Blindsight

“Did he say they were occurring at the moment he was calling?” Laurie asked. “Or did he say they had happened sometime in the past.”

“I think he said they were happening right then,” Scott said.

“Did you notice two men leaving the building during the night?” Laurie asked. “Two men you’d never seen before?”

“That I couldn’t say,” Scott said. “People come and go all night. To be honest, I don’t pay much attention to people leaving. It’s the ones who are arriving I’m most concerned about.”

Laurie thanked Scott and apologized for disturbing him. Then, turning to Carl, she asked if she could speak to the doorman who’d been on duty earlier in the evening.

“Absolutely,” Carl said. “That would have been Clark Davenport.” Again Carl dialed the number, then handed Laurie the phone.

Laurie went through the same explanation when Clark picked up.

“Did you see Mr. George VanDeusen come into his apartment last night?” Laurie asked after the introductions.

“Yes,” Clark said. “He came in around ten with his girlfriend.”

“Was he behaving normally?” Laurie asked.

“Normal for a Saturday night,” Clark said. “He was a little tipsy. His girlfriend had to give him a little support. But they seemed to be having a good time, if that’s what you mean.”

“Were they alone?” Laurie asked.

“Yup,” Clark said. “Their guests didn’t come in for about half an hour.”

“They had a party?” Laurie asked with surprise.

“I wouldn’t call it a party,” Clark said. “Just two men. A tall guy and a shorter one.”

“Can you remember what these men looked like?” Laurie asked.

Clark had to think about it. “The tall one had bad skin, like he’d had acne as a kid.”

“Did they give their names?” Laurie asked. She could feel her pulse quicken.

“Yeah, of course they gave their names,” Clark said. “How else was I to call up and ask Mr. VanDeusen if they were expected? Otherwise I wouldn’t have let them in.”

“What were the names?” Laurie asked. She’d taken out a pen and a piece of paper.

“I don’t remember,” Clark said. “On a Saturday night I have a hundred people coming in.”

Laurie was disappointed to be so tantalizingly close to a real breakthrough. Although she wasn’t able to get the names, this was progress. Yet again two men were spotted at the scene of the OD shortly before the deaths occurred.

“Did you see these men come out again?” Laurie asked.

“Nope,” Clark said. “Of course, I went off duty not too long after they arrived.”

Laurie thanked Clark before hanging up. She also thanked Carl profusely for all his help before she left the building.

Even though it was ugly and quite cold, Laurie decided to huddle under her umbrella and walk for a bit before catching a cab home. She wanted to mill over what she had learned and what it might mean for the case as a whole.

By far the most significant discovery was the surfacing of these two mystery men. Laurie wondered if the pair was involved in the drug trade. She wondered if this revelation would be enough to get the police narcotics squad interested. She began to hope Lou might feel differently now that more similarities between the cases were falling into place.

Laurie wished she could speak to the tenant who complained of noise. What did he hear and when did he hear it? When it began to rain in earnest, Laurie hailed a cab and headed for home. Over a salad and some hot tea, she got out all the material she had concerning her series and made a new sheet listing the cases in order. She started two columns beside the column of names: “Found by”; “Two Men at Scene?”

She filled in what answers she had. The rest of the afternoon she devoted to filling in the blanks. It meant a lot of legwork, but Laurie knew she had to be thorough if she was ever going to get anyone to believe in her theory.

By late afternoon, Laurie was convinced her efforts had been worthwhile. In each of the scenes the bodies had been discovered by a doorman or superintendent investigating after a neighboring tenant’s complaint of strange noises coming from the deceased’s apartment. With the information on her sheet nearly complete, Laurie headed home convinced more than ever that there was something sinister afoot. There were too many coincidences. Now if only she could persuade someone in a position to do something about it.

By the time she got home, it was dark. She wasn’t sure what her next move should be. Out of curiosity, Laurie opened the Sunday Times to see if the media had picked up the story of the banker and the Columbia coed who’d OD’d. She found a brief mention of the deaths in the depths of the second section. The article made the deaths sound like just another couple of overdoses and made no mention of other demographically similar occurrences in the recent past. Another day, another opportunity to alert the public lost.

Laurie decided to try Lou’s home number. She wasn’t sure she had enough to convince him of anything, but she was eager to give him an update. She got Lou’s answering machine but decided against leaving a message.