on a light, it was still dim; the bulbs were only forty watt. But they could see that this was a very small one bedroom unit. A short entry hallway led to the living room. There was a combination dining-room/kitchen area adjoining that, and a door led back to a bedroom and bathroom. The place was unkempt and dreary, and it had only a few cheap pieces of furniture. It looked lonely, and had a flat, lifeless quality about it.
Nordlund, Ramirez and O’Leary were looking for answers to what seemed an unsolvable mystery. If Silas Cool
was
the second fatality of the bus crash, they would never be able to ask him what had happened. All they could do was hope that there were some clues in his drab apartment.
They didn’t have to move far inside before they spotted something that gave them goosebumps. There on the cluttered divider between the entry hall and the dining area were stacks of Metro Transit schedules, far too many for an average bus rider to have kept. They towered more than a foot high, and had begun to tumble down onto the dining room floor. They were for many different bus routes, all over the City of Seattle, and for other cities, too. Here, too, were notes Cool had written to himself, reminders that if he missed a Number 6 bus, he could catch a Number 40 within minutes. It looked as if Silas Cool’s life had revolved around buses.
A man’s wallet lay on the divider, too, with a driver’s license inside made out to Silas Garfield Cool, born on May 14, 1955. That was a familiar date; the suspect at the pool had apparently given his correct birthdate—but with the wrong year, and his apartment manager’s name instead of his own. However, this driver’s license had expired in 1987,
eleven years earlier.
The whole apartment had that lifeless feeling, like a place out of a William Faulkner story. The picture on the license was of a very handsome young man, a man probably in his late twenties. He
looked
like a younger version of the man in the ER, but it was hard to be sure.
They walked through the apartment, aware of their own footsteps, half-holding their breaths against the stale odor. There was a jumble of papers on the dining room table. Among them, O’Leary found a card from an attorney in North Plainfield, New Jersey. On the back, someone had jotted down a man’s name and a Bainbridge Island, Washington, address.
The living room was sparsely furnished, although it was cluttered with papers, clothes, bags and boxes. There was a single, uncomfortable-looking chair with an ottoman in the living room, and two black-and-white television sets. There was a bookcase, but there were no books or magazines, no newspapers—nothing to keep the man who lived in the apartment up with current events. On one of the bookcase shelves, Gene Ramirez located a gun holder for an AMT .38 caliber pistol, a holster for a derringer, and a cigar box that held nine live rounds for a .38 caliber weapon.
The detectives photographed the room and the items of interest with a digital camera, and moved on to the bedroom.
There was no bed; rather, they found a blow-up mattress of the sort that campers sometimes carry on hiking trips. It was leaning against the south wall of the bedroom. A jerry-rigged screen made of a blanket hanging on a wire covered the north bedroom wall. When they moved the air bed and pulled the blanket aside, they saw that the walls were covered with photographs of naked or half-naked women. They looked up at the ceiling and found that it, too, was covered with nude photographs. When the doors were closed, there were more naked women on the other two walls; most of the shots appeared to have been torn from
Penthouse, Playboy,
or similar men’s magazines; they weren’t overtly salacious, but more the kind of thing that a teenage boy might collect.
“When he went to bed,” Nordlund said, “He had his own gallery of women to stare at anywhere he looked.”
“Yeah,” O’Leary said. “He could choose his
Nordlund, Ramirez and O’Leary were looking for answers to what seemed an unsolvable mystery. If Silas Cool
was
the second fatality of the bus crash, they would never be able to ask him what had happened. All they could do was hope that there were some clues in his drab apartment.
They didn’t have to move far inside before they spotted something that gave them goosebumps. There on the cluttered divider between the entry hall and the dining area were stacks of Metro Transit schedules, far too many for an average bus rider to have kept. They towered more than a foot high, and had begun to tumble down onto the dining room floor. They were for many different bus routes, all over the City of Seattle, and for other cities, too. Here, too, were notes Cool had written to himself, reminders that if he missed a Number 6 bus, he could catch a Number 40 within minutes. It looked as if Silas Cool’s life had revolved around buses.
A man’s wallet lay on the divider, too, with a driver’s license inside made out to Silas Garfield Cool, born on May 14, 1955. That was a familiar date; the suspect at the pool had apparently given his correct birthdate—but with the wrong year, and his apartment manager’s name instead of his own. However, this driver’s license had expired in 1987,
eleven years earlier.
The whole apartment had that lifeless feeling, like a place out of a William Faulkner story. The picture on the license was of a very handsome young man, a man probably in his late twenties. He
looked
like a younger version of the man in the ER, but it was hard to be sure.
They walked through the apartment, aware of their own footsteps, half-holding their breaths against the stale odor. There was a jumble of papers on the dining room table. Among them, O’Leary found a card from an attorney in North Plainfield, New Jersey. On the back, someone had jotted down a man’s name and a Bainbridge Island, Washington, address.
The living room was sparsely furnished, although it was cluttered with papers, clothes, bags and boxes. There was a single, uncomfortable-looking chair with an ottoman in the living room, and two black-and-white television sets. There was a bookcase, but there were no books or magazines, no newspapers—nothing to keep the man who lived in the apartment up with current events. On one of the bookcase shelves, Gene Ramirez located a gun holder for an AMT .38 caliber pistol, a holster for a derringer, and a cigar box that held nine live rounds for a .38 caliber weapon.
The detectives photographed the room and the items of interest with a digital camera, and moved on to the bedroom.
There was no bed; rather, they found a blow-up mattress of the sort that campers sometimes carry on hiking trips. It was leaning against the south wall of the bedroom. A jerry-rigged screen made of a blanket hanging on a wire covered the north bedroom wall. When they moved the air bed and pulled the blanket aside, they saw that the walls were covered with photographs of naked or half-naked women. They looked up at the ceiling and found that it, too, was covered with nude photographs. When the doors were closed, there were more naked women on the other two walls; most of the shots appeared to have been torn from
Penthouse, Playboy,
or similar men’s magazines; they weren’t overtly salacious, but more the kind of thing that a teenage boy might collect.
“When he went to bed,” Nordlund said, “He had his own gallery of women to stare at anywhere he looked.”
“Yeah,” O’Leary said. “He could choose his
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