The Innocent

It was the apartment across the street. He opened the door, turned off the alarm, and stood looking around. He had this place. He had his apartment across the street and the farmhouse. Each place was supposed to be safe, secure, and yet they weren’t. So Robie felt homeless. He half expected someone to walk down the hall and ask him what he was doing here.

He looked at his watch. It was almost seven o’clock.

He’d called Vance but it had gone straight to voice mail. She was probably enduring some difficult times with her boss for going off grid. He doubted she would be getting back to him anytime soon. And he was actually relieved about that. He’d texted Julie and received a terse response. She no doubt was furious that she’d been snookered into going into protective custody again. At least she would get to grow up, do something wonderful with that big brain of hers.

After leaving Cassidy he had driven around. He’d ridden to the scene of the bus explosion, then over to Donnelly’s, which was still closed. Indeed, Robie doubted it would ever reopen. Who would want to grab a drink or have a meal in a place where so many people had lost their lives?

Now he was here and he wasn’t sure why.

He looked at the telescope, drew closer to it, and finally bent over slightly and gazed through it. His condo building immediately came into focus. He shifted the viewing angle slightly and looked at the line of windows representing his space. It was dark. It was supposed to be. He moved the telescope to the left and his gaze flitted over the lighted hallway running past all the apartments on that floor.

His gaze shifted, as he knew it would, to Annie Lambert’s place. Her windows were also dark. She was probably still at work. He wondered if her day off had gone well. He hoped it had. She deserved it.

As he watched he saw her come down the street on her bike. He continued to watch as she walked her bike into the building. Counting off the seconds in his head, he positioned the telescope so that it was right on the elevator bank on his floor. The doors opened a few seconds later and Lambert got off, rolling her bike next to her. She unlocked the door to her apartment and went inside.

Robie moved the telescope and watched as she parked her bike against the wall, took off her jacket and tennis shoes, and padded down the hall in her socks. She made a stop at the bathroom. When she came back out she continued down the hall. Robie lost her but picked her back up again about a minute later. She’d taken her blouse off and replaced it with a sweatshirt. Part of him wanted to go over and see her. Then he saw her lift up a long black dress on a hanger with a sheet of plastic over it. It had been draped over a chair. She took the plastic off and held the dress up to her. It was a strapless gown, Robie could see. She lifted up another garment. It was a matching jacket. The last items she picked up were three-inch black heels.

Annie Lambert was going out on the town tonight, it seemed. And why shouldn’t she? thought Robie. Part of him felt jealous, though. It was an odd emotion for him. It didn’t sit well.

He sat down, put his feet up on a leather ottoman, and gazed at the ceiling. He was so tired, couldn’t remember the last time he’d truly slept. He drifted off and awoke with a start some time later. From the foggy recesses of his mind he remembered something and drew out his phone. He brought up the photos he’d taken of the guest register at the hospice.

He scrolled from screen to screen, not expecting to find much of interest. And he didn’t. The only name he recognized was Gabriel Siegel from about a month ago. That made sense because Siegel had admitted he’d last visited Van Beuren at that time.

He scrolled to another page. There was nothing.

He hit another page. Nothing again.

But then something caught his eye.

It wasn’t a name.

It was a date.

There was an entire day missing in the guestbook. He enlarged the screen as big as he could. He looked at it closely. Down in the far left corner of the frame he spied it.

A triangle of paper. It would have gone unnoticed by anyone looking at the guestbook itself. It was too small. But with the pixels swollen to an unnatural size on his phone, Robie knew what it was. The remains of the page that had been ripped out of the book. Probably while the front desk had been unoccupied.

Why would someone have taken a page from a hospice guestbook?

There could only be one answer. They wanted to cover up whoever’s name had been written in there. They wanted to wipe away the record of someone who had visited Elizabeth Van Beuren.

Was it Broome? Getty? Wind? Two of them? All three?

Siegel had told him that he hadn’t seen Broome for ten years and hadn’t seen Wind or Getty since Gulf One. Cassidy had said he hadn’t seen any of them since the war except for Getty.