Watch Them Die by Kevin O'Brien Page B

from up there, that balcony would have been a much better place. Why go to all the trouble of opening up that window and tossing her out when you got a whole balcony to work with? You wouldn’t even have to leave the living room. It’s a short balcony. One good shove and she’s gone.”
    “You should be a detective,” Hannah said, buttering him up. “Listen, I’m not supposed to ask this, but what do you think happened? Do you think it was an accident?”
    Scratching his chin, he gazed up toward the building’s top floor. “Like I say, if it was anything intentional—suicide or homicide—why not use the balcony and make it easier? Why the window?”
    Hannah thanked Glenn, saying that she and Northwest Fidelity Life were both grateful to him for providing his expertise. As she walked back to work, the caretaker’s remark haunted her. Why not use the balcony and make it easier? Why the window?
    Hannah suddenly knew the answer, and with that realization, a shudder passed through her. Cindy Finkelston’s death sentence had been carried out to the letter.
    The girl who died in Rosemary’s Baby didn’t plunge from any balcony. She fell from a window.

    Sixteen residents from the Broadmoore Apartments were customers at Emerald City Video. Hannah looked up the histories on all of their accounts. Two of them had rented Rosemary’s Baby : Smith, Collyer & Jeanne had checked out the movie eighteen months ago; and Webber, Rosanne had watched it back in February. Looking for Mr. Goodbar had never been rented on either account.
    It wasn’t much to go on. Hannah wondered if cross-referencing all these names was just a waste of time.
    She’d been at her register, tapping into the files for the last half hour. She’d gracefully weathered interruptions from customers. But Hannah didn’t see this one coming.
    “I have a DVD on hold,” the middle-aged man announced—without so much as an “Excuse me.”
    Hannah glanced up at him. With his silver hair and tan, he had a certain kind of cold handsomeness. A Ralph Lauren logo was embossed on his lightweight, navy blue jacket. He must have been drinking, because he smelled like a distillery. “The name’s Hall, Lester. The movie is Sorority Sluts II: Anal Adventures. ”
    Nodding, Hannah kept a straight face. “All right, let me see if we have it back here for you.”
    “Well, you should,” he replied, his tone a bit ominous. He drummed his fingers on the countertop. “I called earlier, and they told me it was in.”
    Hannah turned to the back counter.
    “Hate that guy,” her coworker, Britt, murmured as she passed Hannah with a stack of videos. “He’s such an asshole.”
    All Hannah could do was nod her head, and think to herself Well, you’d know. You’re living with the poster boy of assholes. Britt’s boyfriend, Webb, was scum, a drug dealer who often beat her. Hannah liked Britt a lot, but knew she was kind of a screwup. As their coworker, Scott, once said about Britt, One minute, you want to hug her and protect her from the world, and the next you want to slap some common sense into the poor, sorry bitch.
    Twenty-nine and pencil-thin, Britt had short, maroon-dyed hair, a pale complexion, and—at last count—thirteen piercings. She also had a certain gentle, vulnerable quality that was endearing. Nearly every week, she gave Hannah some little gizmo for Guy that she’d saved from a cereal box.
    “Last week, he called me an idiot, right to my face,” Britt whispered. She snuck a wary glance over her shoulder at Lester Hall. “He phoned earlier about a DVD porno. It’s right there.”
    It wasn’t there. Hannah checked the reservation pile. Britt must have transposed a couple of digits on the DVD’s code. An adult DVD was there for him, but it was the wrong one. Hannah looked in the drawer, and the DVD that Lester Hall wanted was checked out. “Oh, shit,” Hannah muttered.
    She put on her best contrite look and turned to him. “I’m really sorry, Mr.