an apartment. Not exactly in the best part of Trenton, New Jersey, either.
Low-income housing, high crime rate.
Considering that Aaron’s last job on record had been as a Princeton security guard, this wasn’t surprising.
They located the superintendent, a chain-smoking man who looked to be in his mid-sixties, with a shaved head. Asked about Aaron.
From the looks of it, the complex only had a couple dozen units, thirty at most. This bode well for them, and the super, who introduced himself only as Dale, knew Aaron. Didn’t seem concerned that two PPD detectives were asking around, which was telling about the area.
“Never had no problems with Aaron. Was late a couple of times with rent, but always paid in the end. Can’t say the same for some of the other tenants.”
“Can you take us to his apartment?” Vaughn asked.
“Sure.”
They technically needed a warrant to enter Aaron’s apartment. But if the super let them in, then all was fair game.
Aaron’s apartment was on the second floor, toward the south end of the building. It was too small to have an elevator, so they took the stairs.
Darnell made a point to indicate some drug paraphernalia—a spent syringe, a broken glass pipe, burnt sections of foil—in the stairwell, ensuring that Dale noticed this, too.
“Some tenants prop the entrance open with a brick when they go for a smoke. Forget to remove it afterward. They’re not supposed to, but . . .”
Darnell gave this a disapproving, “Hmm.”
Dale led them to apartment 2F and Vaughn knocked.
“He live alone?” Darnell asked.
They were fairly certain Aaron did, based on their scraping of the man’s social media.
“Yeah. Quiet guy.”
There was no reply from inside the apartment, and Darnell shot Vaughn a look. Then he sniffed dramatically.
“You smell that?”
Vaughn knew where his partner was headed with this and went along with it.
“Smells like rotten eggs.”
The open-air hallway did have a funk to it—not eggs so much as general BO and the faint hint of stale cigarette smoke.
“I don’t smell nothin’.”
Even if someone had smashed a crate of eggs and left the debris in the sun for a week, Vaughn doubted Dale would have picked up the scent. The man’s fingers and teeth were stained a pale brown from nicotine.
“What’s this about, anyway? Aaron in some sort of trouble?”
Darnell disregarded Dale’s questions. Most of being a detective amounted to just that: ignoring people’s questions while posing your own. Or just listening. There were very few things more uncomfortable than an awkward silence.
“I definitely smell rotten eggs. Dale, think you can save us some time and unlock the door?”
“I’m not supposed to do that.”
“Here’s the deal, Dale.” Darnell made himself big as he spoke, adjusted his belt, drawing eyes to his service weapon, which had shifted toward the front.
“You can let us into Aaron’s apartment, or we can all stand here and wait around for an hour or two while my partner here calls a judge and applies for a warrant. ”
Dale nodded as if he was okay with this. The man had nothing better to do. Vaughn took over.
“We do that, and then we’re going to have to do some real digging.” His eyes flicked to the stairwell. “You got a conference room in this place?”
Dale scoffed.
“A conference room?”
“Didn’t think so. In that case, we’ll probably have to use your office to interview all of your tenants. Ask a whole lot of questions. You know those tenants you said didn’t pay on time? Didn’t pay at all? I’m thinking you might never hear from or see them again.”
Dale’s right hand didn’t move to the keyring on his belt, but it did twitch a little.
“Dale, we just want to take a look around,” Vaughn pressed, changing gears slightly.
Dale shifted, sighed, and finally grabbed his keys.
“You gonna keep my name out of this, right?”
A hint of a smile graced Vaughn’s lips.
“Of course.”
They were in.