The People vs. Alex Cross (Alex Cross #25)(74)

“No one,” I said. “You have contact information for Ms. Rodriguez?”

“I’m sure I do somewhere.”

“Could you do us a solid and dig it up?”

Potter’s nose twitched as if he thought the task beneath him, but he went inside.

“Why take nothing?” I said.

“How many people without training know how to install satellites?” Sampson said. “And I can’t imagine they’re easy to sell on the black market. They say Dish all over—”

“Agent Mahoney?” Karen Getty, an FBI crime scene tech, called out.

Getty was standing at the rear of the van wearing disposable white coveralls, latex gloves, and blue booties over her shoes. The two rear doors of the van were open, revealing shelves, boxes of supplies, six satellite dishes, and stacked rolls of cable.

“You’re going to want to see this,” Getty said.

We all went to the rear of the van, which looked spotless.

“Kill the lights,” she said.

The interior lights died. So did the spots brought in to illuminate the search. She picked up a bottle marked LUMINOL and started spraying it around.

Luminol is a compound that glows when it’s exposed to certain substances, like the iron in hemoglobin. When someone tries to clean up blood, traces of it are left behind; spray that area with luminol, and the chemical glows blue for a brief period.

There were a few blood spatters immediately visible on the van floor close to the doors. The more Getty sprayed, the more spatters appeared, until it looked like a starry night had been superimposed on the van’s floor, ceiling, and walls.

“What the hell is that?” Potter said. The manager had come up behind us.

Sampson looked at him and said, “Evidence of a slaughter.”





CHAPTER


95


THE NEXT MORNING, Sampson and I drove to the address of the woman who’d been driving the van the night it was stolen. Lourdes Rodriguez lived in Silver Spring, Maryland, on the eighth floor of a large, midpriced, brick-faced apartment building.

At the locked front door, we buzzed Rodriguez’s apartment number, 805, and got no answer. We figured that with an apartment building that big, there might be a live-in superintendent, and we lucked out when Arnie Feiffer answered our ring and soon buzzed us in.

Sampson and I entered a foyer featuring 1970s decor that showed the dings and scratches of time and neglect.

“Not where I’d be living if I’d inherited a boatload,” Sampson said.

I agreed, thinking that I’d expect a woman in her early thirties with newfound wealth to choose to live in one of the newer, more luxurious apartment buildings in downtown Silver Spring or …

A door to our right opened. A television blared the patter of an announcer for American Ninja Warrior. A nebbishy man in his sixties shuffled out of the apartment wearing a maroon bathrobe over his clothes, slippers, and a blue-and-white yarmulke on his head.

He squinted through round glasses. “You the cops?”

“You the super?” Sampson asked as we showed him our identifications.

“Lord of the castle,” he said. “Arnie Feiffer. How can I help, Detectives?”

“We’d like to go knock on Lourdes Rodriguez’s door,” I said.

“Why? What’s she done?”

“We just want to ask her a few questions about her prior workplace.”

Feiffer hesitated, then said, “I’ll go with you, if you don’t mind.”

“Not at all,” I said.

“C’mon, then,” he said, and he shuffled by us, heading to the elevators. Posted on one of the two was a handwritten sign that read Out of Service.

We rode the creaking, shuddering lift to the eighth floor. The doors squealed open, and we stepped out into a musty hallway with dingy rugs.

We walked down the hall to apartment 805 and rang the bell. There was no answer. We knocked, but no one came to the door. I was about to suggest we leave business cards with a note asking her to call us when from inside we heard the high-pitched mewing and cries of a cat that sounded very upset.

“A cat?” Feiffer said furiously. “No cats. No dogs. The lease is clear.”

After a glance at me, Sampson said, “It’s within your rights to remove the cat from your property. We’ll help. It’s the least we can do for you.”

The superintendent studied us suspiciously. “You’re not looking to get around a warrant, are you?”

Sampson said, “If we wanted to do that, we’d tell you we smelled gas.”

“I run electric,” Feiffer said as the cat’s cries turned frantic.

“Sounds like it’s hungry,” I said. “We could always call in Animal Control for suspicion of neglect on Ms. Rodriguez’s part. They could get us in.”

The super didn’t like that and grudgingly dug under his robe for a key ring. He found the master key and used it to turn the dead bolt and unlock the door.

Feiffer pushed the door open. A filthy yellow-and-orange tabby sprang out and darted between our legs before any of us could grab it. The cat sprinted down the hall, took a sharp right, and disappeared.

“I’m getting too old for this crap,” Feiffer said with a moan, his palm to his forehead.