First Girl Gone(65)

“This is it,” she said with a nod.

She lifted her fist to knock, but Charlie stopped her before her knuckles made contact.

“Wait.”

“What?”

“Are you gonna do the standard cop knock?”

“The what?”

“Cops have this way of knocking. Very aggressive. Like, ‘Open the door, or we’ll kick it down.’”

Zoe’s lips quirked up on the right side. It was clear she wasn’t amused.

“I’m just saying, with Robbie Turner’s history, he probably knows the knock.”

With a melodramatic roll of her eyes, Zoe stepped back and tumbled her hand toward the door, giving Charlie leave to do the knocking herself.

Charlie gave the door four light taps. A neighborly knock.

Noises came from inside the apartment. Shuffling footsteps. Groaning floorboards.

The door swung aside, revealing a middle-aged man in a red plaid bathrobe. Two pale stick legs protruded from the bottom hem and disappeared into a pair of ratty slippers.

He sniffed and said, “Hey,” smirking slightly at Charlie in a way he probably thought was charming but wasn’t. Then his eyes slid over to Zoe, and he stood up straighter.

“What is this?” he asked. “If that old hag upstairs is saying I got the stereo on too loud again, I wasn’t even playing music.”

“We’re looking for Robbie Turner,” Zoe said.

The man relaxed at that, propping one shoulder against the door frame.

“Ah. Shoulda known.” He ran his hand through his thinning hair, stirring it into a shaggy mess. “What’d the little punk do now?”

“Is he here?” Zoe asked.

“Nah. Kicked his ass out a couple months ago.”

“And your name, sir?”

Even though Zoe was the one asking, he stared at Charlie when he answered.

“Wayne Kelly. And who might you be?”

He adjusted his stance, revealing quite a bit of one thin, pasty thigh. Between that and the triangle of sparsely haired chest, Charlie began to feel more than a little uncomfortable.

“I think we all know that Wayne here isn’t wearing anything under that robe,” Allie said.

“I’m Deputy Wyatt.” Zoe pointed a thumb at Charlie. “And this is my colleague, Miss Winters. Have you seen or spoken to Robbie since he moved out?”

Pursing his lips, Wayne fiddled with the tie of his bathrobe. Charlie winced. That tie was the only thing standing between her and him.

“We ain’t exactly on speaking terms. Little fucker owes me three months of rent.”

“I see.”

“When he left, he stole my guitar and a whole rotisserie chicken I had in the fridge.”

“He stole a chicken?” Zoe asked.

Her eyes flicked over to Charlie, who had to bite down on her cheek to keep from smiling.

“Yes, ma’am. A rotisserie, like I said.”

“Surely the fact that it was a rotisserie chicken bumps this up from a misdemeanor to a felony,” Allie said.

Zoe hooked her thumbs around her gun belt.

“Any idea where he might be living now?”

Wayne scratched the week’s worth of stubble on his chin.

“Nope.”

Producing a card from her pocket, Zoe handed it to Wayne.

“Well, we appreciate your help today, Mr. Kelly. If you do hear from Robbie or get an idea of where he might be, I’d appreciate it if you’d give me a call.”

Wayne’s bloodshot gaze ogled first the card, then Charlie.

“What about you? You got a card?” Wayne twirled the bathrobe tie the way a burlesque dancer might spin the end of a feather boa.

“Fresh out,” Charlie said, backing away.

She followed Zoe out, feeling Wayne’s creeping gaze on her back as she went. Once outside, they both took in deep breaths of fresh air.

“So, do we believe him? Or is he covering for Robbie?”

“Only one way to find out,” Charlie said, scampering down the front steps and skirting around the corner of the building.

The dumpster positioned near the back of the building was overflowing with trash. Beside it, a hideous couch with orange upholstery was propped against the wall. Charlie lowered it to the snowy ground, getting a whiff of cat piss as she did. She scooted the sofa closer to the wall of the building, just beneath one of the last two windows on this side.

Scrambling up onto one arm of the sofa, she cupped her hands around her face and pressed her nose to the scuzzy glass.

“This is… I can’t be doing this,” Zoe said.

“You’re not doing this,” Charlie said, squinting to see through the haze. “I am.”

This window looked in on a small bedroom. Charlie spotted a Playboy Playmate calendar from 2016 tacked to the wall. On the bed, a pair of plaid flannel pants that matched the bathrobe Wayne had been wearing sat in a heap.

Bouncing across the length of the sofa, Charlie moved to the next window. Another bedroom. This one was empty aside from a stripped mattress on the floor and a Pepsi bottle that looked suspiciously like it was filled with piss. On the wood frame over the door, something familiar caught her eye: a bumper sticker reading, “No Fat Chix.” Robbie was absolutely passionate about that, it seemed. The corner of this decal was torn and rumpled, like someone had tried to scrape it off and quickly gave up.