Criminal Minds by Max Allan Collins Read Free Book Online Page B

Logs.
    ‘‘Weird damn building,’’ Morgan muttered.
    He drove down the alley, then turned west on Twenty-sixth and then right again on Wells, taking one last right, coming around on Twenty-fifth, then pulling up to the building in question.
    He parked in front.
    They were in the heart of Chinatown, the part tourists never ventured into. Chinese-American pedestrians strolled up and down the street and through the alley; several others sat on back porches of the three-story building that faced Wentworth, many smoking as they watched the strangers in the fancy SUV climb out into the late afternoon swelter.
    More sat on stoops along Twenty-fifth, all with their eyes on Morgan and Prentiss. The old cliché about Asians being inscrutable was contradicted by the faces whose eyes were trained on the two FBI agents—reading the distrust and suspicion there didn’t take much in the way of profiling skills.
    Prentiss, trying out a smile on several of the neighbors, asked, ‘‘How did a killer get that barrel into the apartment with this many witnesses?’’
    ‘‘My guess is it’s a little different at night,’’ Morgan said. ‘‘Chinatown’s always been a closed community to the Bureau. What happens in Chinatown stays in Chinatown.’’
    ‘‘You mean, ‘Forget it, Emily. It’s Chinatown?’ ’’
    ‘‘Something like that.’’
    ‘‘Well, according to the report, the police thoroughly canvassed the neighborhood.’’
    Morgan glanced at her. ‘‘What did they find?’’
    ‘‘They got exactly as much information as you would expect.’’
    ‘‘Meaning nothing.’’
    ‘‘Meaning nothing.’’
    Using a pocketknife, Morgan cut the crime scene tape. Then from the pocket of his slacks, he withdrew a key Lorenzon had given him and unlocked the door.
    ‘‘After you,’’ he said.
    Prentiss smirked; she was a good-looking woman and even her smirk wasn’t hard to look at. ‘‘I don’t care what anybody says, Derek Morgan—you’re a gentleman.’’
    They entered the dark building, each using Mini Maglites to help find their way through the shadows. Even though the windows lacked curtains, the glass was so grimy that little light made it through.
    Using her Maglite, Prentiss searched and finally found a light switch. She flipped it, but nothing happened.
    ‘‘Not a surprise,’’ she said.
    ‘‘No wonder no one saw anything,’’ Morgan said. ‘‘If we can’t see out, it’s a good bet nobody can see in.’’
    ‘‘Where was the barrel situated?’’
    Morgan glanced around in the gloom, getting his bearings.
    ‘‘Over there,’’ he said, pointing to a hallway that led to a bedroom.
    The layout was fairly simple: a living room led into a small kitchen with an eating area and a tiny bedroom down the hall, which led to the second floor and two more bedrooms and a bathroom. Morgan walked the whole thing and got the feeling no one had lived here for a long, long time—nobody but an occasional homeless inhabitant, anyway.
    Once he was back downstairs, he found Prentiss shining her light around the edges of the windows.
    ‘‘You read the report,’’ Morgan said. ‘‘When was the last time someone lived here?’’
    ‘‘Three years ago.’’
    ‘‘No one since?’’
    ‘‘Squatters maybe, but no one on the books.’’ Morgan nodded. ‘‘What do we know about the corpse?’’
    ‘‘Other than he’s a John Doe?’’
    ‘‘Yeah.’’
    Prentiss lifted one shoulder in a tiny shrug. ‘‘He was stuffed in the barrel postmortem. The UnSub poured lime in to keep the smell down, and to hasten decomposition—of course, that means the UnSub doesn’t know that lime actually helps preserve a body. I don’t know why people think lime speeds decomposition.’’
    ‘‘Old wives’ tale. Nasty COD?’’
    She nodded and raised a pale hand to her throat. ‘‘Cause of death was strangulation.’’
    Morgan watched Prentiss move to the next window in the front and start poking around