Chapter 7
I tell myself I'm just going for a walk.
This is not true, but it's a useful fiction while I pull on my jacket and pocket my phone. I take the elevator down to the lobby and push out through the Overton's heavy front door into the October morning.
I turn west and walk.
The building where they found the second body is six blocks away.
I stop on the opposite sidewalk and look up.
The murder building is twenty stories, unremarkable, the kind of structure that blends in because the city is full of them. A uniformed officer stands at the entrance, keeping people out. Directly above him, the rooftop where the second victim was found sits flat against the gray morning sky.
But the gargoyle wasn’t on that building.
I shift my gaze to the end of the block, to the older corner building overlooking the crime scene from across the street. That is where I spotted the winged beast perched above the murder roof.
The corner building is older. Much older. Dark stone that has absorbed decades of weather and city grime into a surface that reads almost black in the flat morning light.
The corner where the gargoyle sat is barely visible from here. From the sidewalk, I can only make out the jutting edge of the parapet. I need to be higher to get a better look.
I need to be on that roof.
So I cross the street.
A little voice inside me tries to chime in. What are you doing, girl? I pay the voice no mind.
The front entrance of the corner building is locked. I try it once, rattle it, give up. Stepping back onto the sidewalk, I look up at the building and shift my attention to the alley running alongside it.
That’s where I head next.
The alley narrows quickly, the buildings on both sides pressing close, the noise of the street fading behind me. I pass a pair of dumpsters and keep going until I find the service entrance.
I step up to the heavy metal door with its worn handle.
I try it. It’s locked.
I look both ways down the alley.
Empty.
I unzip my backpack and find the Swiss Army knife in the front pocket where it's lived for four years, carried more out of habit than necessity. Sure looks like it will come in handy. I slide out the narrow blade and crouch in front of the latch.
The blade finds the gap. I work it carefully, feeling for the mechanism, making small adjustments, very aware of how exposed I am back here.
Click. There we go.
I allow myself a small smile and put the knife away. Push the door open and slip inside. For a split second I think of the boyfriend who taught me this little trick. Mom would have been shocked to know I carry a knife in my backpack.
The service corridor runs the length of the building, fluorescent lights humming overhead, pipes clustered along the ceiling, the floor bare concrete.
The stairwell door is unlocked. I take the stairs fast, two at a time, my footsteps echoing off the concrete in the narrow shaft.
City sounds filter through the walls in a muffled, distant register.
Sounds of traffic, a siren somewhere to the east. The ordinary texture of another morning in the city.
I push through the roof access door and the wind hits me hard.
The rooftop is smaller than the Overton's. Older in its materials, the surface cracked and patched over decades. HVAC units sit along the center, older models, noisier.
I head to the jutting edge of the parapet where I spotted the gargoyle.
There is no sign of the statue. The ledge is bare.
I step closer to the parapet and study its surface. I immediately notice scratch marks in the stone, deep enough to be recent, arranged in a pattern that isn’t random.
Four distinct points of contact.
Almost like claw marks.
I take out my phone and photograph the marks. Then I straighten and look out across the skyline.
The murder building is directly across from me, its roof slightly lower. From here, the gargoyle would have had a perfect view of everything below: the body, the cops, the EMTs, the rooftop itself.
Then I turn.
The Overton is visible from here too. Of course it is. It rises above the surrounding buildings six blocks east, thirty stories of dark stone, its upper floors and rooftop parapet clearly visible from where I'm standing. Eleanor's windows — my windows — a dark rectangle near the top.
"Enjoying the view?"
The sudden voice makes me spin.
A young man leans against a water tower twenty feet away. Shit, he must’ve been there all along. Shaggy hair, a laptop backpack hanging off one shoulder, an expression that is curious and amused in roughly equal measure. About my age. His dark eyes take in the parapet I was just examining.
"I hope you're not planning to jump," he says.
I look at him. Is this guy trying to be funny?
“You're not supposed to be up here."
"Neither are you."
A beat. The wind moves between us.
"What were you looking at?" he asks.
I don't answer that.
"What are you doing on this roof?"
He smiles.
"Earning my rent," he says.
Okay. Now I’m really confused.