Page 57 of Flesh and Fury

“Wait here, Ari,” he said. “I’m going to canvas the neighbors. That lady down the hall stuck her head out when we called out. She seems like the nosy type. Let me see what she knows.”

“Yeah, okay,” Ari said, winking at him.

Eoghan offered him a half smile and went outside. He wasn’t surprised to see several neighbors standing outside on the balcony. The minute he walked out, everyone, including the woman they’d seen before moved toward him.

“Is everything okay, Officer?” she asked. “Is Arizona all right?” She stood on tiptoes, looking around him as if shecould miraculously conjure Priest to appear in her apartment’s doorway.

Eoghan took out his star and flashed it quickly so that they didn’t have a lot of time to read the I.S.R. on its engraved surface. “I’m Marshal Eoghan Sapphire. Who here, knows my boss, Deputy Chief Marshal Priest?”

“I know Arizona,” an elderly woman who was hanging back said as others echoed the same. “I’ve lived here thirteen years. Arizona was here when I moved in.”

“I think she’s been here longer than anyone,” a man in a bathrobe said. He reminded Eoghan of Tony Soprano.

“Did you all know her?” Eoghan asked.

“We all knew her,” the first woman said. “Is she missing or dead or something?” Again, she tried to peer around him at the closed door to her apartment.

“We’re having a hard time reaching her, that’s all,” Eoghan said. “Nothing to worry about, I’m sure. Can anyone tell me the last time they saw her?”

“I saw her yesterday morning,” a twenty-something woman said. She glanced at the elderly woman who’d first spoken up and then back at Eoghan. “I was doing my laundry and ran into Arizona in the laundry room. She’s such a nice lady. She asked after my mom.” She looked over at her neighbor, smiled, and put an arm around her bony shoulder before glancing back at Eoghan.

“When was this? When you saw her in the laundry room, I mean?” Eoghan asked.

“Hmm…it was around seven-thirty,” she said.

“Good. Thank you. And what is your name, please?” Eoghan took out his phone and took notes, flipping to the note he’d started the night before when he realized she still hadn’t returned his multiple calls.

“Kristen Shapiro,” the young woman said. “And this is my mother, Helena Shapiro.”

“Thank you, Ms. Shapiro,” Eoghan said, typing their names into his phone.

“Arizona is always doing that, thinking about other people and asking about them if she didn’t see them in a while,” an older gentleman said. “I live alone and when I broke my hip three summers ago, Arizona made sure to help my caregiver bring my groceries upstairs, and looked in on me when he was away. She even brought my mail from the box in the lobby downstairs. She is a lovely person, son. And for your records, my name is Greg…Gregory Harrison.”

“Thank you,” Eoghan said, typing and nodding to him. He was slightly blown away. All these people seemed to know a different side of his boss than he did. She was always so formal and professional at work. It seemed strange to find out that she was such a homebody…so normal in her off hours. Of course, he shouldn’t find it odd. Everyone did laundry and gathered mail. Unfortunately, none of this helped find her, or explain where she could have gone or who might have taken her.

He tried to recall the last conversation he’d had with her. It had been before they’d left Denver when they’d been at the airport which would have been over twenty-four hours ago. Going by the time he and Ari had spoken to her and the time change, it would have been six a.m. Early for her to be at the office but he was pretty sure she was there when they’d spoken. He’d heard her shuffling papers.

Come to think of it, maybe that had been wrong since they were talking on burners which she wouldn’t have done at her desk with the listening device in place. He tried to recall every word of their conversation and couldn’t come up with anything that she’d said which would give away details of theirmeetings with Rana and Andy Red Crow. Hearing what Ms. Shapiro said, he began to think she was at home shuffling papers when they’d talked on the phone.

“So, if I understand, the last time anyone saw Chief Priest was yesterday morning around seven-thirty when Ms. Shapiro saw her in the laundry room?” Eoghan asked.

“Well, I didn’t see her after that, but I know she was home around one in the afternoon because she was moving boxes or something heavy upstairs,” a heavyset middle-aged woman said.

“How do you know that?” Eoghan asked.

“Oh, because I live downstairs…right below her.” She pointed to the notes he was taking. “My name is Julie Holiday.”

He typed it in before looking up. “So, at one in the afternoon, she was home moving something heavy?” Eoghan asked, knowing that it wasn’t the chief. It couldn’t have been. It was most likely her captors, going through her things and dropping books on the floor. On a hunch, he asked, “You said you live directly below her. Do you know whether her apartment is set up the way yours is? The same floorplan?”

“Oh, yes, all the end units have similar floorplans.”

“And where were these loud sounds coming from? The bedroom?”

“Well, all over. In the morning, sounds in the bedroom woke me around eight. Then later in the day around one in the afternoon, I heard other loud noises coming through the ceiling as if she was in the front room dropping things…heavy things. It was really annoying and I almost came up here to tell her to knock it off. I was watching my favorite soap opera, that’s how I remember the time so clearly. By the time the show was over, there was no reason to go upstairs because thenoise had stopped. Now, I wish I had come upstairs. Maybe I could have saved her or helped her.”

Eoghan shook his head. “If the chief didn’t leave under her own power, it’s probably a very good thing you didn’t come upstairs to investigate. You might have been hurt.” She nodded as he went on. “Now, did the noises sound like they could have been books hitting the ground? In the afternoon, I mean,” Eoghan asked.

“Yes, come to think of it, it very well could have been books. But in the morning, it sounded like she was moving furniture and for a moment, it sounded like several people were stomping around in the bedroom and then the hallway. Later on, it moved to the front room, like I said.”