36

Six thirty-two was the place I’d pegged as a former factory, an eyesore lowering JHHI’s property value. I drove around the block, circling it twice, checking the area.

You can learn a lot from looking. Cops who walk a regular beat know who keeps the lights on, who turns them out, who draws the curtains, the angle at which Mrs. Patterson sets her shutters before going to sleep every night at 9:37 P.M. sharp. Especially in small towns, or small neighborhood enclaves, such habits keep the police informed. If I’d known the cops working the medical area, I’d have bought them a few beers and steered the conversation around to 632.

If I’d known them. If I hadn’t had the sense that time was running out for Emily.

If again. That ugly stammering word.

Since I saw no beat cop—nor was I likely to see one since most of Boston’s patrolmen are locked into speeding vehicles—I decided to pretend that the cop on the beat was me.

I was still wearing my Winchester break-in outfit, so the impersonation was fairly convincing. The meter-maid hat had suffered slightly in the dash compartment, but a few pats straightened it enough for night wear. I added a black jacket, one of many articles of clothing I keep in my car, to blend in with the dark and hide my gun.

I strolled the perimeter of the block. Six thirty-two was larger than I’d expected, edging up against the narrow alleyway that ran behind JHHI. While it didn’t share any walls with Helping Hand, one forty-foot section almost touched. I wondered if there was inside access from one to the other. An underground tunnel. If so, it might make the property a good acquisition for the hospital.

The front windows were plugged with plywood, crisscrossed with one-by-eight pine planks. Weathered boards. Rusty nails. Dust and cobwebs, dead leaves, and dirt. The front door didn’t need plywood; a shuttered metal grille, padlocked and rusty, did the job.

Maybe the Boston Housing Authority had plans to destroy the structure, rebuild from scratch. I wondered when 632 had last been occupied. It was no architectural treasure, nothing worth renovating. Far as I knew, it wasn’t an historic site. A few high windows had been smashed and left broken. A bird’s nest bridged a gap in a gutter.

Did it already belong to JHHI? Was it awaiting a construction crew? Lying fallow till some golden goose passed on and bequeathed a substantial legacy?

Two winos gave me the eye as they passed. I nodded and one dropped his head in a tipsy greeting.

Instead of walking around the block this time, I found a way to squeeze between JHHI and 632, thinking I might gain access to an unobstructed interior view, a place from which Emily might have taken her snapshots. Why bother to nail plywood across a window that faced a brick wall? Most likely, I’d find no such opeining, but it couldn’t be taken for granted. Builders erected their walls not knowing that five years later city planners would turn their picture windows into sunless, brick-view squares.

No window. I snagged my jacket on a nail and had to backtrack to keep the rip from becoming a triangular tear. A sharp smell permeated the narrow space.

I had to hold my breath to make it into the alleyway. The odor almost made me gag. In back, it was better. The windows were boarded and barred. The door mesh-grilled.

Somebody once warned me against learning to fire a gun. If you know how, he said, you’ll do it. Same thing with picking a lock. If you know how, if you take pride in it, you tend to do it. If your day’s been frustrating and you don’t know where your client is or who’s going to sign your next paycheck—well, I admit my picklocks were weighing heavily in both my pocket and my mind.

I glanced right and left. A drizzle had thinned out the foot traffic, and while I could hear the occasional pedestrian, see car headlights shoot by the mouth of the alley, the temptation was high, and the risk seemed low.

The adjoining buildings were so close, so towering, it seemed almost as if I were in an air shaft, concealed by the sheer height of the surrounding walls. I reached in my shoulder bag and grabbed my flashlight, shining it on the back door lock.

It glistened. I knelt in front of the door, my tongue between my teeth, my pulse racing in my ears. The padlock reinforcing the Yale lock was almost new. Underneath it, a tiny plaque had been affixed to the doorjamb with two brass screws. Nothing fancy, the kind of item you could buy in any hardware store. Plastic-covered to keep out the rain, with a slot at the side big enough to insert a business card. DELIVERIES FOR CEE CO., it read in small precise letters.

I stood, ran the light over the edge of the door, felt the hinges. I rubbed my thumb and forefingers together, held them under my nose. Oil. The hinges had been recently oiled. I expanded the circle of light. Fresh tire tracks, deep wide tracks, scored the mud in the alleyway.

I’m not your meet-me-in-the-abandoned-ware-house-at-midnight kind of gal. I’m too tall to play a convincing damsel in distress. I’ve seen too many horror movies.

Still, I might have gone in. But the edge of the flashlight beam caught the crease of my pants as I got ready to kneel again.

Rust.

Spots of rust.

Like the ones on Tina Sukhia’s dress.

Had it been Tina, not Emily, kneeling, camera at the ready? Tina who’d taken the ill-defined shots? Given the precious film to Emily Woodrow?

I scurried out of the alley, listening for the faintest footfall. I checked the backseat before I got into my car.

No abandoned warehouses, thank you very much.