The ninth floor was still quiet when Dennis stepped back onto it. There was considerable noise coming from nine-fourteen, but no one else on the floor seemed to be opening their doors to check it out. Dennis pointed at the right side and told Hill to get started; it took a second for Connolly to understand he was supposed to start on the left. The baby-faced constable was about to start with a door less than five feet away when Dennis put a hand on his shoulder.
“You start down there. That way if someone sees you coming and decides to make a break for it, they’ll run right into Hill.”
The unis got to work. Dennis stopped beside Julie Owen’s door and turned to his right so that he was facing the neighbour’s apartment. He stepped to the door and used the side of his fist to pound out a knock. It only took a few seconds for the door to open a crack.
Dennis held up his badge to the crack and said, “Can I speak with you about what happened across the hall?”
The door closed and he heard a chain jingle. When the door opened again, he saw a tall redhead. Behind the woman’s glasses were eyes the same colour as her head. She had been crying.
“I’m Detective Hamlet. Did you call nine-one-one?”
The redhead nodded. “I was friends with Julie. I was the one who . . . who found her.”
“Your name, Ma’am?”
“Lisa O’Brien.”
“Can I come in, Ms. O’Brien?”
She nodded and Dennis walked into a dark entryway. The apartment was a mirror image of the murder scene. Instead of a hallway to the right, Lisa O’Brien’s hallway went left. Dennis followed Lisa through the kitchen to the small dining room he knew would be on the other side. Lisa took a seat at the table facing away from the living room that opened up behind her. Dennis took a chair that backed the kitchen.
“I’m sorry I didn’t wait for the police. There was just so much blood, and Julie was lying there like that. I had to get away from it. I stumbled out of Julie’s apartment and almost knocked over Mrs. Chang.”
“Mrs. Chang?”
“She lives two doors down. I almost ran right into her. The only thing I could think about was getting to a phone. It wasn’t until Mrs. Chang said my name that I noticed her. Then I saw that I left the door open. I lunged for the door and pulled it closed. I couldn’t let someone else see Julie—not like that. Mrs. Chang knew something wasn’t right, but I just kept telling her that everything was fine. She didn’t believe me, but she went home.” Lisa ran her hands through her tangled hair. “I just couldn’t have let her see Julie like that. It would have killed her. I’m sure of it. She loved Julie. It would have killed her.”
“I understand,” Dennis said. “It sounds like you did the right thing.” Lisa crossed her arms and closed her eyes while she processed the memory that was still as raw as an open wound. Dennis let her have a moment to regain her composure while he looked around the dining room. There wasn’t much to see outside of a small chandelier above the table and framed Asian characters hanging on the wall.
When Lisa was able to look at Dennis again, he said, “Tell me about how you found her.”
Lisa tucked her hair behind her ear and sniffed loudly. “I opened my door and I saw Julie’s door was open. I walked across the hall and called inside. She didn’t answer me, and I thought, for a second, that maybe she had rushed to the hospital and I’d see her baby girl tomorrow. She wasn’t due till early next month.”
“It was going to be a girl?”
Lisa nodded.
“So you walk in because the door is open, and you call her name.”
“Yes.”
Lisa went on to describe what she saw. Dennis listened to her recount. Other than Mrs. Chang, there was nothing that didn’t fit with what he already knew about the crime scene. She was sobbing into her folded arms when Dennis’s phone went off. He stood up, pulled out his phone, and said, “Hamlet.”
“Need to know if Julie was having a girl or a boy. You need to track down someone who knew her and find out.”
Who the hell did Os think he was? Dennis wasn’t some uniform he could just order around. He was the cop they called when they needed things done.
“Girl,” he said.
Os hung up on him without saying thank you. Dennis walked back into the dining room and saw that Lisa had her head up. Her cheeks were streaked with tears. Dennis saw a box of Kleenex on an end table beside the couch.
“Let me get you a tissue,” he said.
“No, no, it’s okay. I’m fine. Really.”
Dennis knew how important it was to make Lisa feel comfortable with him. He wanted to get inside her head, and she wouldn’t let him in if he didn’t form some kind of relationship with her. He walked into the living room and stopped three steps away from the box of Kleenex.
“You have a baby?” he said.
“What? No.”
“You have a playpen set up in here and a bunch of baby toys.”
“They were for Julie. I was throwing her a baby shower next week. I’d been keeping her out of my apartment so she wouldn’t see anything.”
Lisa started to cry again in loud sobs. A cat entered the room and gracefully leapt to the top of the couch. The grey and black cat walked across the top of the pillows and touched its nose to Lisa’s ear. Lisa made a wet snort and reached out to cradle the cat. Dennis ignored her and the cat and walked to the playpen. He picked up a stuffed animal, a furry lion, and ran his hand over its soft plush head.
“On second thought, I could really use that Kleenex,” Lisa said from the table.
Dennis put down the lion and stepped back so that he could see Lisa again. “No problem.”
