The Single Staircase (2 page)

Owl looked back. Raccoon was at another desk, filing an Amber Alert.

Chap. 9

Thirty minutes later. Raccoon sat in a tiny observation room
.

He was alone. No lawyers seemed to be on their way to save the Greys.

It was a small room, claustrophobic and dark. It held just one keyboard and just one screen, a tiny, black and white monitor that showed what was happening in the next room. Raccoon turned on the recording equipment and hunched over the screen to watch.

The interview room
next door
was only a bit larger. In it, Owl sat across a spartan metal table from David Grey. There was coffee on the table. Neither man touched it.

David Grey had been attractive, but time was catching up with him. He had intelligent blue eyes, but the skin around them had been wrinkled by too many hours in the sun. He had big sloping shoulders, but
years
over a computer had pulled them forward and up, into a permanent shrug. He
’d
had thick black hair, but it was starting to
come
out.

“Mr. Grey. I’m Detective Drazen. I know you’ve answered some of these questions before. I need you to answer them again. I need you to answer them for me.”

“I know how this looks.”

“It looks like you killed your daughter.”

“I didn’t kill my daughter.”

“Did your wife?

David Grey took a breath and stared at the wall.

“Mr. Grey?”

“It was exactly like I told the officers. We put Sophia to bed, watched a movie, and when
Daphne
went up, she was missing.”

“How do you know we haven’t found her already?”

“Come on, Detective.”

“What did you watch?”

“A movie.”

“What movie?”

“
The Matrix
.”

“How did you meet your wife?”

“I met
Daphne
at work. I hired her to work in my department.”

“She’s an attractive woman. You outkicked your coverage with that one. She’s younger
than you,
too.”

“
Thirteen years. She’s 25. I’m 38
.”

“What kind of work?”

“Advertising. I’m an account director at an advertising agency. Black Door Advertising. It’s downtown.”

“And her?”

“Nothing, anymore. The office, it didn’t agree with her. She stays home. She’s a mom.”

“She used to be.”

Chap. 10

Owl opened the door to the video room. Raccoon swiveled
around and
look
ed
up at him.

“Thoughts?” Owl asked.

“He’s a machine.”

“He’s practiced. He’s been rehearsing this in his mind. Over and over again. Sticking to his story.”

“Maybe. He’s a businessman. He knows how to handle a negotiation.”

“
A
nything else
you want to hear
?”

“Nope.”

“Ready for her?”

Raccoon checked the recording equipment, tapped a few keys, nodded. “Yes. We got it. Go
get her
.”

Chap. 11

“Where’s David?”

Owl sat down across from
Daphne Grey and said, “He’s fine Mrs. Grey. He’
s in the station.”

Daphne
Grey had been sleeping
on
her husband’s
shoulder
on a police bench 45 minutes ago.
Now she nearly panicked. She looked right and left at walls that weren’t five feet away.
“I need to see him.”

“Not yet.”

“Is he in the station?”

“Yes.”

“What time is it?”

“Mrs. Grey, do you know why you’re here?”

“I think our daughter is missing.”

“Yes, Sophia is missing. Do you know what happened to her?”

“No. No. She’s missing.”

“Did you do something to Sophia? Did you hurt her?

“I, no.”

“Mrs. Grey, if you come clean, we can help. I understand. She got stuck in the crib, her face against the side, she smothered herself. I know how scared you must have been. But you still have a chance to make it right. Just tell us where her body is.”

Daphne
Grey didn’t say anything. She stared at Owl and then, finally, she shrugged a helpless shrug, a tiny little motion that could have meant anything.

Owl kept pushing.
“
Sophia
deserves a little service, a tombstone you can visit. But you need to tell us what you did with her.”

“Where’s my husband? Where is David?”

“Mrs. Grey, what did you do after you found out she was missing? After you found out Sophia was gone?”

“We looked for her.”

“Where?”

“Everywhere.”

“Outside?”

“
No, not outside.
In the house. Under her cri
b and under, um, under things. In the kitchen. In t
he garage.
Just all over. We just looked all over.
”

“What movie did you watch?

She looked at Owl again. Not getting it. Eyes on empty.

“After you put Sophia to bed. What movie did you watch, Mrs. Grey?”

“
We watched…” She trailed off and then said, “
The one where Keanu Reeves knows kung fu. That one.”

Daphne
Grey yawned.
Owl glanced up at the camera and, just slightly, rolled his eyes.

Chap. 12

Back in the observation room. Raccoon still seated, silhouetted against the flickering light of the video monitor. Owl standing in the doorway, outlined by the light from the hallway. Two shadows murmuring to each other.

“What do you think?” Owl said.

“She’s a mess.”

“Oh my god, yes.”

“Could barely keep it together.”

“Hm.”

“You think she’s in shock?”

“Maybe. She’s not understanding all this, that’s for sure.”

Raccoon said, “You kept putting Sophia in the past tense.”

“You noticed.”

“And when dad was in there, he didn’t blink.

