Berger said to her, “If you’re still at Oscar’s apartment when we’re done, we’ll meet you there. Lucy said she’ll call me if she finds out anything else important on her end.”

26

Kay Scarpetta 16 - Scarpetta

26

Oscar Bane lived on Amsterdam Avenue in a ten-story building of insipid yellow brick that reminded Scarpetta of Mussolini’s fascist constructions in Rome. Inside the lobby, the doorman wouldn’t let them near the elevator until Morales showed his badge. He looked Irish, was portly and elderly, wearing a uniform the same green as the awning outside.

“I haven’t seen him since New Year’s Eve,” the doorman said, his attention fixed to Scarpetta’s big crime scene case. “I guess I know why you’re here.”

Morales said, “That so? Tell me why we’re here.”

“I read about it. I never saw her.”

“You mean Terri Bridges?” Benton said.

“Everybody’s talking about it, as you might imagine. I hear they let him out of Bellevue. It’s not nice the names they’re calling him. You gotta feel sorry for anyone made fun of like that.”

No one had heard from Oscar, as far as Scarpetta knew. No one seemed to have a clue where he was, and she was extremely worried someone might harm him.

“There’s five of us who work the door, and we all say the same thing. She’d never been to this building or one of us, at least, would know. And he’d gotten strange,” the doorman said.

He directed his attention to Scarpetta and Benton because he obviously didn’t like Morales and wasn’t trying very hard to hide it.

“Now, that wasn’t always the case,” the doorman continued, “and I know that for a fact because I’ve worked here for eleven years, and he’s been in the building about half that time. He used to be friendly, a real nice guy. Then all of a sudden he changed. Cut his hair and dyed it the color of a marigold, got quieter and quieter, stayed in his apartment a lot. When he’d come out to walk or whatever, it was at odd times and he was as nervous as a cat.”

“Where does he keep his car?” Morales asked.

“An underground parking garage around the block. A lot of the tenants park there.”

“When was this?” Benton asked. “When you noticed something different about him.”

“I’d say it was the fall. October or so when it started becoming obvious that something was going on. Knowing what I do now, I have to wonder what he got tangled up with, you know, with the girl. Put it this way, when two people get together and one of them changes for the worse? You figure it out.”

“Is someone on the door around the clock?” Benton asked him.

“Twenty-four- seven. Come on. I’ll take you up. You got a key, right?”