Hideout by Jack Heath (iphone ebook reader txt) 📕

‘Obviously, I need to assess your skill as an investigator. To confirm that you’re good enough to assist my son.’

I’ve never seen someone’s eye twinkle in real life, but if it were possible, she’d be doing it.

‘Okay.’ The bed hasn’t been made since she last slept in it. The intimacy makes me uncomfortable. I find myself smoothing down the sheets.

‘I entered the crime scene at nine thirty-five pm,’ Penny begins. ‘The bathroom door was locked from the inside. I had to break it down to get in—’

‘Wait, what crime scene?’ I ask.

‘A woman in an adjacent apartment heard shouting,’ Penny says. ‘A male voice. Then she noticed that the shower had been running for a long time. The pipes went right behind her wall. When she called 911, I was nearby.’

‘This is a true story?’

‘Yes. There was a thirty-six-year-old male in the shower, deceased. Naked. Blood running down the drain from a head injury. It was concealed by his hair, but the autopsy later confirmed a cracked skull.’

‘How much did he weigh?’

‘Around two hundred pounds. Why?’

‘Just trying to picture it,’ I say.

‘When my partner arrived at ten oh seven, we found a smudge of blood on a cracked tile, about two feet above the floor. Soap on the floor and on the bottoms of his feet. What does that sound like to you?’

She wants me to say it sounds like the man slipped in the shower. ‘Any windows?’ I ask instead.

‘No.’

‘Extractor fan?’

‘Switched on.’

Even if the killer—if there was a killer—had climbed up into the vent, they wouldn’t have been able to switch on the fan afterwards.

‘How big was it?’

She can see what I’m getting at. ‘Apparently untouched, and too narrow to crawl through in any case.’

‘Who was he? The dead man.’

‘Lionel Swaize. Recently released from jail. You ever heard the term “chomo”?’

I nod. It’s what they call child molesters in prison.

‘Well, that’s what he was. You want the details?’

I don’t. I’m not even sure what the point of this conversation is. ‘Was he married? Living with anyone?’

‘No. He didn’t seem to have any friends, either.’

‘Parents?’

‘His father was dead. Cirrhosis. His mother lived in a dementia ward.’

‘He sounds isolated,’ I say.

‘Very.’ There’s that near-twinkle again.

‘Did his victims or their families live nearby?’

‘Sounds like you’re looking for someone with a motive, Lux,’ Penny says. ‘Do I need to remind you that the bathroom door was locked from the inside when I arrived?’

‘He can’t have served much time,’ I say, ‘if he was only thirty-six.’

‘He got off lightly, in my opinion. Seven years, out in five. He got some good character references from friends.’

‘You said he didn’t have any friends.’

‘Maybe they were more like debtors.’

‘He was owed money?’

‘Not money. Just … social capital. He’d been supportive in his community. After providing character references, these people felt like they were square, and they disappeared. No contact with him during his sentence or, as far as I could tell, after his release.’

‘The neighbour who heard the shouting,’ I say. ‘Did she see anybody hanging around beforehand? Listening, waiting for the shower to start?’

‘She told my partner she’d seen a woman in the hall, but wasn’t sure if she was visiting him or someone else. She couldn’t provide much of a description. I quote: “Brown hair, maybe?”’

‘What about when she heard the shouting? Did she hear any words?’

‘She heard him shout, “What the hell?”’

‘Doesn’t sound like something you’d say if you just slipped over.’

‘Swaize’s TV was on quite loud. It’s possible that’s what she heard.’

‘Who takes a shower and leaves the TV on?’

Penny acknowledges this point with a nod.

‘How’d you get into the apartment?’ I ask.

‘Snap gun.’

‘But you had to break down the bathroom door?’

‘Different kind of lock,’ Penny says. ‘Just a slide bolt, on the inside.’

‘Well, then, it seems pretty obvious what happened,’ I say.

She gives me an amused look. ‘It does?’

‘Sure. After murdering Swaize, the killer put a spring inside the slide-bolt mechanism, then held the bolt in the open position with a credit card. Then they stepped out, closed the door and removed the card so the bolt slid into place, locking the door. The spring fell out and rolled down the drain, disposing of the evidence.’ I shrug. ‘I hope you didn’t waste your whole career on this case.’

There’s a pause, and then Penny bursts out laughing. ‘Is that really what you think happened?’

‘No,’ I say. ‘I think you killed him.’

This has the desired effect. Penny’s composed expression falls away for a split second, and I see the person behind it. I get a sense of loneliness and anger, which soon settles into annoyance. ‘Oh. My son already told you.’

‘No,’ I say. ‘But it’s the obvious solution, if there really was no other way out. I don’t know how you got caught, though.’

We look at each other for a long moment. Penny leans back in her swivel chair.

‘How do you know I got caught?’ she asks.

I point to the notches on the wall. An old habit from when she was in prison, with the chomos.

‘Well, then,’ she says, ‘let me tell you a story.’

CHAPTER 33

I feed and shelter the living even as I eat the dead. What am I?

Penny was walking around in circles at one in the morning, rocking the baby, mumbling nonsense under her breath because she had long since run out of songs. His cries occasionally subsided into unhappy little gurgles, but whenever she thought about putting him back in the crib, it was like he could read her mind—the screaming would ramp right up again.

‘At eight months old,’ she tells me, ‘Frederick was already painfully heavy. He would only let me carry