The scene was guarded by yellow tape and blue uniforms. A skinny cop with a bad facial condition pointed me and Butch to a dark staircase at the end of a narrow hallway.
Down there, he said. But be careful. They’re dusting for prints.
Okay, we said.
The staircase was dimly lit by small orange bulbs. We went down slowly. At the bottom they’d set up high-powered floodlights. Every dust ball and dead cockroach was starkly lit, outlined by a harsh shadow.
Careful, shouted one of the CID guys.
I looked down. I’d almost stepped on an evidence kit.
Sorry, I said.
Butch grabbed my elbow.
Just follow me, he said.
Butch conferred a moment with the guy who looked to be in charge. Nodded his head a few times. Beckoned to me. Led me to the farthest reaches of the basement space. Past lines of storage spaces. Each was about four feet wide. Made of ancient spruce laths floor to ceiling, lashed together with chicken wire. The cubicles were endlessly deep in broken tricycles, rusting roller skates, old high chairs. The doors were held shut by a potpourri of dime-store locks. They looked just about secure enough to keep out a paraplegic rabbit.
Perpendicular to the end of the row was a high tin-covered door. I recognized it right away. The inside image of the door in the alley.
I felt sick. I’d never gotten around to checking where it led. Had I only followed through with my intuition, then…what? I might have found a corpse? Well, maybe I shouldn’t feel so bad. Maybe if I had, FitzGibbon would have been spared the ignominy of throwing himself out of a thirty-third-story window – or being pushed – the thought reminded me that we didn’t have all the answers yet.
Would that have been a contribution to the collective welfare?
I thought not.
So maybe it was okay that I was such a solipsistic fool.
Or maybe not. Time would tell.
In the meantime, Butch led me forward. Took a left at the metal door. We ducked down. Peered into the crawl space. The one in which, until a moment earlier, the rotting remains of the good Veronica FitzGibbon had reposed.
It was dark.
It was ordinary.
In the way that extraordinary places often are.