Grip and Morphy met Westermann at a Greek diner across the street from Vesterhue’s apartment. They waited as Westermann finished his coffee, then the three of them crossed the street to Vesterhue’s building, soot-stained brick. Westermann scanned the street for Deyna—the guy had been turning up everywhere—but he wasn’t there.
Vesterhue’s apartment was on the second floor, above a grocer’s run by a first-generation Latvian couple. Two doors on the second-floor landing led to a front apartment and a rear apartment. Vesterhue’s was the front. Grip pounded the door with his fist.
“Dr. Vesterhue. Police.”
No reply, no sounds of motion from within. There was another sound though, a sound that was familiar to Grip though it was too faint for him to place.
Grip pounded again. Yelling this time. “Dr. Vesterhue, this is the police. Please open the door.”
The door from the back apartment opened and Westermann noted that Grip jumped, hand going for his gun.
An old man—head shaved, gray stubble on his chin—leaned through the open door, the whites of his eyes ringed with angry red.
“No one been in that apartment for half a week.”
“Sir?” Westermann said.
“No one in or out of that apartment in four, five days.”
“You sure about that?”
The old man nodded. Westermann could see it: the old man sitting in his quiet apartment, picking up every sound on the landing and probably the apartments above as well.
“Thank you,” Westermann said. “We may want to speak with you.”
The old man closed his door without answering, the sliding dead bolt audible. The police shared a look, Morphy chuckling a little, Grip still pale.
Westermann said, “Which one of you wants to do the honors?”
Grip needed it more, so Morphy stood aside. It took three stomps before the hinges gave way and the door fell in.
The smell came at them hard, familiar, but not the smell of death; rotting food in a sealed-up apartment, stagnant air, almost a furnace. The sound Grip had heard was a radio tuned to the same anticommunist station they played at Crippen’s. They did a quick recon. Grip found the radio and turned it off. The silence was sudden and stark.
No one home; dirty dishes in the sink, food gone moldy. The guy hadn’t exactly been getting rich as a doctor. The furniture was old and shabby, the walls bare, except for a couple of crucifixes tacked to the wall—one in the living room and one in the bedroom. The whole place was outfitted like something temporary, as if Vesterhue wasn’t planning on staying long or maybe just didn’t care. The apartment had been tumbled, not by an expert, but by someone who was nonetheless trying to be careful. Books were replaced in the bookshelves, pillows stacked back on couches, a halfhearted attempt at making the bed—maybe an accurate imitation of Vesterhue’s own standards. But there were signs: dust lines that didn’t quite reach to the front edges of books; couch cushions replaced with their darker, bottom sides up. They spent some time, working in silence, trying to find the files for Mavis Talley and Lenore and maybe even the second girl. To no one’s surprise, they came up with nothing.
Morphy had opened a window to get some air circulating, and they met there to exchange impressions and breathe some fresh air.
Morphy said, “He was expecting to come back. Didn’t anticipate whatever happened, even if he left on his own for some reason.”
Grip agreed. A police siren keened from blocks away.
Westermann said, “And he took those files with him or else someone came here and found them.”
“Unless they couldn’t find them either. We could tear apart the couch, pull up floorboards,” Morphy suggested.
Westermann shook his head. “Medical files. Frequent use. He’s not going to open up his couch or pry up floorboards every time he needs them.”
Morphy nodded. “So?”
Westermann gazed out the window, thinking. Grip and Morphy were used to this, the lieut taking a minute to think things through, and they waited patiently, taking stock themselves.
Eventually, Westermann laid it out for them. Interview the geezer across the hall and then do a telephone canvass of the hospitals, see if Vesterhue was checked in anywhere. Westermann would get back with Mrs. Lansing at Wilhelm Health Center to get a physical description of Vesterhue and then run that by Pulyatkin at the morgue for any John Does that fit the description.
Grip went to use Vesterhue’s john, and Westermann took the opportunity to talk to Morphy, whispering, “What’s got Grip spooked?”
“Lieut?”
“He’s jumpy; not talking.”
“Yeah. I’ll feel him out.”
“Let me know.”
Grip emerged from the john, zipping up and giving them a suspicious look as if he knew what they’d been talking about.