From the doorway, a long trail of blood stretched nearly twenty meters (65 feet) into the parking lot, ending at a man's body.
If his stillness had not already made his condition obvious, the amount of blood on the ground and the dozens of deep wounds decorating his back left little doubt that he could hardly have been more dead than he already was.
'Killing him definitely didn't require that much effort. Whoever, or whatever, did this went out of their way to butcher him.' Lazar concluded before letting his gaze follow the blood trail once more, this time with greater attention.
'Someone dragged him here. That much is certain.' He noted matter-of-factly, his conclusion reinforced by the fact that the blood trail was far too uniform to suggest it had been made by a dying man crawling across the floor.
Lazar scanned the parking lot. The elevator, the stairwell, and the vehicule access were the only ways in or out, which meant the killer had to still be here.
Keeping one hand on his weapon, Lazar approached the corpse slowly, his gaze sweeping the surroundings for the slightest movement.
Once he saw the body clearly, two things became immediately clear : the wounds had been inflicted by a bladed weapon, which further supported the idea that a human was behind this, and the victim was someone he knew.
'Garry Mavick.' He recognized him from the only part of the man's face that was not pressed against the floor.
He was one of Lazar's neighbors, if that needed to be said. However, the interest Lazar had once taken in this man was very different from the one he held in the others, to the point that he had made a point of remembering his name when Garry and his family introduced themselves to him after he moved into the building two years earlier.
'Now it all makes sense.' He thought, a trace of satisfaction briefly surfacing on his face.
The first impression Garry had left on Lazar had been bad enough to justify, in Lazar's mind at least, an investigation into the man's past that crossed several legal boundaries, and one notable result of it was that Garry's criminal record suggested a pronounced taste for violence.
Another detail Lazar had found worth remembering was that, after his wife's death the year before, Garry had been living alone with his daughter.
After some thought, he turned back and strode to the access door.
CRACK
Suddenly, he drove a hard kick into the handle until it broke loose with a metallic crack.
Then he headed for the elevator, pressed the call button, reached into the open cabin, and hit the emergency stop before stepping back.
No one would be coming through either access points anytime soon.
Lazar then made his way back to Garry's corpse.
"Anna." He said, pitching his voice just high enough to carry across the parking lot.
"I know you are the one who did this." He continued, his tone deliberately free of blame.
"And I know why you did it." He finished, taking his hand off his weapon to encourage the person hiding nearby to reveal herself.
Lazar let the silence linger.
'Yeah. I should have expected that trust wasn't going to come that cheap.' He thought after receiving no answer.
"He may be lighter by a few liters of blood, but he still won't be easy to move." He commented before heading toward his car, "Good luck getting rid of the body."
"Wait."
Five meters to his left, a young woman no older than twenty emerged from behind a car, soaked in blood from head to toe, a spear clenched in her hands.
'Five more seconds and I would have really left.' Lazar thought as Garry's daughter slowly approached, hesitation written into every step, her eyes caught somewhere between fear, stress, and hope.
Anna came to an abrupt halt once she got a proper look at the young man facing her.
"Wait..." Her gaze swept over his gear, "Are you some kind of cop?" She asked, her heart beginning to hammer in her chest, sudden panic making it far too easy to imagine him pulling out handcuffs.
"No. I'm just your neighbor." Lazar replied flatly.
"No cop could afford rent in this building." He added before crounching down next to Garry's corpse to go through his pockets.
"What are you doing?" Anna asked, with less tremor in her voice than before, which led Lazar to assume she had believed his explanation.
"I take it you were trying to drag him to his car so you could dump his body somewhere." He said, retrieving car keys from one of Garry's jeans pockets.
His eyes followed the blood trail back to the doorway, "Not to insult your work ethic, but bringing the car to the body would have been smarter than dragging the body to the car."
Her shoulders slumped, "I don't know how to drive. My fa..." She cut herself off before the word 'father' could leave her mouth, the look of deep disgust twisting her face made it clear she hated herself for almost letting it slip.
"He wanted me to rely on him for everything, so getting a driver's license was never even on the table. I wasn't thinking clearly after... after I did it. I just thought if I could get him into the trunk, maybe I could deal with the rest later." She replied in a low voice, each hesitant word exposing how little thought had gone into what came after the killing.
BIP
"I see." Lazar said, his voice giving nothing away as he pressed the unlock button on the key fob.
Anna edged a little closer to him, then stopped herself before getting too close, suddenly conscious that with her spear still in her grip, her intentions could easily be misread.
"What did you mean when you said you knew why I did it?" She asked timidly, her eyes locked on his.
Lazar broke eye contact, intent on prioritizing the most pressing issue : hiding Garry's body. Even so, that did not mean he was ignoring Anna.
"Your…" He caught himself before 'father' could leave his mouth. Since Anna had gone out of her way not to call Garry that, he figured it would be in his interest to do the same.
"He was responsible for your mother's death, wasn't he?" He resumed bluntly as he climbed into Garry's SUV.
In the rearview mirror, Lazar could see Anna's face go still.
The investigation into her mother's death the year before had settled on suicide. True or not, Lazar had never doubted Garry had a hand in it, and Anna's reaction was confirming it.
'I doubt many people ever saw through Garry's act, he was pretty good at it. Having someone other than herself acknowledge the filth beneath the man had to be doing her some good.' He thought before putting the car in reverse.
HONK
Seeing Anna rooted where she stood, directly in the SUV's path, Lazar slammed his hand against the horn.
She jerked in surprise, then rushed to the driver's window, visibly annoyed, "Are you out of your mind? Don't make so much noise." She snapped in a panicked whisper.
"You can stop worrying. There are no cameras down here, except the vehicle access every ways in or out are blocked and even if someone saw us, the police probably have bigger problems right now." He told her without the slightest concern while continuing his maneuver.
Anna kept pace with the driver's window as best she could, "Why wouldn't the police come?" She asked, doubt creeping into her voice, now sounding like she was starting to question Lazar's sanity.
Bip. Bip. BIP. BIP.
Once the rear camera showed the corpse properly lined up with the back of the car, Lazar braked.
"You didn't find it strange that a weapon appeared in your hands out of nowhere?" He asked, remotely popping the trunk with the key fob before stepping out of the car.