Hope to Die

"Or go to a concert," I said.

"Or anything. This is where it happened, and you can still smell it, can't you? Even if it's not as bad as Jorge thinks it is. And about all you can do is smell it, because there's not a hell of a lot to see. He cleaned up. Well, he had to, and there was no reason not to, once we cut the seals off the place. Forensics was done and we had the evidence bagged and the crime scene photos taken, and the case was essentially closed from the minute it was open, so why worry about preserving the integrity of the scene?"

He led me to the front room, then back through the kitchen where we'd entered to a third room at the rear. "Furniture's gone," he said. "Wasn't much to begin with, and God knows it wasn't worth keeping. Couple of Salvation Army chairs in the living room, and a TV sitting on top of a milk case. Card table in the kitchen, another chair or two. This here was the bedroom, but he didn't have a bed in it, just a foam mattress on the floor with a sheet over it. Was there a chest of drawers? I can't even remember. One thing I know there was, there was another TV, but it was right on the floor, so you could watch it from the bed without getting a crick in your neck."

"They thought of everything," I said.

"Including the importance of getting plenty of fresh air while you slept, because the mattress was over there by the window. The one mutt, Ivanko, was right about where you're standing, sprawled more or less facedown, half on and half off the mattress. You know what, we shoulda met at the station house and I could show you the photos, give you a better picture than you can get pacing around an empty apartment. Assuming they're still around the house, and assuming I could find 'em."

I told him Schering had shown me a set.

"So you just wanted to look around, get the feel of the place." He gri

"And talk to someone who was on the scene."

He nodded. "Well, if you saw the photos, you pretty much got it all. Shooter was in the corner opposite the bed, right there, in his shorts, which he messed up after he shot himself, which did nothing for the smell, believe me. I don't know why he took his shirt and pants off before he shot himself, or why he stopped when he got to his underwear, unless it was a sudden attack of modesty. His jeans were on the floor next to the television set, right about there, and his shirt, I don't remember where his shirt was. In here, anyway, and it had to be on the floor, because that's all there was."

"And he was seated in the corner?"

"Well, slumped there," he said. "He fell forward after he shot himself, so he wound up folded at the waist, more or less. So the first thing you saw was the exit wound in the back of his head." He walked over and pointed to a darkened area at the juncture of the walls, a couple of feet from the floor. There was a white circle in the middle, where a hole had been spackled. "Jorge scrubbed it down," he said, "and plugged up where they dug the bullet out, but he didn't get all of it. You might if the surface was a good semi-glossy, but with flat wall paint it soaks in. Doesn't matter, the paint'll cover it, even the cheap shit that's all landlords'll pay for. But you can see how it went down."

"Yes."

"First thing I thought, well, care to take a guess?"

"Lovers' quarrel."

"Got it in one. Two males, one mattress, and the one who did the shooting's in his shorts and nothing else. He killed his lover, realized what he'd done, and pretended his gun was a dick. Then the next thing I saw was an empty pillowcase, and then another pillowcase that wasn't empty, and I went back into the kitchen and there was a little walnut chest on the card table, with everything inside it including oyster forks. You don't get too many sterling silver oyster forks on Coney Island Avenue."

"Did you guess right off where it came from?"

He nodded. "All the press the case had, all the bulletins coming out of One Police Plaza, that was the first thing came into my mind. My partner, too, and I don't know which of us said it first. It gets your blood going, something like that. You can probably imagine."

"Sure."

"But there's a letdown comes about a minute later, because where are you go

"The letter in your file's just as good whether you did anything or not," I said, "and it'll offset all the times you earned a commendation and didn't get one."

"You just said a true fact," he said. "It all evens out."

We talked some more as I walked around the apartment, getting the feel of the place, trying to imagine how it had all played out. Two men walk in the door, laden down with what they've stolen. They've just raped a woman, killed her and her husband, and they feel- how do they feel? How could I possibly guess how they felt?

They walk in, and moments later (or hours later, I didn't know the time frame here) one of them shoots the other. Then strips to his undershorts (unless he stripped first, before he shot his partner) and sits in the corner and eats his gun. Or, in Iverson's memorable imagery, fellates it.

I asked if they'd both lived here.

"Place was Bierman's," he said. "Signed a lease back in April, and, far as any of the neighbors knew, he lived here by himself. Clothes in the closet were his. Just one pillow on the mattress, and even if two people share a bed, wouldn't each one have his own pillow?"

"You'd think so."

"Maybe he brought Ivanko back so they could stash the loot, divvy it up, whatever they were going to do." He shrugged. "Maybe Bierman was queer for him, made a move and Ivanko didn't go for it. Bang bang, you're dead, bang again and I'm dead. If one of 'em lived through it we could ask, but they're both dead and we can't."

"You had to kick the door in," I said.

"Once again, if they were alive they could have opened it for us. But yes, we had to kick it in. Not me personally but the two uniforms who got here first. They must have known what they were go

"Was the super here when they got here?"

"Jorge? He was the one who called them. A neighbor complained and he went and called 911."

"He just let us in," I said. "Why couldn't he let the uniforms in?"

"Oh, I wondered where the hell you were going. The door was bolted from the inside."

"And the key wouldn't turn the deadbolt?"

"Not that kind of a bolt," he said. "This had nothing to do with the lock. It was the kind of gizmo you buy in the hardware store and screw onto the back of your door, half of it, and the other half onto the jamb. And you slide the bolt over and lock the door. Here, you can see the holes where the screws were. One more thing for Jorge to spackle before he starts painting, if he even takes the trouble. I saw the bolt itself when I came in, nice shiny brass thing. The door itself was intact, kicking didn't damage it, the inside bolt just pulled loose from where it was attached. Didn't the bolt show in any of the photos Schering showed you?"

"Maybe I didn't have a complete set." I walked around some more, looked out the bedroom window at the lot in back. There were four garbage cans out there, three upright and one on its side, with trash spilling out of it. There was a black Hefty bag alongside it, and it looked to have been gnawed open by a rat. The rat wasn't there to be seen, but I saw what might have been rat shit. The boys from Forensics could have identified it as such, and told me what the rat had for breakfast.