Every Kind of Wicked (A Gardiner and Renner Novel Book 6)

Friday, 9:40 a. m.

The girl with the piercings and the pink tips to her hair studied the search warrant; Jack watched her eyes follow each line as she read, and wondered if she might be studying law, or had a bad history with police departments, or simply believed that any job worth doing was worth doing very, very well. But she found it satisfactory, because she retrieved the master key from inside two different locked cabinets and led them to the elevator without a word.

Equally soundless, she traveled up to a fourth-floor hallway to a door second from the end and knocked. Jack had asked before if Evan Harding lived with a roommate, but there had been nothing in the building’s records and indeed no one answered his door. That the dead guy’s name had been the only one on the lease helped them get the search warrant in record time, since no one else’s privacy could be violated.

The girl pulled out her master key card but Jack used the one found on the body. He wanted to be sure they were in the right place. He heard the mechanism slide around so he could open the door.

The unit had been painted white, and with the light gray sky and the snow outside it blinded at first. Jack and Riley established the emptiness of the unit with only a few steps. Easy enough, the only interior door led to the small bathroom and the outer room consisted of a minimal kitchen area, a double bed, and a desk. Nothing hung on the walls, but a multicolored paisley print bedspread lent a splash of color.

Jack’s gaze fell on a framed photo sitting on the second shelf of one of the built-ins. A happy couple in front of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame—the victim, with a slight young woman whose jet-black hair fell slightly past her shoulders. He had one arm around her; she had both of hers around him.

They were in the right place. Jack picked up the photo and held it toward the building manager woman. “This is him. Do you know him?”

She said no. “I mean, I’ve seen him coming and going, but I don’t know him personally. I don’t think I ever had a conversation with him.”

“What about her?”

She peered. “I’ve seen her around, too.”

“Does she live in this room? Or another unit?”

“I see them walking through the lobby. I don’t have any idea where they go.”

Jack went to the doorless closet. Flannel shirts, hoodies, but also two tops with sequins and plunging necklines, a sweater with flowers appliquéd on its sleeves, and a leather jacket with fringes, too small for even the victim to have worn. Add to that a bra strewn across the unmade bed, and Jack would bet that the girl in the picture lived in this unit whether she was on the lease or not.

“Thanks,” he told the pink-tipped woman. “We’ll take it from here.”

She looked around, uncertain.

“We will most likely be here for hours,” Riley told her, and she backed out with great reluctance, clearly not trusting them, yet also not able to spend her whole workday on the fourth floor.

Once she’d left, Jack and Riley could get down to work. Jack started at the wall with the bed and Riley moved into the bathroom, quickly and methodically moving, examining, replacing every item present. Who was Evan Harding, where had he come from, what was he doing/studying/active in, and who might have had a motive to kill him—all on the very outside chance that it had not been a random mugger?

Jack focused on these questions, more comfortable than the question of Rick Gardiner’s goals or what he might find.

The bed didn’t tell him anything except that the occupants felt making one was a waste of time and that they didn’t get too concerned about mixing dirty laundry with clean. The floor underneath it held some old magazines, boxes of supplies such as shampoo and macaroni, and more lost laundry. Jack pulled out a decorative wooden box and opened it to poke through an assortment of trinkets, a Chinese coin, a matchbook from a bar he’d never heard of, two plain gold bands, three bracelets made of round colored beads, a luggage tag from Carnival Cruise Lines, and a ticket stub from Playhouse Square. Jack couldn’t guess if the box belonged to the victim or his girlfriend.

But no weapons, no drugs, nothing that would make the guy a target. He moved on to the closet, finding only more clothes, clean ones hung up or stacked on the built-in shelves, with dirty items on the floor. A decently heavy parka made Jack wonder why the guy hadn’t been wearing it. Riley had finished in the bathroom and now moved into the kitchen. Jack took the desk, the only spot in the room still unexplored.

Cosmetics—both male and female varieties—magazines, charging cords for at least two different electronic items, and a bowl with the dregs of that morning’s cereal littered the surface. Two pens, one pencil, and one small spiral-bound notebook in the shallow drawer—the desk didn’t seem to be used for a lot of writing, or study.

“I’m thinking girlfriend lives here,” Jack said aloud.

“If she wanted her privacy secured, she should have put her name on the lease. I doubt it would make any difference to the price. Or she doesn’t live here but stays over a lot.”

In the desk drawer Jack found a worn envelope with money in it—Jack counted twenty-three dollars, some kind of petty cash fund.

Behind him, Riley opened and closed cabinets. “They’re not rich, but they’re not living on ramen. Fresh vegetables in the fridge, no alcohol, no TV dinners, organic chicken breasts in the freezer. Health nuts. So many kids are these days.”

