Page 13 of Her Last Doubt

A knock at the door broke their conversation. She stood before Pruitt could get up, and when she opened it, she saw Novak on the other side. He was in the hallway with his jacket collar turned up against the basement chill.

"Hey," he said, looking past her briefly into the apartment. “Sorry to interrupt, but I’m in a bit of a holding pattern with that security footage.”

"We're done here, actually." She turned back to Pruitt, who had risen from the armchair. "Thank you for your time, Mr. Pruitt. If we have more questions, we'll come back."

"Anytime." He appeared to mean it. "I'm usually here or somewhere in the building. I don't go far. If you can’t find me, just ask Hale; he’ll probably know where I am."

She stepped out and pulled the door closed. In the hallway, she and Novak walked back toward the stairwell.

"He says Richmond PD confirmed his alibis for all three murders,” she said, keeping her voice down.

"I believe it. He’s the guy who initially put all of the security footage together for the police, right?”

“Yes. He pulled the footage, gave a detailed account of his whereabouts for each death, offered to walk them through the building's mechanical systems in case any of it was relevant."

“So why do I detect the smallest trace of doubt in your voice?” Novak said.

"Because it all seems almost too helpful. Don’t get me wrong…the man clearly cares about the building and I’d imagine he hates to see it turned into a crime scene any more than Hale does."

They pushed through the staff door and back into the carpeted hallway. The warmth of the upper building settled around them again. The contrast with the basement was more pronounced than Rachel had expected.

"Local PD looked the footage over and found nothing, but I've requested copies of the footage anyway," Novak said. "Purcell says there's nothing useful on it — no one entering or leaving any of the three units at the relevant times, no anomalies in the common areas. But I want to look at it myself."

The elevator arrived and the brass gate slid back. Rachel stepped in. "It is weird, right? I mean, man who's lived in the basement of this building for twenty-two years, who knows every system and every sound it makes, and who reviews the security footage himself and hands over exactly what the police need." She pressed the button for the lobby. "He was also the one who isolated which recordings were relevant. Which means he determined what they saw."

Novak looked at her as the gate closed. "You think he curated it? Maybe edited it?”

"I think he's very comfortable in that building. I think he's been comfortable in it for a long time." The elevator began its slow climb. "And I think a man who packages up security footage before anyone asks him to knows exactly what's on it and what isn't."

"But his alibis were solid.”

"I know."

She watched the floor numbers above the gate, wondering why she still felt a sense of gentle, creeping doubt.

CHAPTER EIGHT

It was Novak’s idea to get out of the Hargrove for a bit—not just to stretch their legs, but to give Hale a break. And because they’d missed lunch, grabbing a bite to eat while going over the notes they’d gathered so far seemed like a good idea.

They decided on a restaurant four blocks from the Hargrove on a side street that ran parallel to Monument Avenue. It was an Indian restaurant that occupied a narrow room with eight tables and a handwritten specials board. It was called Saffron and was identified only by a small sign above the door that a person could easily miss if they weren't looking for it. Novak had found it on his phone while they were still in the elevator.

They ordered samosas and a paneer dish to share. Novak sipped on a Coke while Rachel enjoyed a chai. With their food and drinks at hand, Rachel spread the tenant list across the table between their plates.

Rachel picked up a samosa and looked at the list. Purcell had done thorough work, that was for sure. Each name came with a unit number, floor, approximate age, length of tenancy, and a brief note on whether the resident had been interviewed by local PD. Checkmarks ran down the right-hand column in clusters, with gaps where residents had been unavailable or unresponsive.

"Forty-two units, all occupied," she said. "Thirty-five of them interviewed by Purcell's team.”

“Yeah, it seems that there were a few that have been out of town. There’s a note somewhere that the occupant in 2-D has been in Spain for almost two months. And another note says there were three people who simply refused to open their doors.”

"Three people in a building where three residents have died in six weeks didn't open their doors to the police…"

"Privacy is very important to some people," Novak said.

"So is not dying in your bed." She reached for her chai and added, "Maybe we should try those three ourselves."

Novak made a note on his phone. The samosas were good — crisp and well-spiced — and for a few minutes they ate and read without talking. The lunch crowd had thinned by the time they'd arrived and only two other tables were occupied: a pair of women sharing a large dish near the window and a man eating alone at the back with a paperback propped against his water glass.

Rachel pulled the interview notes up on her phone and went back through them. Most of what the PD had gathered from residents in the immediate aftermath of each death was consistent with what she and Novak had heard that morning. These were people who were shaken and seemed to be completely baffled that that anything criminal could have happened in the Hargrove. The word unthinkable appeared in three separate interview summaries, which she found telling in its own way. Not impossible. Unthinkable.