Page 11 of Her Last Doubt

From there, Rachel and Novak dove into the meat of the matter. They asked the same questions and other similar ones that they had asked Val Dixon. As it turned out, Bernard had known Frank Deluca from the building's informal chess group, which met in the second-floor common room on Tuesday afternoons. "Frank was a decent player," he said. "He didn't talk much during the game, which I respect. He was also watching, always studying. Some men want to have a conversation when they play chess and it ruins the whole thing."

"When did you last see him?"

"About two weeks before he died. He wasn't well by then. You could see it. But he came down and played anyway." Coles looked at the window thoughtfully. "I think he needed to get out of the apartment. You can understand that."

Rachel asked him about Margaret Osley and Sylvia Marsh, and he knew both by name and by sight. He said he had exchanged pleasantries with each of them over the years, but hadn't been close to either—not people he’d specifically call a friend. His demeanor throughout was measured and forthcoming, and he answered each question directly without volunteering anything she hadn't asked for.

Then, as she was closing out the questions, he said: "Can I ask…do you think there are more people in this building in danger?"

"We don't have enough information yet to answer that," Rachel said. “But we’re here to make sure that is very much not the case. We want to understand what happened to Mr. Deluca and the others, and right now that's what we're focused on."

He nodded, and though Rachel could sense their conversation ending, she asked one more question. “I’m curious…so you happen to know anything about the gossip around the building concerning Neil Baxter and his aunt?”

He shrugged and a look passed over his face that made Rachel certain that Bernard didn’t give much attention to the rumor mill. He sighed and nodded slowly. "Unfortunately, yes. Neil Baxter was in the lobby last week telling anyone who'd listen that the building's management was negligent. I saw that for myself because I just happened to be passing through, coming back from the pharmacy. He was saying that Mr. Hale should have flagged something sooner." He didn't seem to be offering this as gossip, just as fact. "A few of the older residents heard him. It frightened some people."

"Do you know Baxter well?"

"Not well. He visits his aunt regularly, I'll give him that. But he's loud about it, and this isn't a building where people are loud about things. Even the rumors stay quiet.”

“Thank you,” Rachel said. “We appreciate your time.”

Bernard nodded and escorted them to the door. “Feel free to come by anytime,” he said. “I’d love to know just what the hell has been going on around here.”

***

After leaving Bernard Coles, they worked through the rest of the list over the next two hours. Rachel summarized the visits on her phone as they went: a woman on the ninth floor who had been close to Margaret Osley and cried quietly through most of the conversation; an eighty-year-old retired judge on the third floor who told them the building had been going downhill since they'd changed the lobby furniture in 2019 and appeared to consider this relevant; a couple in their mid-seventies on the sixth floor who had lived across the hall from Frank Deluca and confirmed he had grown visibly weaker in his final weeks.

During it all, Neil Baxter's name came up twice more without Rachel prompting it. The woman on the ninth floor had mentioned him, describing him as aggressive. She said that on one occasion, he'd cornered her in the elevator to ask if she thought Irene Baxter was "all there." He was referred to once again when speaking to the retired judge, who said flatly that Baxter had no business pressuring a woman of Irene's age, and that someone ought to say so to his face.

Rachel noted the name each time. The pattern of it was clear enough — he was generating friction in the building. People had not only noticed, but they had been bothered by it. But friction wasn't connection, and they both knew that. Nothing in what anyone had told them placed Baxter near any of the three victims or gave him a reason to be.

When they went by apartment 6-A to speak to Irene Baxter, it appeared that no one was home. They knocked several times and even called out, but she wasn’t there. They then tried the same in Apartment 2-C, where Neil Baxter lived, but he wasn’t home, either.

By 2:30, they were back in the lobby. The light through the front windows had brightened and changed angles. Rachel stood at the window for a moment, going back over her notes.

"Baxter's name keeps coming up," Novak said.

"For the wrong reasons, though. He's annoying people. That's not the same thing."

"Not yet."

"Not yet," she agreed. "But his aunt is in 6-A and she's in her seventies, and she's being pressured to leave. There’s at least some relevance there.”

Novak looked down at his phone. "Yeah, maybe. But until we can speak to Irene or Neil Baxter, I want to know who's looked at the security footage from this building and what they actually found. Purcell mentioned it in her notes but didn't go into specifics." He was already pulling up the number. "I'll call her."

"Good." Rachel glanced down the hallway toward Hale's office. “You do that and I’ll start talking to the other employees.”

The door to Hale’s office was fully closed now, which was a change from the morning. She thought about the building's layout — ten floors, forty-two units, a basement, a freight entrance somewhere in the back, staff who moved through it daily without anyone paying particular attention to them. She wanted to know who else moved through it. She wanted to know the building's circulatory system, the parts of it that kept functioning invisibly while the residents went about their lives.

And she intended to find any secrets that might be hidden away in those hidden places.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Rachel’s first step allowed her to head outside for a bit, to get away from what was starting to feel like a fairly confined and claustrophobic environment, no matter how pretty. She paced outside the building for a bit, reaching out to the two part-time maintenance workers after getting their names from Hale.

Ron Castellano and Wayne Hudson both worked part-time. In fact, Wayne only worked about three hours a week and from what she gathered, it was almost like a pity-hire, as Wayne was a retired veteran who had lost his hearing in a mine accident in Afghanistan in the 90s. Both men worked staggered schedules that rarely put them in the building at the same time. Castellano came in Tuesdays and Thursdays for HVAC upkeep and maintenance and light repairs. Wayne Hudson handled weekend landscaping and the occasional touch-up paint job. Neither had a key beyond the utility closets on their assigned floors.

They were both helpful enough when she spoke to them. Castellano was on a job site in Chesterfield and sounded more baffled than defensive. He’d readily rattled off his hours and made sure to let her know that he’d be happy to answer any other questions if they came up. Hudson was equally cooperative but even less useful. He hadn’t worked on the Hargrove grounds in almost two weeks and apologized that he couldn’t talk long because he was about to go into a doctor’s appointment to try to get something stronger for the arthritis in his left wrist. She knew this because Wayne Hudson was the sort of aging man who insisted on telling a story about everything, apparently.