“To look the scene over with an eye toward the forensics side of things.” When she watched Pawlowski roll her eyes, Ava added: “Are you telling me you actually paid close attention to the details of it all? That you weren’t just a little hurried and scared because of where we were?”
Pawlowski shook her head at first, but Ava also saw her thinking, putting the pieces together. “Is this your way of showing off?”
“Showing off? How’s that?”
“Making sure you analyze each and every inch of the case, making it seem like you’rethatdedicated to the job?”
“No, this is medoingmy job—and feeling a little off my game because, honestly, we should have been looking the place over that closely from the start.”
“Alfred Perkins killed himself,” Pawlowski said. “It’s a fairly simple case.”
“Give me the rest of the day to look,” Ava said.
“Oh, we can take as long as you want. I’d much rather be out on the streets looking into a case than sitting back at the precinct and pretending not to notice the other officers looking at me like I’m a steak.”
Well, at least we havesomecommon ground,Ava thought.
“I do have to ask you one thing before we go back over there, though,” Pawlowski said.
“And what’s that?”
She grinned slightly, the first true sign of happiness Ava had seen from her new partner. “Youdoremember all those stairs, right?”
Ava smiled back, but her legs already seemed to seize up a bit in protest.
***
Remarkably, the climb back up the stairs the second time wasn’t quite as bad. Ava found herself out of breath when they reached the top and her knees were aching, but that was about it. When they made it to the top, Ava made a point to find the supervisor they’d spoken with before. He was tinged with dust, sweating, and clearly irritated to be interrupted again but he took the time to speak with them.
“What can I do this time?” he asked. Behind him, a crew of seven men were working to stabilize a wall. Ava was again taken aback by the sheer bravery it must take to work so physically at such a height.
“It’s a lot more than last time, that’s for sure,” Ava said. “But I’d like to give the entire open space a good look-over. And if at all possible, I’d like to ask that you and your crew not move around much.”
“Are you serious?” he asked, inflecting some bass into his voice.
“I am. And if you cooperate, it won’t take very long at all.”
He looked back to his crew and then to Ava and Pawlowski. He removed his construction hat and glared at both of them. “Twenty minutes. That’s all I’ll give you. We’ve got a schedule we need to keep up with.”
“Thank you,” she said. His eagerness to keep working made her wonder just how stressed and rushed the construction companies on these taller buildings were in order to win the Race to the Sky.
She then looked over to the side of the building that Alfred Perkins had fallen from. It was partially built, with about a quarter of the wall missing, revealing the struts and metal foundations. She peered up and though her view was broken by a series of metal rods and temporary ceiling placements, she imagined the spire up there, pointing to the sky and standing firm to make the building the tallest in the city—for the time being.
“You’re not great at making friends, are you?” Pawlowski asked as they slowly walked in that direction.
“I’m not interested in making friends,” Ava said.
“Well, that sure explains a lot.”
Ava had no idea if Pawlowski legitimately had something against her (other than the lame excuses she’d trotted out earlier) or if she just enjoyed getting under people’s skin—but the woman was about to get on her last nerve. To avoid losing her cool, Ava focused on the floor ahead of them…the floor, the beams, the rods, the rivets, and the vast expanse of open sky in front of them.
They approached the area slowly, coming to a stop less than two feet away from the open space within the wall. While there were two large metal beams running horizontally across to offer support to the walls that would eventually go up to close off this side of the building, it was still terrifying to eventhinkabout looking down.
“Well, here’s one thing to consider,” Pawlowski said as she inched slightly closer to the space where the floor ended and the open air began. “There’s no way he jumped from here. If he did, he would have probably hit his head on one of those beams.”
Ava noticed this, too. She didn’t dare get any closer to the edge, but she did note that it wouldn’t take much effort to get out onto one of those beams. She’d seen the pictures in the papers of the construction crews up in the air, balancing on these things as if it were nothing. In fact, if she were to take one more step along the floor and then one step out across that endless, open space, her foot would land on the beam rather easily.
After that, though, there was only her balance. One quick, sudden movement or a violent gust of wind, and she’d fall just as Alfred Perkins had. The two beams were about ten feet apart; one ran almost perfectly symmetrical to the floor while the other touched what would eventually serve as the ceiling.