And now he had, trying to frame Alan Cherney for some inexplicable reason.
James picked her phone back up to call the captain, but before she could call him, the phone was vibrating in her hand. Abigail.
“Did you get a warrant?” James asked.
“Not yet, but I talked with Dietrichson. He agreed to stay late.”
“Want company?”
“That’s why I’m calling.”
They met at the courthouse, and got Judge Albert Dietrichson’s fairly reluctant signature on the search warrant for Alan Cherney’s apartment at 101 Bury Street. James had to convince him that the anonymous call that had been recorded that afternoon was not the sole reason for the search warrant.
“Did you get a statement from Alan Cherney after the body was discovered?” the judge asked, as he was packing his briefcase to go home for the day.
“We did. I didn’t take it, myself, but Officer Karen Gibson did. She said he reported that he didn’t personally know Audrey Marshall, but that he knew her from sight. She reported that he was acting strange.”
The judge raised one eyebrow and looked at James. “Did she specify what she meant by strange?”
“She reported that he seemed visibly shaken by the death in his apartment building. She didn’t know whether it was because of the proximity of the crime, or because he knew the victim more intimately than he was indicating. And one more thing, Kate Priddy, the cousin who is currently occupying Corbin Dell’s apartment, has gotten to know Alan Cherney, and she indicated to us that he used to watch Audrey Marshall through her window.”
“From where? The street?”
“No. From his own apartment. Their windows face one another above the courtyard of the building. It’s shaped like a U.”
“Got it,” the judge said. His expression didn’t change as he signed the warrant.
An hour later, James met up with Abigail Tan at 101 Bury Street, and together, along with Mike Gaetano and Andre Damour from the department, entered Alan Cherney’s apartment and served the warrant. He had been sleeping, and he was extremely drunk, blurry eyed and slurring his speech. He’d gone to his bathroom to be sick; they’d located the leather courier bag that the anonymous caller had identified, and found and bagged the knife. Abigail made the arrest.
Back at the station, James got Alan, who had declined the offer of legal representation, a cup of coffee and brought him to an interrogation room. He was alternating between docility and panic. “I didn’t kill Audrey Marshall,” he said, as she walked him into the room. “You know that, right?”
“Agent Tan’s going to be questioning you in just a few minutes, and you can tell everything to her.”
Before leaving the room, leaving Alan alone to stew for a few minutes, he blurted out, almost near tears, “It wasn’t hives.” It was something he’d said earlier, when she’d first cuffed him.
James paused. She knew she should leave him alone, let him answer questions once the official interrogation began, but she turned back toward him anyway. “You need to go and check on Kate Priddy,” he said. “He said he had hives on his arm, but it wasn’t. It was Sanders who scratched him, but Sanders only scratches anyone when he’s in the basement. He’s a different Sanders down there, and that’s where Jack got scratched. He’s coming and going through the basement. I think he’s after Kate. I have a bad feeling. It’s a really bad feeling.”
“Sanders?” James asked.
“He’s the cat that’s always around. He’s friendly, but if you try and pet him when he’s in the basement, he scratches you. Jack is coming through the basement. That’s how he’s getting in.”
James said, “Someone’ll be right here, Alan, okay?”
An hour later, James watched the beginning of the interrogation, watched as Alan, who seemed to be sobering up, said the exact same thing about the cat to Abigail Tan. Hearing the words again made James’s scalp tingle.
She left the station and drove back to 101 Bury Street. She sat in her car for a moment, staring up at the blank windows of the apartment building. It wouldn’t hurt to just check on the apartment. She’d knock gently on the door. She’d listen, and if she heard nothing, then she’d return to her own apartment.
“Hey there, Sanibel,” she said to the doorman, no longer needing to show him her badge. “Just checking in on Kate Priddy in 3D. She’s expecting me.”
She’d only just reached the door when she heard scuffling sounds from inside,