Murder in the Condo Next Door

Chapter 1-2

It was around six-thirty when Michael drove down the alley behind his building and into the underground parking garage. He took the elevator up to the fourth floor, sniffing as he did to see if the smell had gotten any worse. There was a faint trace of it, which did not make him happy. If I can smell it in here, what’s it going to be like by the time I get to my place?

He got off the elevator, walked down the hallway, turned the corner, and stopped dead in his tracks. The door to his neighbor’s condo was open, with a uniformed police officer standing next to it.

Now what? Michael debated turning around and leaving—especially since the odor was much stronger than it had been that morning. But curiosity got the better of him. He figured his neighbor had probably gone on another verbal rampage and the cops had been called.

He walked toward his door, only to be stopped by the officer asking who he was.

“Michael Wright. I live there,” Michael replied, pointing to his unit.

“ID, please.”

Michael frowned but took it out to show the man. “What’s going on?”

“Your neighbor, Ms. Lee, was murdered,” a man in a suit said, coming out of unit four-oh-three. He introduced himself as Detective Daniels.

“You’re shitting me,” Michael replied in shock.

“No, Mr. Wright.”

“When? Wait.” Michael shuddered. “Is that the smell?”

“Yes, sir. At this point the ME says she probably died two days ago. That would be Sunday. Did you see or hear anything?”

Michael shook his head. “Nothing since Saturday night when she pulled her usual ‘I can’t get in’ rant. Drunk, I suspect.”

“From what I’ve been told, that’s happened before.”

“Yeah. Every Saturday since she moved in.” Michael paused. “This time, she had company.”

“You saw whoever it was?”

“Yes. I was pissed and was going to read her the riot act. She got her door unlocked just as I opened mine. There was a man with her. Actually, the weekend before there was one too. I didn’t see him, but I heard him laugh.”

“What did the man this weekend look like?”

“Mmm. I barely saw him but, yeah, he had dark hair and thick, bushy eyebrows.” Michael pinched his nose—not because he was thinking, but the odor was getting to him. “How long before this goes away,” he asked nasally.

“Once we release the unit, your manager can call in a specialist to do cleanup. With luck, things should be back to normal within a day or two—out here.”

“Oh, great.”

The detective smiled in commiseration. “Is there anything else you can tell me?”

“Not that I can think of. Is the…is her body gone?”

“Yes. It was taken away a couple of hours ago.”

“Thank God. Is it okay for me to go into my place, now?”

“Yes. I’ll be in contact with you if I have any more questions.”

Michael nodded, unlocked his door, turned off the security alarm, and then locked it when he was inside. He could smell the odor in the entryway, but only faintly, for which he was very glad. He remembered some scented candles an acquaintance had given him a year ago that he’d stashed away—somewhere. He finally located them after digging through the hall closet, unwrapped one and lit it, setting it on the entryway table.

Even patchouli is better than decomposition. He chuckled weakly. Hell, burned dinner would smell better. Not that he planned on doing that. He wasn’t even certain he wanted to fix anything to eat, all things considered.

He changed into jeans and a sweatshirt, then went online to check his personal emails. There was nothing other than spam and a bill from the utility company. He paid it and logged off. After grabbing a bottle of juice from the fridge, he got the book he was reading and went out to the balcony where there was fresh air; leaving the door open to, hopefully, air out his unit.

He found he couldn’t concentrate on the book because his thoughts went to the woman next door and the murder.

I was here most of Sunday. How could someone have killed her without my knowing? He knew that answer to that one. The building had thick walls. He rarely heard anything from the other units unless someone was doing upgrades on one of them that involved hammering and what have you. Even then, it had to be very loud, and on the weekend, because he was never home on weekdays.

Still, wouldn’t I have heard a shot? Or her screaming if someone was trying to strangle her? He was tempted to go ask the detective how she was killed, but the less he had to do with the police, the better.

He glanced through the narrow space between the wall and the partition separating his balcony from hers. He recalled seeing her out there a couple of times with men, but since he hadn’t been able to see the men well enough to describe them, he figured telling the detective would be a waste of both their times.

He finally settled down enough to read and managed to get through several chapters before it got too dark. That reminded him; he needed a new bulb in the porch light. He got one and had barely changed it out for the old one when he heard a knock on the door.

