“What about this one?” Ava asked, turning, and pointing to the recent-looking print near the scuff mark. As she looked at it, she noted that it did look similar to the others that were out closer to where the walls were actively being constructed.
“It’s a boot,” he said. “But it’s impossible to tell if it’s one of my guys or not.”
“Is there any way you can keep your men from coming over here for a while? Maybe just like a day or so, until we can get someone up here to take a photograph of that print?”
“That shouldn’t be a problem, so long as you can get it done in the next day or two.”
Ava nodded and scanned the area, making sure they hadn’t missed anything else. The partial print out on the beam was the most interesting, the clue that now had her more convinced than ever that there was something more to this story other than suicide.
“Anything else?” the supervisor asked.
“No, I don’t think so,” Ava said. “Thank you for your help.”
“Of course.”
“We’ll be out of here soon,” Ava said.
He took that as his dismissal and went back to join the rest of his crew out of sight. Ava and Pawlowski both looked back out to the beam, trying to put the pieces together.
“You really think the PD is going to send a photographer up here for these prints?” Pawlowski asked.
“Why wouldn’t they?”
“Because I don’t see the prevailing theory of suicide being changed because two women found part of a print. Sending more resources out here is only going to be further admission that there might be something other than a suicide.”
It was a good point. But at the same time, Ava wondered what exactly had happened to Pawlowski during her time with the department to make her so jaded. What had made her so sure that she’d be disappointed and overlooked at every turn?
“And you know…that print out there might not prove anything. It could be from a week or two again and the definition has faded.”
Again, a good point—but Ava was more inclined to go with the more pressing solution, the one that seemed to make the most sense.
“You really don’t want this to turn out to be a homicide, do you?” Ava asked. “Are you that lazy, Pawlowski? Do you hate the job that much?”
Pawlowski glared at her, a blast of anger shining in her eyes. After locking eyes with Ava for a handful of seconds, she turned away and spoke back over her shoulder.
“We should get out of here,” she said. “These men need to get back to work.”
Ava almost argued further, but didn’t see the point. Instead, she looked back out to that beam and the partial smudge on it. She imagined what it must be like to step out onto that beam at night as the city shone below you, the air and the lights and the sounds all calling you home.
She suppressed a shiver and then followed after Pawlowski.
CHAPTER TEN
When they returned back to the station, Pawlowski took it upon herself to go about her own business. She didn’t speak to Ava a single time, even when they were sitting across from one another at their adjoined desks. Ava watched as Pawlowski busied herself with filing away paperwork and moving around the precinct in search of aimless things to do.
Ava didn’t let this bother her. She understood the stress and expectations placed on a woman in this work environment. But what she didn’t understand was why one woman officer would intentionally try to make it harder on another woman. Thinking it might just be a very strange territorial issue with Pawlowski, Ava ignored it. She had set her mind to proving that Alfred Perkins hadn’t actually killed himself.
After putting in the request for a photographer to visit the site, Ava turned her attention to the list of names they’d found in Perkins’s office. She walked back to the records department to run searches on the names and after an hour and fifteen minutes, came up with nothing. The closest she came was when she researched a man named Peter Smythe. He’d filed a complaint about a vagrant that had assaulted him on the way home from work two years ago. Other than that, the list of names netted nothing.
But she thought she knew someone who might be able to help her with the list. As the idea came to her, the desk across from her was still empty. She thought about hunting Pawlowski down, but the woman had already made it clear: her mind was made up on the matter. And if she was going to insist there was no case here, Ava didn’t see the point in wasting her time trying to convince her otherwise until there was more proof.
So, without running the idea by Captain Miller or searching the building for Pawlowski, Ava left the precinct and caught a cab back to 40 Wall Street. She hated that a good portion of her day had been spent backtracking, visiting places she’d already visited, but sometimes a case felt like that—like creating a tight knot of loops rather than a steady line towards a definitive answer.
On the drive over, she couldn’t help but wonder what Frank was up to. It hurt her to know that something was placing a wedge between them. The idea that she may not be able to share the day’s events with him over dinner pained her. She’d love nothing more than to see the look in his eyes when she told him about being at the very top of the Chrysler Building, looking down through an unfinished wall.
She’d known he was bothered by her insistence of hunting down her husband’s killer—a man she now knew to be Jim Spurlock. That alone had created some unspoken tension between them. She just couldn’t help but wonder if this reassignment was going to be the final thing that did them in. She felt that they could make it work—that it may even make their relationship stronger—but she didn’t see the point in fighting it if he had no interest.
Thoughts of Frank preoccupied her to the point of not even realizing she’d arrived at her destination until the cabbie brought the car to a stop. She paid her fare and stepped out in front of the 40 Wall Street building for the second time that day. She skipped by the front desk this time, making her way up to the fourth floor where she once again knocked on Mr. White’s door.