Twenty minutes later, we're lost in paperwork. Charlie is going through the stacks on the desk, I'm taking care of the drawers, and Gillian is working on the filing cabinet in the corner of the room. As far as we know, most of all that stuff is useless.
"Listen to this," Charlie says to me, shuffling through a stack of scientific journals. The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Lasers and Electro-Optics Society Journal.
"Prepared to be embarrassed?" I ask him. "Dear Martin, if Abby lived on the other side of the sea, what a great swimmer you would be. Happy Valentine's Day. Your friend Stacey B."
"Do you think that card beats the Laser and Electro-Optical Society?"
"It's a Valentine's card from the fifties!" she exclaimed, waving the moldy card in the air. In front of me, in the bottom drawer of the desk, are thousands of cards. She saved every postcard, thank you note, and birthday card that was sent to her. Since she was born! "There are only old newspapers and magazines here," Gillian says, closing the filing cabinet. From the Engineering Management Review to the Disney employee newsletter, but nothing that could be of use to us.
"I don't get it," Charlie says.
Do you keep everything that has ever passed through her hands, but don't have a single phone bill or bank statement?
"I guess that's what he kept here…" I say, opening the drawer of the filing cabinet above the birthday cards. Inside, a dozen empty file folders dangle on their metal pegs.
"They must have been taken along with the computer," Gillian says.
"So that's it…we're dead," Charlie exclaims.
"Don't say that," I scold him.
—But if the guys from the Service have already reviewed this...
-So what? Should we just give up and get the hell out of here? Are we to assume that they have taken everything?
-They've taken everything! Charlie yells.
No, they haven't! -say-. Take a look around you, Duckworth had things stuffed everywhere: fifteen different colored rabbit's feet. And since we haven't the foggiest idea what the Service guys left behind, I'm not leaving this house until I've gone through every coaster, smashed every drawer, and sliced off Happy's and Bashful's plastic heads to see. if they have something hidden inside. Now, if you have any better ideas, I'd love to hear them, but like you said before, we've got a whole house to check out!
Charlie steps back, surprised by my reaction, but just as quickly he shrugs and continues his search.
—You take care of the kitchen; I'll look in the bathroom.
"She knows," Gallo said.
"How is it possible that she knows?" DeSanctis asked.
"Look at him," Gallo said, pointing a thick finger at the computer that rested on the seat between them. His children are missing... another night alone... but has he told anyone? Is she crying over the phone, whining into a friend's ear? No, she just sits there, sewing and watching cooking shows.
"Better than watching soap operas," DeSanctis said, aiming the thermal imager at the dark street.
"That's not the point, asshole." If she knows we're watching her, she's less likely to...
The sound of a doorbell echoed through the computer's speakers. Gallo and DeSanctis jumped in their seats.
"You have visitors," DeSanctis said. "Is that the street bell?" DeSanctis trained the radar gun on the hall windows. A dark green image of the lobby formed on the camera. Green was cold; white was hot. But when he scanned the space between the doorbell area and the lobby, all he saw were two shiny white rectangles on the ceiling. No people... just fluorescent lights.
"There's no one there."
-I go...! Maggie yelled toward the apartment door.
"How did they get in?" Is there a back door? rooster yelled.
"Could be one of your neighbors," DeSanctis said.
-Who is it? Maggie asked.
The answer was an unintelligible mumble. The microphones did not work through the doors.
"Wait..." Maggie said as she turned off the TV. As she unlocked the latches with one hand, she smoothed down her hair and her skirt with the other.
"He wants to make a good impression," DeSanctis whispered. I bet she's a customer.
"At this time of the night...?"
"Sophie!" Nice to see you," Maggie exclaimed as she opened the door. Over Maggie's shoulder they saw a gray-haired woman wearing a brown woolen jacket.
braid stitch, but no coat. "Neighbor," DeSanctis said. "Sophie…" Gallo repeated. Sophie said.
DeSanctis opened the glove compartment and took out a stack of papers. "4190 Bedford Avenue-Residents-Real Property."
"Sophie...Sofia...Sonja..." Gallo said as DeSanctis frantically ran his finger down the printed list.
"I have a Sonia Coady in 3A and a Sofia Rostonov in 2F," DeSanctis said.
-How do you feel? Sophie asked with a thick Russian accent.
It's Rostonov.
"Fine…I'm fine," Maggie replied, inviting her inside.
"Watch his hands!" Gallo bellowed as Maggie reached out and grabbed Sophie by her shoulder.
"Do you think something is wrong with him?" DeSanctis asked.
"You have no other choice." No fax, no email, no cell phone—not even an electronic organizer—his only hope is to get something from outside. I guess a pager or some small device that can send messages.
DeSanctis nodded.
—You take care of the mother; I take care of Sofia.
Bending over the screen, the two agents remained silent. In the dark, their faces glowed in the pale light from the screen.
"I've got about an inch off the sleeves, I'll go get the tops on the line…" Maggie said as she headed for the kitchen window. With a bird's-eye view of her from the camera mounted on the smoke detector, Gallo could only see her back, but he studied everything Maggie touched. Hands at her sides. She was opening the kitchen window. She was pulling on the clothes line. She was taking down two blouses and placing them on separate hangers.
"Do you take them out in this weather?" Sophie asked.
"Cold is good for silk...it makes it shinier than the day you bought the blouses."
Maggie hung the hangers from one of the three hooks along the wall in the living room.
"Watch out for the return of the money..." Gallo warned.
"Wow, where's my head?" Sophie began, reaching for a purse she didn't have. I have left my...
"It doesn't matter," Maggie said. Even in the digitized image, Gallo could see her tight smile. You can bring me the money when it suits you. I'm not going anywhere.
-Dammit! rooster yelled.
"You are a good person," Sophie insisted. "You are a good person and good things will happen to you.
"Yeah," Maggie says, looking up at the smoke detector. She should be very lucky.
Closing the door behind Sophie, Maggie sighed quietly and returned to the kitchen window. Along the wall, the old radiator hiccupped with a metallic sound, but Maggie barely noticed it. She was too focused on everything else: her children... and Gallo... even her routine. Especially her routine.
Placing both hands under the top of the window frame, she yanked hard a few times until it snapped open. A gust of cold air entered the kitchen, but again, she didn't notice it. Without Sophie's blouses, there was a space in her clothes line. An open space that she couldn't wait to fill.
She reached for the damp white sheet that was folded next to the ironing board, leaned out, took a clothespin from her apron pocket, and clamped a corner of the sheet. Inch by inch she unrolled the sheet onto the dark alley. She placed more clips along the length of the rope. Reaching the edge, she tugged at the fabric so that the sheet lay flat. A gust of wind tried to blow her away, but Maggie held on tight. Just another normal night. Now there was the most complicated part.
As the wind billowed the sheet across the alley, she reached into the pocket of her apron with both hands. Her left hand fumbled for her clothespins; Her right hand reached for something else. In a few seconds, her fingers slid along the edge of the note she had written hours before. Taking care to keep her back to the kitchen, she held the folded sheet in her trembling hand. Out of the corner of her eye she saw the faint glow in Gallo and DeSanctis's car. But that didn't stop her.