CHAPTER SIX
Laura got out of the car and shaded her eyes, though with the gray winter sky above them it was hardly necessary. Still, she surveyed the whole scene first before stepping forwards. An abandoned warehouse, part of an industrial area that had clearly seen better days. There wasn’t a lot of activity anywhere behind or around them, but in front, local police cars filled the parking lot and blue-uniformed men and women swarmed in and out of the doors.
She checked her watch. It was just after two in the afternoon. Not a whole day’s start, but at least they would be able to get a good amount of work done before needing to get some rest. No one had met them at the airport given the short notice, so Nate had seconded her plan to drive straight to the most recent crime scene and see what they could see.
“Hey,” Laura called out, snagging the first person to go anywhere near to them. “Who’s the commanding officer here?”
The young woman she had chosen gave her a wide-eyed and somewhat startled glance. “That would be Captain Blackford,” she said.
“Where is he?” Laura asked.
The young woman hesitated. Her eyes went to the doors of the warehouse, which was all the information Laura needed.
She’d been a little brusque, probably. But she had a mission in mind, here. Get in, solve it, get out, go home. See Lacey. Pleasantries were something you could spend time on when you didn’t have a ticking clock above your head.
Quite literally, Laura thought, as she walked into the warehouse, ignoring the protests of the young officer that the crime scene was supposed to be closed. Because this was where it had happened: the young woman hung with the clock around her neck. There was no sign of her now, but Laura saw the rope dangling from the roof beams and the busy activity below it.
“Um, ma’am,” the officer protested again, but Laura drew out her badge and showed it to her, barely looking. “Oh. Um. Right. Captain Blackford is over there, by the platform.”
Now Laura did look, to see where the woman was pointing. Up above, there was a rickety-looking metal staircase leading to a gangway. The platform, or so Laura guessed it had to be, was hanging down now, a flat vertical line against the side of the gangway. A couple of uniformed men were standing up there, looking down.
“Thank you,” Nate said, warmly, taking over where Laura’s social graces had apparently failed her. “We’ll go have a chat with him now.”
His words effectively released the young woman from her duty of making sure they got where they needed to, and she rushed away gratefully. Laura didn’t spare her a second glance. She was almost captivated by the platform, the rope. The cruel juxtaposition they made. A story: a fall, then an arrest of that fall.
Death, even if one of them didn’t work. The rope breaking would have caused anyone up there a fall from a great height, enough to damage a body beyond repair.
“After you,” Nate said, seemingly with a note of humor.
Laura glanced at him, and saw he was eyeing the metal staircase with significant distrust. “So gentlemanly of you,” she said, glad they could go back to this: the idle banter. Winding each other up.
She wasn’t afraid of the staircase, given that someone else had already climbed up there. As Nate snorted in response to her comment, she moved towards the stairs with purpose, trying not to wince when the metal step creaked as she put her foot on it.
It was rusted, old, no doubt completely forgotten and out of repair. But it held. She had an eerie feeling, climbing up and feeling it sway underneath her feet. Like she was moving through something other than air. Swimming, maybe. Or floating. Like the ground was no longer a guaranteed concept.
Looking back, she saw that Nate had stayed on the floor below her. He had a slightly green look about him, now.
“You’re doing great,” he called up. “Keep going. I’ll stay down here and take in the forensics situation.”
Laura laughed, shaking her head at him. Nate wasn’t afraid of much, but from time to time, her big, strong, masculine partner did show a little weakness. Fear of heights was one of them, and while she’d seen him push himself when he needed to, going up a rickety ladder like this was apparently a step too far for him. “I’ll fill you in later,” she called down.
The exchange had lifted her spirits a little. The climb, somehow, did too. Like it was a thrill. Taking a risk, doing something that could be dangerous. On the other hand, she had no doubt that the locals would already have assessed the stairs, deemed them fine for people to climb, at least in the service of investigation. If they hadn’t, the local Captain wouldn’t be standing up there so casually.
Laura finally reached the top of the stairs, looking down at the sickening distance to the ground and trying not to imagine what it would be like to smash down onto it. In front of her, the two men she had seen were facing her curiously, no doubt having been unable to avoid hearing her climb up towards them on the clanking, creaking metal frame.
“You must be the FBI,” one of them said in a strong Georgia accent, moving towards her a couple of steps. He was younger than Laura had expected from below, maybe around her own age or a little older. He had a blunt, kind of slab-shaped face, a wide nose and square jaw like he’d been punched so hard once it stuck like that. Dark hair was visible just under his cap; he wore a full Captain’s uniform, making him out undeniably as the man in charge.
“Special Agent Laura Frost,” she said, showing him her badge. “My partner down below is Special Agent Nathaniel Lavoie. You mind filling me in on what you have so far? The briefing notes didn’t give much away.”
The Captain nodded sharply. Behind him, the man who was dressed in a Sergeant’s jacket folded his arms over his chest, listening and waiting. “The victim would have been brought up here by the killer,” the Captain said. “From the first glance, it looks as though there’s no sign of a struggle, so we’re thinking she was unconscious or tightly restrained at that time.”
“Some work, bringing a second person up those stairs,” Laura said, looking back down the way she had come. The way the stairs had swayed with her weight had hardly been encouraging. The killer would have had to climb without holding onto the handrails to steady themselves, hauling another body at the same time. They wouldn’t have needed to be gentle, but it still wouldn’t have been easy.
“Whoever this bastard is, he’s a strong one,” Captain Blackford agreed. “Over here, there’s a kind of mechanism attached to the platform. Looks like he brought the whole kit and caboodle with him. Attached the platform himself, since it wasn’t here before. Rigged up the hinges to fall at a certain trigger, controlled by a timer. Then he must have hung the rope, right there.”
Laura tilted her head up. Another impressive feat. The rope was high up, too high to reach from the gangway itself. He would have had to erect the platform first, and even then…
“Any machinery brought in here over the last weeks?” Laura asked, trying to picture if there was any other way he could have done it.