Chapter 3: A Grave Matter
As the elevator doors chimed open upon the seventh floor, Antigone was immediately aware that there was something amiss. It was something in the furtive shuffle of human life that she could feel hovering just beyond bolted apartment doors. She could almost see the heat of their bodies, leaning in close, pressing ears to doors. She could pick out the stutter-step of agitated pulses and, in at least one instance, the ominous click of pistol's hammer drawing back and locking.
There was a barely perceptible flutter of eyes to peepholes. Yes, Antigone could recognize the signs. This was not a bad neighborhood. Quite the opposite. But these people had been shaken recently. They had been through some ordeal. Judging from the unique combination of speed and temerity with which they answered the sound of the elevator's chime, Antigone was certain that they were none too anxious to repeat the experience.
She had an unsettling feeling of presentment. It was as if she knew what she must find, even before she turned the elbow of the affectedly red-carpeted corridor. Antigone didn't need to read off the burnished brass door numbers to tell which one belonged to the mysterious Mr. Graves. The yellow police tape with bold black lettering proclaimed it loud and clear. "Police Line Do Not Cross."
The dangling adhesive strips crisscrossed the doorway from corner to corner, forming a huge 'X.' A polished chrome ball-lock swallowed the doorknob, preventing its turning.
Her worst fears realized, Antigone seemed to deflate. She paused before the door, straining to pick up any telltale signs of activity beyond it. She didn't really expect any, the scene said all to clearly that the authorities had already been here and moved on.
Well, there was no help for it now. Striking what she hoped was an official looking stance, she squared her shoulders and took the ball-lock firmly in hand. She gave it a good rattle that she hoped that any eavesdroppers up and down the hall would mistake for the fumbling of a key in the lock. She cursed once for good measure. Cops always cursed when they were alone. It was one thing on which all the TV dramas concurred.
The jamb splintered and the latch sprung from its moorings with a bit more noise than she would have liked. But the operation had been accomplished with so little outward sign of physical violence -- and her slight build hardly looked equal to smashing a door in to begin with -- that she thought it would do. She ducked around and through the police tape and entered Grave's apartment, pushing the door to behind her. She couldn't really close or latch it again, but her object wasn't to keep anyone out, only to dissuade the idly curious.
She followed the smell of blood, spilled liquor and spent gunpower through the living room. She worked her way through the room in darkness and in silence, trusting in her keen senses and the inch of moonlight creeping in from beneath the pulldown window shade to show her what she needed to know. There were still-wet rings on the table nearest the sofa from a bottle and a glass. Perhaps two glasses, it was hard to tell. The police, however, seemed to have commandeered the entire lot as evidence. Along with everything else that wasn't nailed down, probably.
One corner of the living room doubled as an office and the desk was so clear of any clutter that it strained credulity to think that this had been the way that Graves had left it at the end of a workday. Either Mr. Graves had been more than a bit anal retentive, or his papers -- like his rolodex, his appointment book and even the laptop whose empty docking station gaped like an open wound -- had gone the way of the bottle. Police evidence.
She followed the unmistakable scent of blood back through an unused dining room. Feeling safer here from prying eyes from the corridor, Antigone drew back the drapes. In the sudden influx of moonlight, she could see the fine layer of dust that had settled into the hollow of each crystal wineglass. Obviously the table stayed set for decorative rather than functional reasons. A quick check revealed that one of the place settings, the one nearest the doorway to the living room, was missing both its wine and water glasses.
Antigone let the drapes fall back into place. Doors off the dining room led to kitchen, two bedrooms and a bath. Not even bothering to peek into the other rooms, she went straight for the latter. The bathroom was cramped, stuffy, but the air inside was cool. Maybe it was the heavy cloying odor that made it seem so claustrophobic. Antigone stepped in and pushed the door closed behind her using only one fingertip. As if instinctually shying away from contact with its surface. Only when the door had clicked closed, did she turn on the light switch.
The room blazed to life; a row of spherical light globes ran the entire length of one wall, above the mirror. They gave off an unhealthy ruddy-tinged light that cast an eerie luminance over the room. The clean-up crew, no doubt working on a tight timetable, had managed to wipe away the majority of the blood and spattered gore. But the light globes -- along with the majority of the left-hand wall, the door and parts of the ceiling -- still bore the signs of the bloody deed that had been committed here.
Antigone wondered, idly, if there had been a note. Even if there had been, she knew, it would do her little good now. New York's finest would certainly not have left such a keepsake laying around for the likes of her to find.
She imagined there must have been something to throw suspicion upon the affair, though, or the police would not have bothered to cart off so much of the detritus of Graves's daily life. There was never any real investigation of a suicide. And it was hardly worth the effort of pouring over some poor stiff’s computer files unless you suspected that he had had his hand in something not quite above-board.
But where did all that get her? Antigone just stood and stared at herself in the blood-flecked mirror. Graves had been Antigone’s best, and last, lead. And now he was just another dead end.