“Now what?” he muttered, hoping it wasn’t the detective, wanting to ask more questions. He opened the door to find a man, dressed casually in a blue shirt and slacks—and definitely in need of a shave in Michael’s opinion—standing there. “Can I help you?” Michael asked while noting the door to the woman’s unit was closed and apparently the police were gone, although there was police tape across it to seal it.

“I hope so. My name is Reid Hanson. I’m a reporter with The Chronicle. I’d like to ask you some questions about the murder next door.”

“How the hell did you get into the building?” Michael asked tightly.

“Using my good looks and charm?” Reid replied. He laughed. “Not really. I buzzed the manager after I, and all the TV reporters of course, finished interviewing Detective Daniels. The manager let me in when I said I wanted to talk to him about the murder. Your name was mentioned as being Ms. Lee’s closest neighbor, so here I am.”

“I have nothing to say to you.” Michael remained where he was, blocking the reporter from coming inside.

“Come on, Mr. Wright. Surely you at least knew the woman and can give me some insight into what she was like. You know—human interest stuff.”

“I met her once, when she was ranting about not being able to unlock her door. That was it.”

Reid leaned against the doorjamb. “Ranting?”

“Yeah. I suspect she was drunk, or something. Surely the manager told you all this, since a couple of us told him about it.”

“Nope. Not a word. Probably didn’t want to make it sound as if they let just anyone in here.”

Michael snorted. “Probably. Still, that’s the only time I had any real contact with her.”

Reid lifted an eyebrow. “Real?”

“I saw her briefly the night before she was killed. Same problem, but she had a man with her who, I guess, managed to unlock the door for her. They were going in when I opened my door. I was planning to tell her to shut the hell up.”

“Maybe he was the killer,” Reid said thoughtfully.

“I’m sure the police will find out, if they can locate him. Now, if there’s nothing else…”

“Tell me a bit about yourself, for my story. The human-interest angle, you know. The man who lived next door to a murder.”

For a second Michael considered what he’d said. It could be a bit of publicity for the shop. Then he changed his mind. “No. Absolutely not. I’d rather not be bothered by people wanting to know what that’s like.”

“If you tell me, they’ll already know.” Reid smiled winningly.

“And if I don’t, and you don’t use my name in the story, I won’t have to deal with them.”

“I guess I can see your point. And since you really don’t know anything…” He looked hopefully at Michael.

“I don’t. Nothing more than what I’ve already told you.”

“Which Detective Daniels told me, as well. All right. Thanks for talking with me.”

“No problem.”

Michael watched the reporter stroll down the hallway with a sense of relief. The last thing he wanted was his name in the paper in connection with a crime, especially a murder, no matter how peripherally he was involved.

* * * *

Most people would love to have their name in the paper as someone who knew the victim of a crime. Why did Mr. Wright shy away? Reid pondered that as he drove back to the paper to write and file his story. Is he camera shy, so to speak? Or is there something he’s hiding.

Reid was a good reporter with a nose for a story, and he sensed there might be one in Michael Wright. Perhaps nothing to do with the murder, per se, but something.

After he turned in the story, he went online to do a search on the man.

“Nothing before six years ago, when he arrived in town to go to work at his mother’s costume shop,” he said under his breath, when that was all that he could turn up.

He backtracked, looking for information on Olivia Wright. There he had more luck. The woman had been widowed when she was twenty-five and was left to care for her only child—four year old Michael. This came from a brief story about the opening of her first costume shop, in a strip mall east of downtown. Reid found another article when she had rented a downtown building to expand her business, fifteen years later. That would make Michael nineteen at the time. There was no mention of him in the latter story, other than that Olive’s son was in college.

The last thing Reid was able to come up with, other than short mentions of Wright Costumes in articles about local costume shops around Halloween, was Olive Wright’s obituary. She had died of pancreatic cancer the year after Michael had come back to the city, at which point Michael had inherited the building Mrs. Wright had purchased for the shop and taken over the business.

What happened to you, Mr. Wright, between the time you went off to college and your return here, when, presumably, you found out your mother was dying? Probably nothing more than what happens to any young man. You began living your life. Still…

Reid wasn’t certain why, after only a few brief words with Michael, he was interested in his background. Because, as he’d thought earlier, he found that most people liked seeing their name in the newspaper? Michael had definitely shied away from that, which intrigued Reid.

Am I making a mountain out of a molehill? Probably. Still, I’m going to do some more digging. But not tonight, he decided when he checked the time. After turning off the computer, he left the building and headed home.