Three-Day Town - By Margaret Maron Page 0,90

for bicycles and kayaks and sleds.”

With the flashlight probing everything he could see from where he stood, Dwight pointed the light at the recess that housed the service elevator. “Fire stairs?”

Horvath nodded. “You can’t open the door to the stairwell from this side without a key, and Phil’s the only one that had it. You have to go up to the second floor and walk down to open it from the other side. Same with the door in the lobby.”

Farther down the wide passage, halfway between the niche for the service elevator and the outer door was another door. “What’s that?”

“Goes to the boiler room,” Horvath said.

Diagonally across the passage, close to the outer door, was another closed door. “And there?”

“That’s the tool room. You know—snow blower, shovels, stepladders, leaf blower. That sort of stuff.”

“Locked?”

Horvath shrugged.

Dwight strode down to the door and it opened easily. He found a light switch near at hand and used the flashlight to peer behind all the equipment.

The door to the furnace room was also unlocked, but the overhead bulb did little to brighten the cavern’s dark recesses. A steel catwalk rimmed the near side of a deep concrete chamber that was at least twenty feet square and housed the boiler itself. Steel steps led down to it. The setup reminded Dwight of the boiler room in the bowels of the old Colleton County courthouse. Parts of the original steam boiler remained, but it had been patched and added onto so many times over the last eighty years that it looked like a Rube Goldberg creation. A variety of brass, copper, plastic, and iron pipes of different diameters jutted off in random directions, and an assortment of electrical cables connected the main boiler to mysterious-looking control boxes that could have spanned an era from vacuum tubes to computer chips for all Dwight knew. He had to take his hat off to the murdered super if that man had kept this monstrosity running for the last twenty years.

He played the light over the machinery and called Deborah’s name.

No muffled cry. Just eerie silence except for a low hum from the machinery below.

The level on which he stood was neatly jammed with steel scaffolding, metal extension ladders, and a miscellany of pipes that probably came in handy for keeping the boiler working. Cartons and bins held other supplies, including a large wooden box stacked with neatly folded canvas tarps, and Dwight’s estimation of Phil Lundigren rose another notch. Too many workmen just threw their tarps in a pile. Lundigren evidently took pride in his work. This could have been a filthy cluttered space. Granted, it was not spit-polished, but the surfaces did not have a heavy layer of dust. The floor was swept clean and there were no loose bits of hardware to trip someone up.

He flashed the light behind the cartons and bins. Nothing moved.

Throughout his inspection, Horvath had hovered near the elevator. Now they were startled by the buzzer as one of the residents called for the elevator. The man seemed relieved to return to his regular duties.

Almost immediately, Dwight heard sirens out on the street and three uniformed cops barged through the basement’s outer door.

“Major Bryant?” the lead officer asked. “Lieutenant Harald sent us. She should be here in a few minutes. She said your wife’s missing from here?”

Dwight went through it again, hitting the high spots: how she would not have gone far because she was probably wearing her parka over her nightclothes, how he had found her glove by the outer door, how there was a uniformed employee here earlier who had also vanished.

“I know you’re worried, sir, but could it be that she just stepped out for a cup of coffee or something?”

The man sounded so reasonable that for the first time Dwight wondered if maybe he was overreacting. Deborah was gregarious. If one of the workers had come in early and she was on her way out for coffee, she might well have invited him to come along, her treat.

“The market around on Broadway opens at six,” he said slowly. “And I think they do serve coffee.”

“There now, you see? Bet you she’s there right now. Why don’t you go look since you know what she looks like and we’ll keep searching here?”

Dwight reluctantly agreed. “I’ve covered the tool room, the boiler room, and the break room.” He gestured to each in turn. “I haven’t started on the storage area back there. Maybe you could—?”

“Yessir!”

They unclipped flashlights from their utility