Read Online Unknown Means by Elizabeth Becka - Free Book Online

cars and the echoes of passing traffic. Justin led her to an unlabeled metal door in the southeast corner of the garage. She had left it covered in black fingerprint powder the night before.
    A trim man with a graying beard and a uniform crouched in the doorway, backlit by the lights of his cluttered office. He tossed a blackened paper towel into a garbage can and tore another off the roll, then looked up at her. “I have you to thank for this, don’t I?”
    “Sorry.” Don’t apologize, she scolded herself. You were doing your job.
    “He couldn’t have gotten in here, anyway,” the maintenance man insisted. “I lock it when I leave. Did you find anything on it?”
    “No.”
    He straightened, then leaned over a set of three streaks, darker in color than the background. “What about these?”
    “Those are smudges. They could have been left there by fingers, but they’re not distinct enough to be of any use to us. The paint has oxidized—it’s exposed to at least some of the elements—so it’s not a

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    very good surface for prints.” Most of the powder had wiped away, but some had worked its way into the porous paint. The door would have to be repainted if he wanted it to be clean.
    “Then why did you have to stain my entire door if there was no chance of finding a fingerprint?”
    “There’s always a chance.”
    He rolled his eyes, then cleaned the smudges as best he could.
    “Have you caught the guy who killed Mrs. Markham? Or grabbed that other girl?”
    “Not yet.”
    “Nothing like that has ever happened here before—at least that I know of, and I’ve been here seven years. You think the same guy attacked that girl out there last night?”
    “We’re not sure yet.”
    He threw away the paper towel and replaced the bottle of cleaner next to similar items. “Well, what do you know?”
    “We’re investigating,” she said through gritted teeth. “And I need your help. I’m collecting oils.”
    He blinked, his exasperation temporarily turning to confusion, and gestured at his overflowing shelves. “Well, I have WD-40—”
    “Not right out of the bottles, because any contaminants—dirt or debris from the building—could be distinctive as well.”
    The exasperation returned. “Then what?”
    “I need to collect from places around the building, particularly entry and exit points. Lock mechanisms, hinges, that sort of thing.
    Could you show me around?”
    “I got a choice?”
    “No,” she lied.
    “Might as well. Not going to get any work done today anyway with you guys swarming around like mosquitoes.”
    He didn’t seem like the type to volunteer information, so she made her questions specific. “I know there’s a side door to the alley at the end of the hallway behind Frank’s office. Aside from that

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    door, the lobby door, and the door to the garage here, are there any other doors into or out of the building?”
    “Nope.”
    “Is there a freight elevator?”
    “Yeah, at the other end of the building.” He crossed his arms, gave another puffing sigh. “We use it to deliver large items like furniture. It opens into the stairwell at each floor.”
    “And there’s only the one stairwell.”
    “Yep.”
    “Can I see that, please?”
    “Sure.” He locked his door behind them, and they entered the lobby, where Justin had returned to his post. “But he couldn’t have gotten into the Markhams’ apartment that way. It would have set off the indicator light in the building manager’s office. I already showed the cops that, but I don’t know if they understood it.”
    “What if Frank had gone to lunch when it lit up?”
    “Doesn’t matter. The light stays on until you reset it.” He paused before a steel door labeled “Fire Use Only,” near the exterior door leading to the alley. A flight of small but clean stairs stretched upward, seemingly without end. The freight elevator doors sat to her right. “You really want