Darnell gave this a disapproving, “Hmm.”
Dale led them to apartment 2F and Vaughn knocked.
“He live alone?” Darnell asked.
They were fairly certain Aaron did, based on their scraping of the man’s social media.
“Yeah. Quiet guy.”
There was no reply from inside the apartment, and Darnell shot Vaughn a look. Then he sniffed dramatically.
“You smell that?”
Vaughn knew where his partner was headed with this and went along with it.
“Smells like rotten eggs.”
The open-air hallway did have a funk to it—not eggs so much as general BO and the faint hint of stale cigarette smoke.
“I don’t smell nothin’.”
Even if someone had smashed a crate of eggs and left the debris in the sun for a week, Vaughn doubted Dale would have picked up the scent. The man’s fingers and teeth were stained a pale brown from nicotine.
“What’s this about, anyway? Aaron in some sort of trouble?”
Darnell disregarded Dale’s questions. Most of being a detective amounted to just that: ignoring people’s questions while posing your own. Or just listening. There were very few things more uncomfortable than an awkward silence.
“I definitely smell rotten eggs. Dale, think you can save us some time and unlock the door?”
“I’m not supposed to do that.”
“Here’s the deal, Dale.” Darnell made himself big as he spoke, adjusted his belt, drawing eyes to his service weapon, which had shifted toward the front. “You can let us into Aaron’s apartment, or we can all stand here and wait around for an hour or two while my partner here calls a judge and applies for a warrant.”
Dale nodded as if he was okay with this. The man had nothing better to do. Vaughn took over.
“We do that, and then we’re going to have to do some real digging.” His eyes flicked to the stairwell. “You got a conference room in this place?”
Dale scoffed.
“A conference room?”
“Didn’t think so. In that case, we’ll probably have to use your office to interview all of your tenants. Ask awholelot of questions. You know those tenants you said didn’t pay on time? Didn’t pay at all? I’m thinking you might never hear from or see them again.”
Dale’s right hand didn’t move to the keyring on his belt, but it did twitch a little.
“Dale, we just want to take a look around,” Vaughn pressed, changing gears slightly.
Dale shifted, sighed, and finally grabbed his keys.
“You gonna keep my name out of this, right?”
A hint of a smile graced Vaughn’s lips.
“Of course.”
They were in.?
?Chapter 22