“Didn’t protest. Didn’t cry. Didn’t beg us to find his baby.”

Raccoon sighed. “Ok. Fine.
Let’s s
tart with him
, then
.”

Raccoon stood up, stretched his arms up to the ceiling. His fingers almost touched
it.

Ow
l took a step into the hallway.

Raccoon started to follow him and
then
he opened his mouth. “
S
houldn’t we at least put one team on the idea that someone else did this?
Figure out if it’
s
even
possible. See if there’s a ransom note somewhere. Tap thei
r phone in case a call comes in.
”

Owl considered this. “Sure. You’re the team. You figure it out while I find that girl’s body and put her parents in the chair where they belong.” Owl started to take a step and then he didn’t. He turned back to his partner and said, “If I’m wrong, I’ll give you a dollar.” Then Owl said, “Lunch?”

And Raccoon said, “Yeah.”

As they walked down the hallway, Owl said, “If you
want, we’ll tap
their phones. Just in case.”

Chap. 13

They stopped by the sergeant’s desk
on the way out. He was a big man, slowly
chewing gum.
B
ushy
brown
eyebrows and kind
brown
eyes, but still the type
of guy no one ever messes with.

He said, “Gentlemen?”

Owl said, “Let them go. Can’t leave the area. Can’t go home, it’s a crime scene. You know the drill. Let us know where they end up.”

“Copy that,” the sergeant said.

Chap. 14

The sun was blazing hot. Owl
and Raccoon ate lunch indoors.

If you didn’t know people, if you didn’t know how they move, if you didn’t know how to watch their eyes, then the two men could have been midlevel management at a office supply company, grabbing a five-dollar burrito on their lunch hour.

Chap. 15

They went back to the condo. This time, Raccoon drove. Once they were there, Owl plugged the address of Black Door Advertising into the car’s navigation system and got back a route.

Slowly, Raccoon started to drive. Before he even got out of the neighborhood, he pointed to a job site. A new home being built.

“Good, yes,” Owl said. He wrote down the address. “Keep going.”

They swung out of the neighborhood and onto the road. Owl looked up from his phone. “Up here,” Owl sai
d.
“Y
ou’re going to have to go over a water tunnel.”

“I see it,” Raccoon said.

“This one’s easy. Just stop.”

Raccoon pulled over. The two men got out and stepped carefully down a bank of gr
ass to peer into a storm drain.

Raccoon
pulled out
his flashligh
t and pushed it into the drain.

Too narrow, too empty. Small rocks. Daylight streaming in the other
side. No place to put a body.

They climbed back up to the car.

They stopped at an elementary school. The dumpster there was locked for the summer.

Then a shopping mall. Hard concrete. Not even a shadow in sight.

Raccoon pulled over next to a park. A creek rippled through it, winding from a playset down through acres of storm drains and off toward a set of suburban baseball diamonds.

“
Yeah.
Too big for right now
, though
. Keep going,” Owl said. He wrote down the name of the park.
Raccoon pulled back out onto the street.

Chap. 16

They pulled into the parking lot of Black Door Advertising. It was a large building, a refurbished warehouse on the gentrified northern edge of the city.

Thirty minutes away from the Grey’s home.

Raccoon slowly started to circle the parking lot. “It’s too far, right?” he said.

Owl nodded slowly, his eyes roving into the corners, underneath the cars. “Probably. But he knows this area. He’s panicked. It’d be somewhere he’d go. The dumpster. Over there.”

Raccoon steered the car over to the dumpster, stopped, got out. It was almost noon now. The sun was hot, the dawn
orange
replaced by pale blue. In his mind, Raccoon measured the distance between his hand and his pistol, the H&K USP Compact on his hip underneath his jacket. It was force of habit. Something about opening a closed door. He lifted the metal easily and inside was nothing.

Absolutely nothing.

Raccoon walked back and leaned down to the window on Owl’s side of the car. “It must be trash day. This thing is empty.”

Owl nodded. He picked up his walkie-talkie. “This is Drazen 0745. Car 348.”

A voice came back. “Car 348, go ahead.”

“I’m on a code one on my channel, I need you to patch me through.”

“Patching now.”

And a second later, a new voice, “Come in.”

“Drazen here. I need a search of these locations for the Grey girl.”

“Yup. Go ahead, Owl.”

Everybody called him Owl.

“Wherever the garbage men take the dumpster at 1399 Jeppeson Street, I need a search of that dump. Just this morning’s stuff, not beyond that. There’s a house under construction at 3125 Abraysia Court. That whole thing – dumpsters, basements, crawlspaces, everything. Everything. And Geraldine Park in Springfield. It’s a big park. I need that thing combed over twice.”

“Copy that, Owl.”

Raccoon got back into the car. “We’re here. They both worked here. Maybe we should talk to some people?”

Owl nodded. “Why not?”

Chap. 17

The front door of Black Door Advertising was painted black.

“Clever,
”
Owl muttered.

Chap. 18

“There are two men from the police department here. They want to talk about David Grey. What do I do?”