“And he was teaching here?” Zoe asked, nodding as she followed the story. It was a convincing picture. A man with an ax to grind.
“Yes. And here’s the best part.” Shelley paused, flashing Zoe a smile. “Guess who the other professor was.”
Zoe’s eyes had already picked out the name in the text as she scanned it. “Professor Ralph Henderson. Our second victim.”
“Bingo,” Shelley said, grabbing the papers back into a pile and shoving them into her bag. “I have his home address. Reportedly, he hasn’t been able to get work for the past few months since this happened, so I imagine we will find him there.”
“Then we should go,” Zoe said, heading for the door herself. She did not need to turn around to know that Shelley would be right behind her.
Even if nothing else was panning out the way that she wanted it to, a solved case was a solved case. If this ex-professor was behind it all, it would be disappointing—but there would be a killer taken off the streets before any more lives were lost.
That, Zoe reminded herself as they headed for the parking garage, was what really mattered.
Even so, she couldn’t shake that niggling doubt at the back of her min, that this case wasn’t going to be wrapped up so easily.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Zoe drove as Shelley worked from her laptop, hooked up to a Wi-Fi dongle. It was the most efficient way to both look up their new suspect and reach him as quickly as possible.
Zoe conceded that there was a lot to like about James Wardenford, as far as suspects went. Shelley read seven newspaper clippings to her as they drove: each told the story of a man who was used to respect, to recognition, and to a good reputation. He had lost all of it. Stronger men would have struggled to cope.
But an alcoholic?
For him, it must have sent him off the rails.
That would neatly tie a few things up. Zoe started to feel more excited about the idea, the closer they got to his home. As a theoretical physicist he would have been no stranger to complex math equations, but as a perpetual drunkard, he might have lost his ability to express them properly. Maybe he thought that what he was writing made perfect sense.
There was a little disconnect between the idea of someone so drunk they could not write correctly, yet sober enough to kill a man and leave so little evidence they had so far gotten away with it. But that was a detail Zoe was willing to let slide until they had actually spoken to him. Functioning alcoholism meant different things for different people.
They pulled up outside an apartment block, with small yet neatly maintained units clearly visible from the ground. The balconies outside each set of French doors held rose bushes in pots, bicycles, small outdoor table and chair sets. It was a nice place. The kind of building you might retire to on a modest yet comfortable pension.
The kind of place a once-well-paid professor and physicist might retreat to once his paychecks weren’t so guaranteed anymore.
Apartment buildings were often a little tricky. When someone came to the front door of a house and saw the police there, they had no choice but to talk. Ringing an intercom and asking for entry meant that it could be denied.
Zoe looked up as they walked toward the front door, taking in the windows that she could see. One set of French doors was open, the curtain blowing slightly in the breeze. She made a quick calculation: third floor, fourth door along. If the building was numbered in a logical way from the left front corner, she could get them in a little easier.
She pressed three-zero-four on the intercom panel, and waited for it to connect.
Shelley was checking her notes, no doubt remembering that James Wardenford was not in fact an inhabitant of 304, but before she could protest, the call connected.
“Hello?”
“Hello, ma’am. I have a delivery.”
Zoe caught Shelley’s eye, shrugged, and looked back at the intercom.
“Sure, come in.”
The entrance door buzzed and clicked, indicating that it had been unlocked. Zoe pushed through and started up the stairs, heading for the apartment that really did belong to their suspect.
“What are we delivering?” Shelley asked, a little primly. Rookie agents were always sticklers for the rules. Except for the ones that weren’t, and ended their careers quickly. She would learn to loosen up over time.
“Justice,” Zoe said, after some thought.
Shelley’s peals of laughter burst through the narrow staircase, echoing from the walls. “I like that,” she said, once the worst of her mirth had subsided.
The apartment was on the second floor, at the opposite side of the building from where they had come in. Zoe thought it a shame they hadn’t had more opportunity to gain some clues as to Wardenford’s state of mind from the exterior, but you made do with what you had. The lock on his apartment door was surrounded by scrape marks, an early clue to a habitual drunk. He missed the keyhole often, unable to see it clearly.
Zoe rapped sharply on the door as Shelley joined her, just slightly out of breath from the climb.
There was a rolling, crashing noise from within, then a few unsteady, heavy footsteps. “Jus’a minute,” a male voice slurred.
“Bet he’s real popular with the downstairs neighbors,” Shelley muttered.
Zoe simply waited. Her patience was rewarded. James Wardenford cracked open his door without bothering to engage the safety chain, leaning on the walls of his own corridor for support as he eyed them with a squint.
He was wearing only a bathrobe one size too big for him, left open to the waist, and a pair of old, stained shorts. His feet were muffled now by worn slippers, the threadbare soles almost gone at the front. There was still a bottle of beer in his hand, two-thirds empty.
“Good morning, James Wardenford,” Zoe said, deliberately raising her voice a notch. “My name is Special Agent Zoe Prime, and this is Special Agent Shelley Rose.”
Normally there was a reaction at this point. The suspect would try to run somehow, or stammer, or shrink back in fear. Or they would blink far too quickly, take in rapid breaths, other signs that Zoe had come to recognize.
Wardenford, whether due to his drunken state or something else, barely reacted at all.
“Yup,” he acknowledged. “Better come in while I get some clothes on.”
Shelley shot Zoe a puzzled look. “We’d like to talk to you about—”
“Yeah, yeah,” Wardenford said, waving a hand dismissively. “Henderson. I know. I can’t go to your station, or whatever you call it, like this.”
He shuffled away from the door, leaving it swinging open. Zoe hesitated for a moment, unaccustomed to such a reaction, before taking the initiative to follow him inside.
The thin foyer gave on to doors in all three directions, one of them lying open ahead. It was clearly a living area, a small sofa perched in front of a television, and Zoe ducked inside. Shelley closed the door and stayed there, nodding to Zoe when she glanced back. She would guard the exit. A wise move. It wouldn’t do to have him dart past them and out to freedom while they lounged around on his sofa.
Not that his sofa was much use, Zoe saw as she approached it. There were seventeen empty beer bottles scattered on the sofa, coffee table, floor, and other odd points of the room. Among them nestled a further three whiskey bottles and four of vodka—this, then, was a man not particularly fussy about his drink so long as it did the job of getting him drunk.