He brought the box back to the table, and Lisa put the cat down. She pulled three sheets free and dabbed at her eyes before blowing her nose. “I don’t think I’m up for this right now. Could we do it another time?”
The cat circled Dennis, keeping a distance. The animal evaluated Dennis and then retreated down the hall. Dennis pointed to the wall. “Are those Japanese?”
Lisa followed his finger with her eyes. She sniffed loudly and said, “Yes. Julie gave them to me. They mean light and dark.”
Dennis rubbed his chin. “Why light and dark?” He wanted to get Lisa talking about something other than the murder. He needed her to forget that she just asked to be left alone.
“I’d rather not talk about it,” she said.
Shit. Dennis stepped closer to the picture. He sucked his upper lip into his mouth and chewed on it. His lower lip felt the stubble above its counterpart. The pictures were from Julie, and Lisa didn’t want to talk about them. That sounded like a secret, and secrets were the most valuable kind of information. Cops like Woody would make some bullshit claim that everything is in the details, but that wasn’t true. Inside the secrets was where answers lie. You want to find someone, figure out what they tried to keep everyone else from knowing.
Dennis loved a good secret. He immediately turned up the bullshit. “I need to know everything I can about Julie. Every little bit of information helps. Even if you think it’s nothing, it might mean everything to the investigation. So please, for Julie’s sake, tell me about the pictures.”
It was a little dramatic, but it got Lisa to look at the pictures again. She shook her head and Dennis got impatient.
“Your neighbour is dead. I don’t think she would mind if you told me about some pictures she gave you.”
“It’s not how she should be remembered.”
“You’re right. She should be remembered as a dead body that was cut to pieces.” The words came out before he could stop them. So much for building a relationship.
Lisa started to cry into her arms again. Dennis let her. Crying women didn’t bother him.
Lisa’s sobs trailed off and Dennis took his gaze away from the pictures. He tried again to be nice. “Explain them to me please.”
Lisa shook her head. Dennis frowned. This girl didn’t know who she was screwing with. He wasn’t some pushover; he was a badass detective. Dennis got ready to unload on the woman when he heard a noise come from down the hall.
Lisa saw Dennis looking down the hall.
“It’s my cat. I have two. Posie isn’t getting along with Ash right now, so I keep them separated. Problem is, she gets nuts being cooped up if I’m not in the room with her.” She ran her hands through her hair and sniffed loudly. “Julie bought Posie for me. She thought it would be good for me to have something to take care of. You know what? You’re right. I need to help you find whoever killed Julie. I need to take care of her. I’ll tell you whatever you want to know.”
Dennis sat down and waited for Lisa to work up the courage to continue.
“I knew Julie before I moved in here. We met in group.”
Dennis turned around and sat down. “Group what?”
“Therapy. It was a group for women suffering from bipolar disorder.”
Dennis nodded as though he understood. It was important to help coax secrets out. Too many questions would shut her down—better to let her tell it her way at her own speed.
“Our doctor, her name’s Dr. Kelsey, ran the sessions twice a week. I was lost when I got there. Really lost. I’d seen so many doctors and no one could help me understand my mind. Julie had been like me once. She used to be confused. I wanted to be like her so bad. She looked like she had everything under control. I started talking to her, and we became friends. Good friends. When a place opened up here, she told me about it and I moved in.”
“The pictures,” Dennis said.
“They were a housewarming gift. Light and dark—it’s in us all. Julie wanted me to remember that both were always there—even when it didn’t feel like it. Like when you’re high and you feel indestructible, you need to remember that you won’t always feel that way. And when you’re down low, I mean way down, you need to remember that the light is still there even if you can’t see it.”
Dennis nodded again.
“If you two were so close, why did you think she went to the hospital when you saw the door open? Wouldn’t she have told you so you could help her get there?”
Lisa sniffed and looked out the window. “We had a fight the other day. Julie said some things. We weren’t talking.”
“What did she say?”
“Just things. She didn’t mean them.”
Dennis knew how hard feelings could be hurt, but he didn’t change his face. This was about her, not him.
Lisa went on. “She was off her meds and sometimes she’d lose it. Forget about the light and dark.”
“Why was she off her meds?”
“She didn’t want to hurt the baby. The medication for bipolar disorder is strong. Makes Tylenol look like Tic Tacs, y’know? She didn’t want her baby exposed to it. But without the meds, she was up and down all the time. We got in a fight and she was mean. I know it wasn’t her talking, but it still really hurt.”
“When does this group of yours meet?”
Lisa’s head snapped towards Dennis. “Why?”
“I need to talk to the doctor and the other patients.”
“No, you can’t. If they find out I talked about the group, I might get kicked out. I need to be there. I can’t get kicked out.”
Dennis held a hand up. “I’m going. No discussion. I know the doctor’s name; it won’t take me much time to find her office, or you could tell me now. If you make it easy on me, I won’t tell the doctor anything you said.”
“What will you tell her?”
Dennis smiled. “I’ll make something up. I’m a hell of a liar.”
Lisa snivelled and then gave up the doctor’s office address.