McCabe pocketed the flashlight, drew his weapon, reached across, and slipped the latch. He pushed the door, waited a count of three, and swung into the room. He swept the .45 across the open space in a wide arc. Goff’s living room lay empty and silent before him. From the opposite wall, ambient light from streetlamps reflected off the flakes of snow falling from the sky and spilled through the uncovered panes of a pair of large double-hung windows. He closed the door and flipped the lock. He stood motionless. Job number one was making sure he was alone.
In front of him were a white couch, two matching oversized easy chairs, and a glass-topped coffee table on its stainless steel base. All nearly identical to things Sandy bought for the apartment they shared on West Seventy-first Street and hauled off seven years later to Peter Ingram’s house in East Hampton. It seemed beyond coincidence. Was God laughing at him, making him the butt of some sort of cosmic practical joke? The thought provoked an involuntary shiver. Then he pushed it away. Oversized white couches and glass coffee tables were as common as dirt, and the rest of the furnishings were different from anything he and Sandy had. Besides, Goff’s stuff was new. Right out of the carton. By the time Sandy moved out, theirs was anything but.
He looked down at the high-concept Angela Adams rug in brownish reds that covered the floor under the coffee table. Kind of an autumn leaves motif. Nothing like anything on West Seventy-first Street, though he had seen the same one in the Adams window on Congress Street a few months back. Sandy might have liked it, but they’d never owned anything remotely similar. Goff had a lot of new stuff. New Beemer. New furniture. New rug. Plus an even newer two-week vacation at a high-end resort. Seemed to be upgrading her life to first class. Her six-figure salary was more than ample for a single woman living alone – sure as hell more than he was making – but why buy all these things at once? Had she just landed the partnership Kotterman said all young associates lusted after? He’d ask Ogden.
A small French writing desk stood against one wall. Rosewood with a leather top. It was either a real and very expensive antique or a very good repro. A pretty thing, beautiful wood and elegant curves – but, like the beautiful woman who owned it, the desk had recently been violated. Its three drawers hung open, a clutter of papers carelessly pulled from each. Most lay scattered on the floor below. A few stragglers floated indecisively, halfway in and halfway out. The bookcase on the opposite wall had suffered similar indignities. Volumes pulled from its shelves lay on the floor in haphazard piles. Many were still open, spines facing up, as if they’d been shaken to unearth papers hidden inside, then carelessly discarded.
Jacobi’s crew never would have done this. They were too methodical, too professional. Maggie certainly would have told him if they’d found it this way. No. Someone had searched the place since Jacobi left. A searcher who might still be here, hiding somewhere in the inner recesses of the apartment, his search interrupted by McCabe’s unexpected appearance. What else could the sound he’d heard on the landing have been?
There was a single wood panel door to the right of the bookcases. McCabe stood to one side and yanked it open. He ran the beam of his flashlight across the interior. Coats and clothes on hangers. Boots and boxes on the floor, boxes neatly taped. The searcher hadn’t looked in them. At least not yet. And no one was hiding behind them. The kitchen also showed signs of a hurried search. The cupboard drawers had been left open. One, Goff’s junk drawer, had been upended, the drawer and its contents left in a pile on the floor. McCabe knelt and poked through the mess with a gloved hand. Nothing of interest that he could see.
He moved to the bathroom and entered gun first. A shade covered the locked window, and instead of raising it he used his light to see. It was an older bathroom, nicely outfitted. A shower curtain, decorated with staggered rows of little green palm trees, covered the claw-footed tub. He swept it aside in a single motion. No knife-wielding killer was hiding inside. Nothing to notice except some mascara and lipstick lying on the marble vanity next to the sink. A toothbrush and a tube of Crest were in a glass. Stuff she would have taken to Aruba. If she’d gone. Unless she had a duplicate set.
That left the bedroom. The searcher’s last hidey-hole if he was still in the apartment. McCabe checked his watch. Less than two minutes since he’d picked the lock. Not much time, but if the freak was in the bedroom, it was enough. His anxiety would be well cooked by now, pretty much reaching fever pitch. That made him more dangerous, more likely to do something stupid. Like attack a cop. McCabe had to assume he’d be armed. He killed Goff with a knife, but a gun was more lethal, and who said bad guys had to be consistent? A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds. Ralph Waldo Emerson, American philosopher, poet, and essayist. Born May 25, 1803, died April 27, 1882. More detritus from the brain-files of Michael McCabe. If the bad guy had a gun and killed McCabe, think of all the useless shit that would die with him.
Right now he wouldn’t have minded backup, and he kind of wished Maggie were here. Too bad. The visit hadn’t been planned, so he was on his own. But hey, they didn’t call him the Lone Ranger for nothing. Right? Right. Hi-yo, Silver. He pressed his body against the side of the wall, hunkered down as low as he could get, and aimed his .45 slightly up and dead center. At that angle, if the bad guy was standing on the other side of the door, McCabe’s shot ought to blow his balls off.
He rapped on the door with the barrel of the gun. No sound came in response. No bullets exploded through the thin oak panel. He rapped again. Still silence. He rose from his squat to a runner’s crouch, slid his arm across the door frame, grasped the knob, and turned it as silently as possible. He willed the little hammer in his heart to stop pounding. He counted. One. Two. A pause. A sigh. His mouth formed the word ‘three.’ The door flew open. McCabe moved in fast and low, sweeping the room, light in one hand, .45 in the other ready and eager to start blasting away.
The room lay empty and silent before him. He pointed the light this way and that. Nothing. He peered under the bedskirt. Still nothing. Just a book, a single slipper, and an impressive collection of dustballs. He crossed to the closet and pressed himself to one side of the door. He flung it open. Something black and silky fluttered in the whoosh of air. Everything else was still. McCabe peered in. Poked his light through the hanging clothes. More boxes. All stacked, sealed, and presumably checked only by Jacobi’s ETs. He turned from the closet and looked at the windows. Draperies across all three. In Hamlet, Polonius met his maker behind the arras. Would the same hold true for the searcher? McCabe yanked the curtains aside. Nothing. Nobody. Just the windows, closed and locked.
He breathed easier. Maybe the searcher had found what he was looking for and left, or maybe he slipped out when he heard McCabe enter downstairs. Either way McCabe was alone. He holstered the .45 and took a deep breath. He was getting too old for this shit.
He looked around at a good-sized room, not crowded with furniture. The king-sized bed had been left unmade. Next to it was a nightstand with a lamp and an open paperback. Sue Grafton’s S is for Silence. The lone drawer had been opened and searched. Ditto the drawers in the bureau on the opposite wall. A pile of neatly folded clothes sat next to a tub chair in one corner; a red canvas suitcase lay open and half filled on the floor. No ambient light entered this room. None would escape. McCabe turned on the lamp on the nightstand.