as much as I do.
3 | PETE DECKER’S APARTMENT
P ete Decker’s apartment is on the fourth floor of a seedy building that Caroline knows only because it’s across the street from the coffee shop where she and some of the other detectives used to go in the mornings for tea. It is a squat, squalid building at the end of downtown, an old railroad hotel remodeled into flop apartments that house more than their share of criminals and addicts, people in the throes of recovery and teen pregnancy and AIDS, the chronically troubled and luckless. She parks in front of the building and opens the door, climbs the stairs three levels and finds herself in a dark, dank hallway, lit by a single bulb. There are six doors on the fourth floor, profanities scratched into the wood. She reads the graffiti and finds that Tina gives good head, that Joe B. is a motherfucker. None of the doors has a number or a letter. Caroline looks down at her notebook. Pete Decker lives in 4B. It could be any of the six. She checks her watch. Not quite 7:00 A.M . She doesn’t have to worry about Pete—if he’s even here—skipping out in the morning. As a group, criminals are not early risers.
She leaves the building, happy for the fresh air, crosses three lanes of theoretical traffic, and opens a door into the warm smell of her old coffee shop. She stopped coming in after the barrista—a young bundle of stomach muscles and dreadlocks everyone calls Goose—asked her out one morning.
She walks across the dark floor and smiles at two of the coffee shop regulars, a youngish father and his round, blond, agreeable son, who is torturing a cinnamon roll for information.
“Hey,” says the father, who hasn’t bothered to learn her name, as she hasn’t bothered to learn his; the beauty of coffee shop culture is its sustained surface cordiality, like an office without that irritating work.
“Hey,” she says back.
“Haven’t seen you here in a while.”
“No,” she says, and continues to the counter. Luckily, Goose isn’t working; the pierced girl behind the counter gives her a warm smile.
“Can I get a twenty-ounce chai tea?” Caroline asks.
“Certainly,” the pierced girl says, and the snappiness of this exchange, this entire morning, makes her feel as if something has changed. This is what her life felt like before—normal exchanges with people one step removed from strangers: driving, walking, talking, sitting in a dark coffee shop and indulging in a cup of tea.
She picks out a day-old pastry, pays, and sits at the window, watching Pete Decker’s apartment building. No one comes or goes, and she thinks maybe she’s missed something—misread his record and the down-and-out address. Ah, but it’s early for heavy drug traffic anyway. She’s a little groggy, having stayed up all night while Clark the Loon worked on his opus. The tea warms her throat.
She watches the fourth-floor windows, but no lights come on. Just then a car, an old beat-up Honda Civic, pulls up to the curb in front of the building. Caroline grabs her tea and stands.
“See you,” says the father as he wipes frosting from his boy’s mouth.
“Okay,” says Caroline, and she pulls on her gloves and leaves the coffee shop. She jogs across the street just as a young woman steps out of the car. From first glance Caroline sees that the woman is a meth addict, one of those forty-year-old twenty-year-olds that the drug produces, eyes red and deep-socketed, skin sallow and puckered.
The girl sees her coming and her fried nerves go off scattershot; her arm cocks and her lip twitches. “What? What?”
“You live here?” Caroline is friendly, firm, and holds out her badge. “In this building?”
“I didn’t do nothing.”
“I’m sure you didn’t. It’s okay. I need to talk to your neighbor.”
“Who?”
“Pete.”
The girl answers reflexively. “Don’t know him.”
“Sure you do,” Caroline says. “Look, I just need to see if he’s okay. Have you
3 | PETE DECKER’S APARTMENT
P ete Decker’s apartment is on the fourth floor of a seedy building that Caroline knows only because it’s across the street from the coffee shop where she and some of the other detectives used to go in the mornings for tea. It is a squat, squalid building at the end of downtown, an old railroad hotel remodeled into flop apartments that house more than their share of criminals and addicts, people in the throes of recovery and teen pregnancy and AIDS, the chronically troubled and luckless. She parks in front of the building and opens the door, climbs the stairs three levels and finds herself in a dark, dank hallway, lit by a single bulb. There are six doors on the fourth floor, profanities scratched into the wood. She reads the graffiti and finds that Tina gives good head, that Joe B. is a motherfucker. None of the doors has a number or a letter. Caroline looks down at her notebook. Pete Decker lives in 4B. It could be any of the six. She checks her watch. Not quite 7:00 A.M . She doesn’t have to worry about Pete—if he’s even here—skipping out in the morning. As a group, criminals are not early risers.
She leaves the building, happy for the fresh air, crosses three lanes of theoretical traffic, and opens a door into the warm smell of her old coffee shop. She stopped coming in after the barrista—a young bundle of stomach muscles and dreadlocks everyone calls Goose—asked her out one morning.
She walks across the dark floor and smiles at two of the coffee shop regulars, a youngish father and his round, blond, agreeable son, who is torturing a cinnamon roll for information.
“Hey,” says the father, who hasn’t bothered to learn her name, as she hasn’t bothered to learn his; the beauty of coffee shop culture is its sustained surface cordiality, like an office without that irritating work.
“Hey,” she says back.
“Haven’t seen you here in a while.”
“No,” she says, and continues to the counter. Luckily, Goose isn’t working; the pierced girl behind the counter gives her a warm smile.
“Can I get a twenty-ounce chai tea?” Caroline asks.
“Certainly,” the pierced girl says, and the snappiness of this exchange, this entire morning, makes her feel as if something has changed. This is what her life felt like before—normal exchanges with people one step removed from strangers: driving, walking, talking, sitting in a dark coffee shop and indulging in a cup of tea.
She picks out a day-old pastry, pays, and sits at the window, watching Pete Decker’s apartment building. No one comes or goes, and she thinks maybe she’s missed something—misread his record and the down-and-out address. Ah, but it’s early for heavy drug traffic anyway. She’s a little groggy, having stayed up all night while Clark the Loon worked on his opus. The tea warms her throat.
She watches the fourth-floor windows, but no lights come on. Just then a car, an old beat-up Honda Civic, pulls up to the curb in front of the building. Caroline grabs her tea and stands.
“See you,” says the father as he wipes frosting from his boy’s mouth.
“Okay,” says Caroline, and she pulls on her gloves and leaves the coffee shop. She jogs across the street just as a young woman steps out of the car. From first glance Caroline sees that the woman is a meth addict, one of those forty-year-old twenty-year-olds that the drug produces, eyes red and deep-socketed, skin sallow and puckered.
The girl sees her coming and her fried nerves go off scattershot; her arm cocks and her lip twitches. “What? What?”
“You live here?” Caroline is friendly, firm, and holds out her badge. “In this building?”
“I didn’t do nothing.”
“I’m sure you didn’t. It’s okay. I need to talk to your neighbor.”
“Who?”
“Pete.”
The girl answers reflexively. “Don’t know him.”
“Sure you do,” Caroline says. “Look, I just need to see if he’s okay. Have you
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