One by One (Роберт Хантер 5 Поодиночке) - Carter Chris (2) - Страница 67

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Both the property owner and the construction worker checked out. They also had solid alibis for their whereabouts overnight and at the time the killer was on the phone to Hunter yesterday. But as Hunter and Garcia got back into the car, Hunter received a new phone call. This time it was Homicide Detective Mario Perez.

‘Robert, I think we’ve got an ID on your victim.’

‘I’m listening.’

‘Are you in your car?’ Perez asked.

‘No, in Detective Garcia’s car.’

‘OK, I’m emailing you a few pictures now.’

Hunter switched the call to loudspeaker and used the car’s police computer to log into his email.

‘With the press and the media appealing for people to come forward, we’ve been getting calls all day,’ Perez clarified. ‘As expected, most of them have been crackpots, attention seekers or people who couldn’t be one hundred percent sure, you know how it goes – except one.’

‘Go on.’

‘A restaurant owner called Paolo Ghirardelli called a couple of hours back. He owns a pizzeria in Norwalk. I was the one who spoke to him. He was absolutely positive that the man in the picture that came out in the papers today was one of his waiters – Ethan Walsh. He hasn’t turned up for work in two days. Hasn’t answered his phone either. Mr. Ghirardelli is one of those proud Italians who has framed photographs of everyone who works for him, kitchen staff included, hanging on his restaurant wall. He emailed me Ethan Walsh’s picture, and . . . you can see for yourself.’

Hunter opened the email and the first of its three attachments – a colored photograph of a man in his early thirties with an oval-shaped face, a round nose, plump cheeks, thin eyebrows and short darkish hair. He and Garcia stared at it in silence for a long moment, and reflexively, but not that they needed to, checked the snapshot printout they’d been showing around the streets for the past few hours. Neither one had any doubts.

‘It’s him,’ Garcia said at last. ‘Or an identical twin.’

‘Ethan Walsh’s got no brothers or sisters,’ Perez confirmed. ‘I’ve already done a preliminary check on him. That’s the second attachment to the email. And it turns out that he used to be an expert computer programmer.’

‘He was an expert computer programmer?’ Garcia interjected.

‘That’s right.’

‘What’s an expert computer programmer doing working as a waiter in a pizzeria in Norwalk?’

‘If you open the second attachment, you’ll see our official details sheet on Ethan Walsh,’ Perez replied as Hunter double clicked on it. ‘The third attachment is a quick selection of a few Internet articles I found on him. That will give you a better idea of why he left games programming behind.’

‘Great work, Mario,’ Hunter said, quickly scanning the fact sheet. ‘Could you carry on and dig out everything you can on this Ethan Walsh?’

‘Already on it. By the time you guys get back here, I should have some more.’

‘Thanks.’ Hunter disconnected.

Ethan Walsh’s registered address was as a tenant in an apartment block in Bellflower, the first neighborhood west of Norwalk. A footnote at the bottom of the email Detective Perez had sent Hunter said that just to be sure, Perez had already contacted the Bellflower police station and asked them to send a black and white unit to knock on Ethan Walsh’s door. There had been no reply.

The fact sheet also carried the name, address and phone number for Ethan Walsh’s landlord – Mr. Stanislaw Reuben. Hunter lost no time in calling him, and Mr. Reuben told Hunter that he could meet them at Ethan Walsh’s address in an hour.

Ninety

Hunter and Garcia made it to Bellflower in south Los Angeles just as the sun was starting to set over Venice Beach. The apartment block Ethan Walsh used to live in was an old and dirty brick building in dire need of some repairs, located at the end of an unglamorous street.

Mr. Stanislaw Reuben, Ethan’s landlord, met the detectives by the entrance to the building’s lobby. The man had an undeniable seediness to him, with ill-fitting clothes, a pockmarked face and a lip marred by a scar. His throaty voice sounded like it had come straight out of a horror film.

‘I thought that the man I saw in the paper this morning looked rather familiar,’ Mr. Reuben said after Hunter and Garcia identified themselves. ‘I suspected that he might’ve been one of my tenants, but it was hard to be sure. I have so many, and I only see them once or twice a year, really. Most of my tenants post me predated checks a few months in advance. I find it easier that way.’

‘And that was how Mr. Walsh paid his rent?’ Garcia queried.

‘That was indeed.’ Mr. Reuben smiled, showing badly cared-for teeth.

‘How long has he been a tenant of yours?’ Garcia followed up.

‘Not long at all. Just over six months. Seemed like a nice tenant too. Quiet, no complaints . . .’ Mr. Reuben pinched his left earlobe a couple of times. ‘It’s him, isn’t it? The man who was killed on the Internet? That was my tenant, Mr. Walsh, wasn’t it?’ He sounded truly excited.

‘We can’t be certain at this time,’ Garcia replied.

‘Do you think I’ll get interviewed by TV?’ His excitement grew. ‘I’ve never been on TV.’

‘And that’s not such a bad thing,’ Garcia said, gesturing toward the building. ‘Shall we?’

The landlord used his key to unlock the lobby door and ushered the detectives inside. The confined space smelled of cat piss with something else that carried an acid undertone.

Garcia wrinkled his nose while his eyes quickly searched the dusky lobby as if he was expecting to identify the source of the smell.

‘I suggest we take the stairs up,’ Mr. Reuben said. ‘That elevator is very small, and I wouldn’t really risk it, if you know what I mean.’

The stairs were dirty and dark, with graffiti decorating the walls all the way up. As they got to the fourth floor, Mr. Reuben led the way down a long and dimly lit corridor. The cat piss smell from the downstairs lobby was replicated there, but it now had a fetid, sickly quality to it that made both detectives grind their teeth.

It didn’t seem to bother the landlord.

‘Here we are,’ he said as they reached a door three-quarters of the way down the hallway. The number on it read 4113. Mr. Reuben unlocked the door and pushed it open. With the windows shut and the curtains pulled to, the room before them was hidden in shadows, and the built-up heat made it feel like a prison cell even before they stepped inside.

Mr. Reuben hit the lights, revealing a small living area, with a tiny kitchen to the left. The room was sparsely decorated. There was an old wooden table, four wooden chairs, a small stereo, a sofa with a flowery cover thrown over it, a portable TV set and a chest of drawers, on which a few picture frames had been placed. There were no immediate signs of a disturbance. The walls were bare, save for a picture of Ethan Walsh with a little girl who looked to be around three years old.

‘The bedroom and the bathroom are through there,’ Mr. Reuben said, indicating a door across the room.

Hunter and Garcia gloved up.

‘Do you mind waiting outside?’ Garcia said to the landlord. ‘We’re not sure if there’s any evidence here, but if there is I’d like to reduce the risk of contaminating it.’

Mr. Reuben looked disappointed as he took a step back. ‘Of course. I understand. I’ll be right out here if you need me.’

The first thing Hunter and Garcia noticed inside the narrow living room was Ethan Walsh’s laptop computer on the wooden table. A webcam was clipped to the top of the screen.

Hunter retrieved two large evidence bags from his pocket, and placed the laptop, the web camera and all the computer cables inside them.

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