Chapter 5 #3
Bob crossed to the window. The drapes were taped to the walls on each side.
In the opening between them he looked down at the cordoned-off area in front of Tower 3.
He sniffed at one of the drapes. The acrid smell of gun smoke.
There was a chair between the couch and the window, and Bob saw that there were scratch marks on top of the chairback.
Bob checked the angle, tried to re-create the shooter’s position if he used the chairback as a rest, and concluded he must have been on the couch, possibly on his knees.
He walked to the kitchen cabinet, pulled on the thin latex gloves he always kept in his inside pocket, and opened the cabinet door.
The contents didn’t tell him much apart from the fact that the tenant had a preference for food from south of the border.
Rice, tortillas, empty bottles of Mexican beer.
There was a can of brown beans in the refrigerator, a dried-up pepper and an onion.
He lifted a trash can with a pedal-operated lid, placed it on the counter and quickly sifted through the contents.
Paper towel, beer bottle caps, a couple of empty food cans, a carton of apple juice, a blackened banana skin, two empty bottles of chili sauce.
Bob picked up something lying in the bottom of the trash can and held it up to the light.
It was an open box with a label attached: Insulin.
Tomás Gomez. One injection morning and evening.
Dr. Jakob Egeland. Bob looked inside the box.
It had evidently contained several injector pens, but now there was only one left, and that had been used.
He opened the refrigerator again, checked all the drawers to make sure he hadn’t overlooked anything.
As he was putting the trash can down he noticed, in the spot where it had been standing, something just visible sticking up between the floorboards.
He used a knife from the kitchen drawer to flip out what turned out to be a business card from someone called Mike Lunde, Town Taxidermy.
For just a moment—as though he’d killed off the last of his brain cells—he couldn’t recall what a taxidermist was.
Then he remembered an article he’d read in the Star Tribune, something about a creative new taxidermist group in Minneapolis.
They stuffed dead animals. Bob put the business card in his pocket and walked over to the closet.
A few shirts and a hoodie hanging inside.
Behind them were several flattened cardboard boxes, the type you use when moving.
Bob went through the drawers in the closet.
Three pairs of underpants, some T-shirts, socks.
As he was closing the door he noticed something black behind the cardboard boxes and he moved them to one side.
A long, narrow case was propped up against the rear wall.
He lifted it out without touching its handle.
It was a rifle case.
He opened it. Empty.
At that moment Kay Myers appeared in the doorway. She nodded in the direction of the rifle case.
“I hope that means we’ve raided the right place?”
“I haven’t found any weapon or ammunition, but people don’t make a habit of collecting empty rifle cases.”
“I’m asking because if the neighbors are to be believed then our so-called Tomás Gomez is not regarded as the violent type.”
“So-called?” Bob leaned the case against the wall and took a picture of it with his phone.
“That’s the name he gave to the landlord here, Mr….” She flipped through her notebook. “Gregory Dupont. But we can’t find any reference to a Tomás Gomez with the details he gave Dupont so either it’s a false name or he’s an illegal immigrant.”
“And, of course, Dupont didn’t check?”
“He says Gomez paid his three months’ deposit in cash and as far as he was concerned he could be a Martian.”
“Right.” Bob peeled the label off the pack of insulin and put it in his coat pocket. “Anything else?”
Kay flipped through her notebook. “The neighbors on both sides say they know practically nothing about him, other than that he’s quiet and doesn’t say much.
No one’s had more than the time of day out of him.
The neighbors say he’s never given any cause for complaint, but one thinks he might have had a cat. Pets aren’t allowed.”
Bob gave a short laugh. “Job?”
“If he had one they don’t know what it was. It’s not the kind of thing people ask each other around here. But he went out in the mornings and came back in the afternoon, so maybe. Neighbor on the right side thinks he might have had some contact with a Mrs. White, two floors up.”
“Shall we have a word with her?”
“Thought we might. But I got a description, so wait while I first give it to the patrol car down there in case he suddenly decides to come back.”
“He won’t do that,” said Bob and held up the used insulin pens.
“What’s that?”
“Insulin. He’s diabetic. He needs these shots daily and you keep them in the refrigerator, but there are none there now. He’s taken them with him.”
—
Mrs. White stared at them in alarm from behind the security chain. Based on the little they could see Bob guessed her to be at least seventy, height about five three, black, fond of the color yellow.
“Tomás? That’s not possible!”
“May we come in, Mrs. White?” asked Kay.
Mrs. White unhooked the security chain and opened the door. Bob and Kay followed the yellow-clad figure into an apartment that was a little larger than Gomez’s. It had at least one extra door, which Bob assumed was to a bedroom.
“Tomás gave me this,” she said and pointed to the yucca palm standing in a pot in a corner of the room. She shuffled into the kitchen area. “Tea?”