“Either of your girls go vegan yet?” Jack asked. Riley had two daughters, somewhere in their middle school years. Jack could never remember their ages.

“Not yet, but I’m waiting. I’m sure Natalie will come up with all sorts of woo-woo things. Hannah, forget it. Hannah lives for bacon cheeseburgers and chicken wings.” He paused. “I hope she never changes.”

He sounded so wistful that Jack hoped so, too.

“No drugs, either,” Riley went on. “Not even prescription. You got anything?”

Jack said, “Nada. Not even what should be here—like textbooks, notebooks, homework. I’m wondering if they’re really students.”

“I would think they’d have to be to live here.”

“I would think so, too.”

“Kids do a lot online now. Assignments, projects, required supplies, it’s all posted on the school’s site by the teachers. And they’re going to e-books to avoid the weight and expense of textbooks—not that they cost any less. Could be these two carry an entire course around in their phone.”

“Could be.”

Riley said, “It also could be that they faked being students to get the low rent. Though that’s a notebook,” he added, pointing to the one in Jack’s hand.

“No subject I ever got a grade in.” He handed it over, watched as Riley paged through the columns of dates and numbers. No other information, not even a name on the front cover, only entries of numbers for an ever-increasing tally.

“Money?” Riley guessed.

“Or a video game score.”

“If it’s money, he—or she—has now accumulated close to, let’s see, nine hundred bucks. Hardly seems worth killing over. I know life is cheap in the big city, but I hope it’s not that cheap.”

Jack shrugged. “It would make me think he’s dealing, except there’s not a single baggie or pill or white dust or crumb of pot to be found.”

“If girlfriend knew he was dead, she might have cleaned up.”

“Then she did one hell of a job.”

“I found these in a drawer with the spoons.” Riley held out two slips of paper. They seemed to be perforated ends torn off some larger form, with a preprinted number across the top and sections below to be filled in. No section had, save one: Amount—$750.00. The second slip was similarly blank, with a different preprinted number at the top and amount of $525.00. But along the edge, in narrow, stylized script, a logo read A to Z Check Cashing.

Riley said, “So he’s got a job that requires a name tag, maybe makes a habit of cashing his paycheck at a check cashing place before walking home. A perfect target.”

“Maybe,” Jack said, giving the small apartment a frustrated, sweeping glance. “Why not a bank account? Or at least a credit card statement? Who has such a small amount of . . . stuff?”

Other than him, of course. His tiny rented bungalow could give the Spartan student’s apartment a run for its money in the no-strings department. But he knew why he kept his life bare—the lack of evidence hid a host of activity. What did this kid have to hide?

“Maybe they just moved here. Students bring only what they need—at least they should.” He sighed, no doubt worried about moving a tractor-trailer full of possessions when the time came for his girls, or worried about paying for college courses, dorms, and books, or worried about that inevitable day when he realized they were no longer girls but young women.

Jack didn’t envy him any of that.

They heard the lock mechanism cycle a split second before it opened, and the girl in the photo spilled into the apartment. Unlike her boyfriend, she had dressed for the cold in a black padded all-weather coat, knit gloves, and puffy nylon boots. When she saw the men, her skin seemed pale from more than the chill. Dark eyes and jet-black hair gave her an Asian cast, and for one long breath Jack thought she would bolt. He watched her debate with herself and said, “Police. Do you live here?”

More debating.

Riley asked, “Do you know Evan Harding?”

The girl let out the breath she’d been holding, and the eternal energy her youth bestowed seemed to leak out as well. She knew exactly what they were going to say, and it would not come as a surprise. Shock, yes. Surprise, no.

She shut the door and came into the room to pull off the gloves and toss the coat over the back of the desk chair. Then she faced them, visibly bracing herself. “What happened?”

“Do you know Evan Harding?” Riley repeated.

“Yes.”

“Do you live here with him?”

“Yes.”

“What’s your name?”

Only a slight wait this time. “Shanaya Thomas.”

“What’s your relationship to Evan Harding?”

“I’m his girlfriend. What’s happened to him?” She spoke slowly. Most people would have ended each answer with this demand, but she seemed to know the news was going to be bad and didn’t mind procrastinating.

“I’m afraid he’s been killed,” Riley said, his voice gentle. There was no good way tell someone that.

The girl’s eyes instantly swam with unshed tears and she put a hand to her mouth. “I knew it. I knew something was wrong when he didn’t come home last night.”

“When did you last speak to him?”

“About four, I think.”

“A.m. or p.m.?” Jack asked.

“P.m. He called, just to—just to say hi. Sometimes he’d get bored at work, call me.”

“Where does he work?”

