Sanford Crow

CHAPTER 28

"No!"

Another door slammed in his face.

He felt like a salesman, going door to door and annoying anyone who happened to be home. It was the same old thing: knock, flash his badge, watch their eyes roll, and ask, "Have you seen anything strange lately?"

Selling Avon must be easier than this.

After talking to the immediate neighbors a couple of days earlier—they had only described their screams—Frank hoped another resident in the building may have witnessed something, anything to help at all. A strange car maybe, or a strange man lurking around at the crime scene? But so far, as predicted, no such luck.

Someone was in there the other night; he knew it. The picture frame was missing, the fire-escape ladder was down, and his intuition was howling.

If I only opened that goddam closet! In his gut, he'd felt the perp was in there, watching him. And probably now mocking me.

Expect the lab didn't come up with anything: no new fibers, no new fingerprints inside. It was as if a ghost swept through the place untouched.

Outside of the apartment was a different story. A partial palm and a few half-prints were discovered on the doorknob. The problem with that was it could be anybody. A curious child who walked down the hall could've let his curiosity get the best of him. But something told Frank that wasn't the case. The neighbors acted out of fear. They walked by this door every day, probably with a quickened gait. It was a game of patience now, waiting for forensics to make a match, but patience was a game Frank usually lost.

"Hemick, who do we have next to ruin our day?" Frank asked the officer assisting him.

Hemick smiled as he flipped the papers, given to him by the landlord, over his clipboard. "Let's see. We have... apartment 20B; the occupant's name is Crow."

"Crow? What kinda shit name is that? If I'm gonna be named after a bird, I'd rather it be an eagle or a hawk, or a..." Frank stopped talking and focused, his scalp raw from chewed up fingernails. "Did you say 20B?"

"Yeah, that's right."

"You do realize that's directly underneath the crime scene, don't you?" Frank asked on the verge of annoyance.

"Umm, yeah, I suppose it is. Oh and also, it's on record that Mr. Crow had logged a few complaints about the Serras above him. Noisy kids I guess."

Frank scratched at his head till he saw tiny flakes of skin falling down in front of his eyes.

"Let me ask you something, Officer Hemick," Frank said and took a deep breath, the way his wife suggested he do when he was feeling on the verge of combustion, "are you trying to piss me off, or are you just fucking retarded?"

"Umm, I don't... I'm not... are those my only two options?" Officer Hemick replied.

"Question answered," Frank sighed. "My point is we should've started with this one from the get-go, get it?"

"Yeah."

"Are you sure, cause it doesn't look like you do?"

"I get it, I get it, I just thought going in order might be more orderly," Hemick said.

"Leave the thinking to me from now on," Frank sighed, staring off down the hall, going through the Rolodex of his memories. "A subtle gift" he'd call it, nothing comic-bookish like a photographic memory, but an innate ability of his to remember the little things. In his line of work, the little things are what it usually came down to.