Read Online Unknown Means by Elizabeth Becka - Free Book Online Page B

to hold back. Instead she turned her face to the ascending steps. “Okay. Onward and upward.”
    “You’re going farther?”
    “I need to see all of it. There’s only five more floors, right?”
    The stairwell ended at a door, heavy with a bank-vault-quality dead bolt. Gerard pulled a set of keys from a deep pocket, and they emerged onto the roof.
    There are worse places to be than fifteen floors up on a temper-ate day. They had even hit a dry-weather moment, a lucky break during a Cleveland spring. Water pooled across the asphalt expanse.
    In the distance, through a short forest of air vents and other duct-work, the hazy blue lake spread into nothingness. Traffic below melded into a low hum, and the Terminal Tower gleamed in the distance, stolidly holding its own against the upstart BP and Marriott structures. She took a deep breath, tasting the rain, lake water, fish and oil scents in the air, then headed for the edge. Gingerly. Heights could be scary, but she loved the view.
    A large doorless structure sat in the center of the roof, separate from the stairway booth. “What’s that?”
    “Elevator machine room,” Gerard said.
    A wall ran around the perimeter of the roof, but it stood only

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    calf-high, not high enough to prevent anyone from falling—no doubt why they kept the door securely locked. She looked down on the dizzying panorama of freighters along the Cuyahoga riverbank for a few minutes, then got back to work. The cops, she knew, had been up here as well, but she wanted to see for herself. Crisscrossing the roof garnered no clues save for a Snickers wrapper and an empty Marlboro box, both of which she collected. The few cigarette butts present looked as if they’d been there since the turn of the millennium. The next roof over belonged to a warehouse; the two buildings were the same height but separated by an alley. The killer could have moved from one to the other if he were an Olympic long-jump medal holder, and extremely brave. On the other side ran the full expanse of St. Clair Avenue.
    Her Nextel began to speak. “Where are you? Are you there?”
    She pulled it off her belt, cursing Medical Examiner Stone for having thrust the modern convenience on his staff. “I’m here.”
    “Where have you been?” Tony complained. “I’ve been calling.”
    “Inside a concrete stairwell.”
    “Where are you now?”
    “On a roof, fifteen stories up.”
    “Don’t fall off.”
    “Good thing you said something, I never would have thought of that. What’s up?”
    “Do we have more proteinase K?”
    “I don’t know. What are you doing?”
    “I’m doing the DNA analysis.” The electronic transmission couldn’t remove the stiffness from his voice. “What do you think I’m doing? Since you’re too damn busy, of course. And where’s the positive control? The 9477A?”
    She told him what she could and hung up with a sigh. The most high-profile cases since last fall, and Tony had to do the DNA. No wonder he sounded harried. She felt pretty harried herself.
    “Are you done?” Gerard called after ten minutes. He hadn’t

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    moved from just outside the door. Perhaps he didn’t care for heights or great views.
    “No. Can we go in there?” She pointed at the boxy room.
    He shrugged, turned, and held the roof door for her. She followed him down half a flight of concrete steps, across the landing, and up to a door labeled “Machine Room—Authorized Personnel Only.” He opened the door with a key. The well-lit, roomy area held an elevator, several large machines, and one man. A flight of stairs led to a sort of loft, where a huge, complicated piece of what looked like hundred-year-old iron with a wheel on one side jerked into motion as she watched. She jumped a foot.
    “Jack, this woman’s from the police,” Gerard said.
    “I didn’t do it,” the other man said and laughed, holding out his wrists as if held by invisible handcuffs.
    Evelyn