Her gaze fell on the shelves behind him and she pushed between them, trancelike, to reach the framed photo Jack had examined before. She ran a finger over the dead boy’s face, then collapsed onto the bed as if her knees could no longer hold her, cradling the photo to her breasts. “He, um, he started a new job a few weeks ago. At the movie theater, the one at Tower City.”

“Okay,” Riley said. From Tower City to the Erie Street Cemetery to where they now sat formed a straight line, a logical path home after work. “How long have you known him?”

“A year, year and a half.”

“You’re not students here, are you?” Jack asked, trying to keep all accusation out of his voice.

After a second she shook her head, staring at the floor. “We were—but then we were working all the time and couldn’t keep up with the coursework. We didn’t tell the building . . . we need the low rent. Will you have to tell them?”

“Not unless they ask,” Riley said.

She looked at Jack. He knew his face never appeared too reassuring under the best of circumstances, but he couldn’t help that. She said, “It doesn’t matter. I couldn’t afford even the student rate by myself anyway.”

“Do you have a job?”

“Yes, in customer service, but it doesn’t pay much. It’s my one day off, today. That’s why I went out for some breakfast.” She sniffed, then reached over to snatch a tissue from a small box on the desk.

“What is this?” Jack asked, holding out the notebook. She glanced at it without interest and said she didn’t know.

Riley took her through where she and Evan were from—she, Youngstown, him, Pittsburgh—and his family and significant others. She only knew of a mother, somewhere in Indiana. “He never said anything about his father and didn’t have any brothers or sisters. His mom’s number should be in his phone,” she added.

“We didn’t find a phone.”

“But . . . it has to be there. Did you look in his coat pocket? Even if a car smashed it you can still—”

“This wasn’t an accident,” Riley said, and told her that her boyfriend had been murdered, possibly shot by person or persons unknown. She didn’t cry so much as gasp, cringe, and moan; that she’d never seen her boyfriend again had been bad enough, but knowing that someone had purposely done that to them made it too horrific to take in. Riley did his typically good work, drawing every last detail he could from her while probing for a support system—did she have family, friends that he and Jack could call? Would she like to hear from a victim advocate who could walk her through what would be done with Evan’s body? Was there anyone else who might have a name and number for this mother in Indiana?

No, no, and no—but she would be fine. When she could think straight again she’d try to message some friends to see if they had any ideas about next of kin. Riley said they would also check out Evan’s workplace to see if Evan had written anything on his employment application that might be a lead to his family, and Shanaya shot him a look of grim gratitude.

Jack asked about the cell phone service. She told them it was Sprint and gave them the phone number. She checked her own phone to see if there had been any further messages or e-mails from Evan she had missed, said there were not since that call at 3:48 p.m. the previous day. She had tried him four times during the evening, but they had all gone straight to voice mail. She figured he was busy and hadn’t worried about it.

With nothing else to do, they stated their condolences once again and left the young woman sitting on the rumpled bed, holding the photograph of her dead boyfriend and staring at nothing.

They rode the elevator down in silence.

Riley buttoned his coat as they passed out into the snow, the air so cold relative to inside that it made Jack’s nostrils stick together when he breathed in. That was the way to tell cold from really cold.

“Partner,” Riley said, his tone much less light than his words, “let’s go to the movies.”

“Yeah. There’s something about this I don’t like, either.”

* * *

Shanaya made herself count to thirty. That should be enough time for the cops to get into the elevator and out of her hallway, unlikely to bang on the door with one last question.

It took some self-discipline to wait. She’d always been good at both those things, but hearing that Evani had been murdered knocked some of her abilities for a loop. She hadn’t been lying about knowing that something had to be wrong. Evani always came home. He might go out for a drink, he might hit the slots at the casino despite her threats to stab him in the groin if he lost more than two of their dollars on gambling. If he lost five she would gut him and stuff the entrails in his mouth as he died, she had said more than once, but who knew what he got up to when she wasn’t there to watch him? He might even have gotten drunk and gone home with another woman—unlikely, since they’d always been quite compatible in that respect. More than compatible.

But getting himself freakin’ murdered—that was way out there.

Maybe she should leave. Throw what little she had into a bag and keep herself safe.

But if whoever killed him knew about this apartment or wanted to get into it, he would have taken Evani’s key card and shown up last night. The guy, or guys, hadn’t been interested in the card. That should mean she was good.

She got to thirty. Surely the cops had to be on their way out of the building. She flipped the photo frame over and ripped the cardboard stand out of its slot. It had to be there. It had to.

Under the photo was a plain sheet of paper, and between that and the cardboard backing had been stuffed two sheets of folded paper. But what she sought wasn’t there.

Of course it wasn’t. Evani never did what she told him, the damn paranoid idiot.