The Dead Man

Chapter Thirty-three

The institute had two sets of elevators. One serviced the floors above the lobby. The other was for the parking garage and the basement levels beneath the garage. There were no surveillance cameras in the elevators and I hadn't seen any on the floors except for the one behind the front desk in the lobby. I didn't know about the parking garage.

"What kind of surveillance do you have in the building?" I asked Milo and Sherry as we got on the elevator on the eighth floor.

"There's the camera at the front desk and we also have cameras on each level of the parking garage and inside the elevator lobbies at each level of the garage," Milo said.

"What about the basement levels?"

"None."

"Does anyone monitor the garage cameras in real time?"

"No," Milo said.

"Why not?"

Sherry answered. "It wasn't necessary. A key card is required for garage access. We trust the people who work for us."

"Then why have the cameras in the first place?"

"In case something happens," she said.

"How long do you keep the video?"

She swallowed hard. "The cameras record over the previous day's video beginning at midnight."

"Who figured out that system?" I asked.

"I did," Sherry said. "It was the most cost-effective way to do it. This is a research institute, not a police state."

"It's also a security system without any security. If something is caught on camera, it's gone before anyone knows it happened," I said. "What about the key cards? Is a record kept of the dates and times people go in and out of the garage?"

Milo looked at Sherry, waiting for her to answer. When she didn't, we both knew how deep the shit we were in was getting.

"Well?" Milo asked her.

Sherry crossed her arms, shooting daggers at her brother. "We used to keep those records. Frank Gentry sent me daily reports with all kinds of crap, including that. I had too much paperwork to get through and I couldn't get anything done. I finally told him to quit sending it to me. He asked me what to do with it and I told him to get rid of it at the end of every day. He said there's no point in tracking it if we're just going to get rid of it so I told him to quit tracking it."

Milo stared at her like he was seeing her for the first time. She ignored him, her arms folded across her chest, her jaw clamped, and her eyes fixed on the descending floor numbers on the elevator display. I let it ride. She'd been in over her head and neither of them knew it. Making them both feel worse wouldn't make me feel any better.

The maintenance man was waiting for us when we got off the elevator in the sub-basement. He was Hispanic, bony, and older than me with close-cut silver hair and a matching moustache. An institute ID identifying him as Carlos Morales was clipped to a shirt pocket that held a pack of cigarettes, his hand involuntarily reaching for a smoke he couldn't have.

"This way, Mr. Harper," he said.

We followed him through a warren of concrete hallways painted white and marked by overhead pipes interspersed with pale florescent tubes, giving the subterranean space a dispassionate chill. We passed equipment and storage rooms until we reached the utility closet in a corner of the basement.

Nancy Klemp was standing in front of the open door, her face a quiet mask, her eyes unfocused and brimming. Carlos hung back as I shouldered past Milo and Sherry.

"Stay back. No one goes inside the closet."

Nancy nodded and stepped away, giving me a clear view of the body. It was Anne from HR.

The closet was wide and deep, at least six feet to the back wall where her nude body was propped up, her knees bent and legs splayed open, a broken shaft of wood stuck in her vagina, dried blood staining her inner thighs and the floor. Her head hung to one side, resting on her shoulder, eyes open, purple bruises ringing her neck. Her clothes were folded on the floor, her purse and shoes on top like paperweights.

I didn't see the ID badge and gold chain she was wearing around her neck when she gave me the set of new employee forms to fill out the day before. I doubted that the chain was sturdy enough for the killer to have strangled her with it, though he could have taken it if he was afraid it might have captured his DNA.

Her hands were at her sides. The ring finger on her left hand was missing, a bloody pair of wire cutters lying next to her. A bank of electrical boxes was mounted in the middle of the closet wall to my left. A tool chest sat beneath the boxes, one of the drawers open.

I turned to the others. "Nancy, have you called the police?"

"No. I called Ms. Fritzshall soon as Carlos called me. Then I came down here."

"I'm glad you did but I need you to go upstairs and call the police. I'll stay until they get here."

"I knew her," Nancy said. "She was a good girl. Real good. She was supposed to get married in June. Her boyfriend used to work here. I watched them dance at the Christmas party."

I put my arm around her. "I'm so sorry."

"Yes, sir." She hurried away, wiping her eyes.

"Carlos, when did you find the body?"

"Not more than fifteen minutes ago. I came down here to get some tools. I opened the door and there she was. Man, I couldn't believe it."

"Did you go in the closet?"

"No. I was too scared."

"Did you touch anything? Did you touch her?"

He was a small man, a lifetime of hard work written in the lines worn into his leathered face. He filled his chest and rolled his shoulders back, daring me to insult him with another question.

"I would never do such a thing."

"That's good to know. Wait back at the elevator for the police. Show them the way."

"I didn't touch her," he said, his dark eyes burning. "I wouldn't. I've got a wife and two daughters."

"I didn't mean anything by it," I told him.

"I'll tell the cops the same thing," he said, marching off, his back stiff, his head high.

"What about the FBI agents?" Milo asked. "Shouldn't we get them down here?"

"Not their jurisdiction," I said. "This looks like a sexual assault and murder. Kansas City PD will handle it."

"What FBI agents?" Sherry asked. "There are FBI agents in the building and nobody bothered to tell me?"

"There's a dead body in the closet," I said. "That trumps the FBI agents."

"They're talking to Anthony Corliss about Walter Enoch's murder," Milo said. "They think he might have had something to do with it because Enoch let him in the house to take the dream video."

"Milo," Sherry said, her hands on her hips, "you can't leave me out of the loop like this. Things are getting out of control and if you think you can handle this without me, you're out of your mind."

"I wasn't leaving you out of anything but after the way you mangled our security, that may have to change," he told her. "I'll be in my office," he said to me. "Anything I can do to help?"

"Yeah. Have HR pull Anne's file and put it on my desk."

"Done."

"What about me?" Sherry asked. "What am I supposed to do?"

"I don't care," Milo told her. "Just don't screw it up."