Page 31 of Girl, Accused

Outside, Granville had transformed from quaint college town to something ominous. Christmas lights hung in storefront windows. Holiday shoppers hurried along sidewalks with heads down, instinctively sensing the darkness that had taken up residence in their community. Evil had a way of changing atmospheric pressure. People felt it without knowing it.

Ripley floored the gas through an empty back road. She took a hard right onto West Hollows Way. A sign proclaimed HOLLOWS GROVE APARTMENTS in faded letters, and someone had spray-painted an Lon the end of GROVE. The place was three stories of depressed brick with fire escapes etched against the outside like metal scars. Nothing about it suggested holy missions or righteous wrath. Just the architectural equivalent of a shrug.

Ripley pulled into the parking lot. ‘West Grovel Apartments. Looks like a good place to get an STD.’

‘Then let’s try our luck.’

Ella's stomach knotted with anticipation. This part – the approach, the unknown – always concentrated her senses to painful acuity.Sounds sharpened. Colors intensified. Even the stale air in the car became textured.

Ripley said, 'Remember, I'm unarmed, so you've got to do the dirty work.'

‘Try and stop me.’

They were out of the car and at the entrance to the building. All security measures seemed to have evacuated the building long ago because the front door was half-open and the electronic lock mechanism was dangling by exposed wires.

‘Someone did our B and E for us.’ Ripley pushed the door with her elbow. It screeched inward, announcing their arrival to anyone with functioning eardrums. ‘After you.’

The lobby was an olfactory assault. Ella scanned for security cameras and spotted one aimed at the bank of mailboxes beside her. A sign on the elevator declared it was temporarily out of order, but Ella guessed it was the permanent kind of temporary. A bulletin board nearby advertised community college classes, cash-for-gold schemes, a revival tent show and a whole host of other crap. Ella took a mental snapshot of it.

‘Stairs it is,’ she said.

They climbed up to the third floor. Graffiti marked their ascent, and the third-floor landing featured a masterpiece of profanity spray-painted in red across the fire exit map. Apartment 332 waited at the end of a hallway. The paint around the doorframe had bubbled and peeled, but a fresh brass cross hung at eye level. Below it, someone had taped a printed card: WELCOME TO THE HOUSE OF THE LORD.

A scent wafted from beneath Caldwell's door. It wasn’t the expected funk of bachelor living, but something much sweeter. Incense maybe, or devotional candles. The odor of Sunday school.

‘You smell that?’

'Yeah,' said Ripley. She reached for the handle, and it turned with ease. The door clicked open, but before she could push through, Ella grabbed her partner's wrist.

‘Are you nuts?’

‘What? The door’s open.’

‘If you go in first, you’re just trespassing. You don’t have that federal fairy dust on your badge. Hell, you don’t even have a badge.’

‘Good point.’ Ripley moved back and gestured for Ella to take the lead. ‘My hero.’

Ella drewher weapon and nudged the door with her foot. ‘Mr. Caldwell? FBI.’

The apartment swallowed her voice. She stepped inside with her Glock leading the way and found herself in what could have been a monastery's waiting room. Everything gleamed. No dust, no clutter.

‘Oddly clean,’ Ripley said. ‘Don’t trust anyone who has a clean house near the end of the week.’

The living room connected to an equally immaculate kitchen. Dishes dried in perfect formation on a rack. Appliances stood at attention like soldiers awaiting inspection. A Bible lay open on the counter beside three candles.

But there was no sign of Jeremy Caldwell.

‘Clear,’ Ella called, though Ripley had already started exploring the space with the comfortable disregard of someone who'd done this a thousand times before. ‘Got anything?’

‘Empty, but he’s been here recently. There’s a cup of tea in here, and it hasn’t got that weird film on the surface.’

‘Yeah, these candles have only just been put out. We must have missed him by a few minutes.’

Ripley emerged from her search. ‘No bodies in the bedroom, alive or dead.’

Ella moved to the bathroom. Same clinical cleanliness as the living room and kitchen. White towels folded into perfect thirds. Single toothbrush standing at attention in a glass holder. One razor. One bar of unscented soap. The medicine cabinet contained precisely one bottle of each basic necessity; aspirin, antacid, cough syrup. And a small orange prescription bottle with the label partly torn off. She noted the remaining letters: SPER. Risperdal, maybe? It was an antipsychotic, probably prescribed by Dr. Summers.

‘Anything?’ Ripley called from the living room.

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