“No thank you, Mrs. White, we’d just like to ask you a few questions.”
“Well, all right. But I can tell you right now you’re mistaken. Tomás would never shoot at anybody.”
“What makes you say that?” said Bob as he looked around.
It was the apartment of a lonely elderly woman.
With old and probably much-loved objects and family photos, to remind her of their existence.
Well-looked-after but antiquated furniture.
There was a cage with a chirping canary to keep her company.
“Tomás was the very spirit of neighborliness. If there was some shopping that needed to be done, or something in the apartment that needed fixing, he was always there to help.”
“One and the same person can be helpful at the same time as being capable of shooting someone,” said Bob.
He knew he couldn’t stay here long, could feel the anger building up inside him already.
It wasn’t so much Mrs. White’s naive replies as that yellow bird sitting so stoic and unmoving on its perch and singing that high-pitched monotonous song that was drilling its way inside his head, drilling into an exposed nerve and on the verge of precipitating an irrational outburst of anger. Damn that Alice!
“Is there anything else you can tell us about Tomás?” Kay asked quickly.
“Anything else?” Mrs. White poured tea into two cups. “Hm. Funny when you ask like that, we talk together so much I ought to be able to tell you a whole lot. But the truth is, Tomás doesn’t talk a lot. And never talks about himself.”
“What work does he do?” asked Bob.
“Casual work. Construction jobs, that’s the impression I get. He’s a real handyman. And an artist as well.”
“What kind of artist?” asked Kay.
“Some kind of sculptor. He made something, I have it in the cabinet here, would you like—”
“No thanks,” said Bob. “Did he say anything about where and who he worked for?”
Mrs. White stuck out her lower lip, shook her head and handed one teacup to Kay.
“He didn’t talk much, you say; it never occurred to you it was because he might have something to hide?
” Bob ignored Kay’s warning look. She was of the newer school of investigative theory that believed the open question would yield a more informative answer.
Bob was old school. That meant no theory, just go ahead and ask anything you’re curious about.
“No,” said Mrs. White. “I don’t think Tomás is selling dope, if that’s what you mean.
Tomás is silent by nature. I guess you could say I do most of our talking.
Don’t get me wrong, when Tomás does open his mouth he speaks like a schoolteacher.
He uses so many words I’ve never heard before.
Did you know this used to be a nice neighborhood? ”
“Did it?” said Kay.
“Oh indeed. Then came the crack epidemic of the eighties. Because it was an epidemic. A plague, that’s what it was. It swept across the whole country, and overnight we were back in the dirt again.”
“I know,” said Kay.
“Do you?”
“I grew up between two crack houses.”
“Yeah, well, then I guess you do know.”
Bob glanced down into the courtyard again.
The techs should be here anytime now. If not, that was just more ammunition for those who claimed the police took their time about things when the neighborhood involved was black or Latino.
A few kids were throwing pebbles at the patrol car down below and the officer stepped out and yelled at them, but the kids just ran off, laughing.
“Now there’s more shooting, guns and gang wars here than ever before,” said Mrs. White.
“But what does Mayor Patterson do? Right, he pulls the police out of here because he knows that after Minnesota made private prisons illegal it’s cheaper for the authorities if the folks down here shoot each other than if they have to be responsible for locking them up. Or am I wrong?”
Bob gave Kay a pleading look, which she responded to with an imperceptible nod.
“I don’t know how the mayor’s office thinks about these things, Mrs. White,” said Kay. “But back to Tomás Gomez. When was the last time you saw him?”
“Oh, that wasn’t but a short time ago.”
“A short time ago?”
“Yes, right after that crack out there.”
Bob turned toward them. “Just now? Did he say anything about—”
“What did you talk about?” Kay interrupted. Open questions.
“As far as I recall he didn’t say a word. But I could see something was wrong.”
“Wrong?” asked Kay.
“Yes. He was wearing sunglasses, and he was so pale. Looking back, I think he’d just been crying.
Tomás is a very sensitive man, you know.
He doesn’t show it, but you can tell, that’s often the way of it, the sensitive ones protect themselves with silence.
But I know for example that he was very upset when his cat died.
That’s why I told him to have it stuffed. Same as Pippi here.”
Bob turned to the canary in disbelief. It was still sitting there motionless on that perch, but only now did he notice the tiny speaker below the swing, next to the water dish. Mrs. White laughed, and Bob realized that the look on his face had betrayed him.
“Mr. Lunde’s a very skillful taxidermist, though sometimes I think he can be a bit too particular. Anyway, Tomás is still waiting to get his cat back. Have you ever lost anything like a much-loved pet, Miss Myers?”
Kay shook her head.
“What about you, Mr. Oz?”
Bob looked at her. Fingered the condom in his pocket. The drilling started up again. He really had to get out of there.