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The Harem on the Hill (Part XCI)
🕑 Added 2023-11-03 18:46:29 +0000 UTC
You turn your Ford Explorer around in the driveway of the vacant home you had parked in front of. After retracing your tracks out of the sleepy neighborhood, you reach the intersection onto the main drag. You want to turn left, to retreat to your sanctum sanctorum, but that would be a mistake. Barbarians will be at your gate sooner rather than later.
So you wrench the steering wheel--which feels heavier than the helm of a freighter--to the right. Into the center of town. Into the lion's den.
A moment later you pass the police station. It's bustling more than usual; however, you resist the urge to monitor the bug you planted beneath the captain's desk. It would just be a distraction at this point. You already know the police are doing everything in their power to link you to the Seven-esque murder that just occurred in their one-horse town. Right now, all you can do is steer the investigation toward the true culprit.
You're unsure if your attempts to sabotage the crime scene helped or hurt. You were able to remove some potentially incriminating clues, but the early arrival of the investigating team--which included the pesky Officer Petty--surprised you before you could search the entire house or plant any evidence to throw them off your scent. You may have left even more clues behind during your hasty escape.
Of course, the police may already have all the evidence they need. The silver bangle they discovered on Jada Jenson's otherwise naked corpse was surely Tina's old monitoring bracelet, which you had removed from her wrist as a gesture of trust. You installed fail-safes that will prevent direct linkage to either party, but a thorough examination will reveal its sophisticated technology and nefarious purpose. This wasn't something available to the average Joe on Amazon or at The Sharper Image. A billionaire tech mogul, on the other hand...
You ease your foot off the accelerator when you realize you're going 60 in a 45. The last thing you need right now is a speeding ticket. Even at your diminished speed, it isn't long before you've passed by the well-manicured parks and trendy awning-covered shops into the seedy side of town. The redbrick townhouses of the city's once-thriving industrial district are largely vacant and dilapidated, each one indistinguishable from the next. Fortunately, you remember enough details of one in particular--a cracked corner window and the soot-stained brick surrounding the pane of another evidencing a decades-old fire--that you pull over and park beside it.
Although you're confident this is the building you visited with Tina years ago, you have no idea which apartment was her Father's. You didn't accompany her to the unit and the view from her bracelet camera was obscured--something that was blamed on her bulky sweatshirt but, in hindsight, was probably intentional. Based on the echoey clicks of her shoes and the flashes of natural light once she arrived, you assume the apartment was an exterior unit on the second or third floor, but that only narrows things down to about a dozen possibilities.
You exit your vehicle and stroll toward the townhouse's main vestibule entrance. You had hoped to avoid it--Tina swore it was covered by a security camera--but you don't have much choice but to hope it houses some sort of tenant directory. Appearing on a few seconds of security footage is preferable to banging on doors like a deranged trick-or-treater.
Turns out you had nothing to worry about. The vestibule has no security camera or signs that it ever had one. What it does have is a heavily graffitied digital directory that seems to work. Beginning with ‘Alvarez’ you scroll alphabetically through the list of tenants. Inman...Jacobs...Johnson...Judd...Kerr. No Jordan. You scroll past the names again in reverse. Still no Jordan. Fortunately, there's no security camera to capture your angry utterance of 'fuck' or your punch of an adjacent corkboard.
After contemplating some brownish stains on the ceiling, you return to the terminal and scroll up again. Past the usual suspects. Past every name between K and S, until you reach the first listing under T:
Tate #205.
With a shaky finger, you press the corresponding digits on the keypad. An intermittent and staticky buzz erupts from a small speaker beneath the digital display. Bzzz…Bzzz…Bzzz. No one answers. You wait for it to go to voice mail. Bzzz…Bzzz…Bzzz. You're so lost in your thoughts that you fail to notice a man enter the vestibule behind you.
"You goin' in, buddy?"
You look back to find a twenty-something black man in a Raider's hoodie holding open the interior door.
"Yes. Yes, I am."
You give an appreciative nod to the Raider's fan, who stops to enter an apartment a few doors in, and continue down the hall to the stairwell. Your rubber soles emit the same echoey click that Tina's did as you ascend the steel staircase to the second story. Much like the buildings themselves, the second floor is indistinguishable from the first. A window at the end of the drab corridor provides enough light to see, which is more than you can say for the yellow dinge emitted from the low-watt bulbs recessed into the ceiling.
201. 202. Walking down the hallway, you roll your shoulders and crack your neck. You don’t want to strongarm a disabled military veteran, but you may have to. 203. 204.
205. Looks like you won't be strong-arming anyone. Business cards, flyers, and junk mail are scattered near the base of the door and wedged between its frame. It hasn't been opened in some time.
"Excuse me," you say to an elderly woman who emerges from an apartment further down the hall. "I'm looking for an older gentleman that lived here. Used a cane." Your throat closes as you choke out his name, "Mr. Tate."
"Moved out months ago," the lady says, before ducking back into her apartment and locking the door. Apparently, whatever she needed to do could wait until the large and flustered man at the end of the hall disappeared.
That doesn't take long. After quickly retracing your steps, you're back in your vehicle, contemplating your next move. While the Veronica Tate connection certainly complicates matters, it doesn’t change the fact that you need to find Tina and have no idea where to look.
Or do you? Your blank stare falls on the well-worn spiral notebook jutting from the black leather duffel in the passenger’s seat. Of course! You yank it from the bag and flip through its pages of covert photos and hastily scribbled notes. It's your bible. Why wouldn't it be studied by your closest disciple?
After Jada's untimely demise, there are only three girls left who would be viable targets for Tina. Of course, they don't live together so monitoring them will take time. Another option might be to hope Tina returns to the scene of the crime. Most criminals do.
What do you do?
