at you.”
I saw Matt tense and realized that he was now sniffing the air. “Smell that?”
“What?”
“Cordite.”
My brows knitted. “Cor—?”
“Gunpowder.”
“You mean—”
Matt shushed me. “Stay here. And don’t touch a thing.”
Matt crept down the short hall. I moved to catch up with him, entering the apartment’s living room.
Nothing appeared out of the ordinary. A dirty coffee cup sat beside an easy chair, old newspapers and magazines were piled on the floor, and a Santa costume in a dry-cleaning bag was draped over the end of the couch, next to a man’s overcoat.
Matt noticed me following him and scowled. Then he stepped around the littered coffee table and moved deeper into the apartment. I noticed that the white kitten had reappeared, following my ex’s polished black shoes like a tiny white shadow.
Must be female.
I paused at the coffee table, where I spied a slim canvas wallet, keys, and a pile of change. I slipped on my gloves and gingerly opened the wallet with one finger. Karl Kovic’s New York State driver’s license photo stared back at me through a cellophane window.
He and Alf could have been brothers. Karl’s eyes were muddier, more brown than green, but his face had the same round shape. Like Alf, Karl had a mustache, although his wasn’t a bushy walrus; it was trimmed in a horseshoe shape more closely to his face. He also wore his hair long, but not long enough to do Alf’s retro-sixties ponytail thing.
I heard Matt curse. “Son of a—”
“What’s the matter?”
He reappeared, his face a shade paler. “It’s Kovic. At least I think it’s Kovic. He’s in the bedroom, Clare. He’s dead.”
TWENTY-FIVE
MATT grabbed me before I got past him. “You don’t want to see that.”
“I have to!”
I pulled away and moved into the bedroom. The smell was more pronounced here. Like sulfur or burned hair combined with the slightly metallic stench of fresh blood. Kovic lay on the floor beside the bed, facedown, head turned, eyes open. For a moment, my feet felt frozen to the floor.
“There was no sign of blood or a struggle in the foyer or living room,” I murmured. “The killer must have met Kovic at the front door, and then led him at gunpoint to this bedroom . . .”
The room was a shambles. Every drawer was pulled out, its contents spilled onto the floor. Even the mattress had been molested, the pillowcases stripped away, sheets and blankets tossed around.
“Obviously the shooter was looking for something. I wonder if he found it.”
Matt stepped up behind me. “Doesn’t matter. Not for this poor bastard.” He leaned over the body. “Looks like he was shot twice in the back. Those bullet holes are too small to be exit wounds.”
I remembered Quinn’s stories about working crime scenes and stopped Matt from touching the body to confirm what the exit wounds looked like in the corpse’s front. Instead, I bent low, trying to figure out something else. Staring at the dead man’s face, I noticed that Kovic’s wide-open eyes were moist. There was saliva on his chin. It hadn’t dried yet. The spittle was still wet.
“Kovic wasn’t shot very long ago,” I whispered. “I think we just missed the killer.”
Matt tensed. “Now I wish I had that Beretta.”
Stepping out of the room, Matt moved back into the apartment’s hallway. I joined him, noticing that the bathroom door was open, but a second door beside it was closed.
“Feel that?” I whispered.
He nodded. “There’s a draft.”
I pushed the closed door open. Immediately a gust of frigid air filled the hall. Inside we found a second bedroom, half the size of the one with Kovic’s corpse. This room had been ransacked, too, and the window facing the fire escape was wide open, curtains blowing wildly on the freezing night wind.
“Oh, God,” I said. “When we were coming in, I heard shuffling in another room—I thought it was Kovic, but it was obviously the killer. He must have heard us and fled through the window!”
Matt looked outside and down the dark fire escape. “I don’t see anyone.”
With my gloved hands, I picked up a silver-framed picture that had been knocked to the floor. It was a photograph of a beaming Vicki Glockner at her high school graduation. Her dad was standing at her side, his arm around her shoulders, his face so happy, so filled with pride.
“This was Alf’s room,” I whispered, my voice suddenly gone.
Matt frowned, watching me. “I’m sorry.”
I shook my head, swiping wet eyes, and put the photo back on the dresser. “Whatever