Act of God

up?”
    “That’s a thought.”
    “Why should I have to?”
    “Because it won’t get better on its own.”
    We went back to the front door. I’d looked at it briefly as Wickmire had opened it for me. Now I examined the jamb and lock more carefully. “No sign of a break.”
    “I know.”
    I looked at her again.
    “I mean, that’s what’s so creepy, you know? I came down here to open the door, and it’s locked just fine the way I left it yesterday morning. But when I walk in, it’s like—I don’t know, ‘ransacked’ still sounds funny when you say it, and ‘pillaged’ is even worse.”
    “Anything taken, as far as you can tell?”
    “I never even thought of that.”
    “Called the police?”
    “I called you.”
    “And I appreciate your doing that, Traci. But you didn’t report this to the police?”
    “No. I don’t like cops. Besides, I don’t even know if I’m… authorized to call. I was supposed to just look after the place until Darb got back, and as far as I know, she got back.”
    “You’re here most of the day, right?”
    “No. I’m in my apartment on account of my allergy to Tigger, remember?”
    There was none of the faked flirting this time from Wickmire. “I mean here in the building.”
    “Oh. Right, I am.”
    “Did you leave your apartment at all yesterday?”
    “I left about four to meet my friend.”
    “Before that?”
    “Just to get the mail. Oh, and lunch. I was on a roll with the charities article, so I ran out and got a sandwich and came back.”
    “Did you see anybody around?”
    “What do you mean, like—what’s the word, ‘suspicious’?”
    “That’ll do.”
    She thought about it. “Suspicious, yes, but nobody who didn’t belong.”
    “I don’t get you.”
    “Well, I saw Rush down by the mailboxes, and he sure as shit looks suspicious to me, but he lives here, too.”
    “Was Teagle doing something in particular?”
    “In particular?”
    “That made you think he looked suspicious.”
    “Oh, no. No, Rush just looks suspicious on general principles.”
    “You think he’s in now?”
    “I doubt it. He said he had a sound check today.” Teagle had mentioned the phrase to me. “Like a dress rehearsal with his band?”
    “Yeah. They’ve got a gig down at a club by Kenmore Square , and their sound has to be right.”
    “You know which club?”
    She gave me the name, then sighed. “Maybe Wild Bill.”
    “Darbra’s brother?”
    “Yeah.”
    “You think he might have done this?”
    “What? No, no I mean the litterbox.”
    I looked at her. “The litterbox.”
    “Yeah. Maybe if I called him again, he’d come to clean it, look after the cat.”
    “My advice?”
    “Yeah?”
    “Don’t count on it.”

    The club where Rush Teagle was appearing lay just off the square. I walked in at street level, the linoleum floor sticky from beer and worse. The bar ran along the right wall, a dozen or so college kids and construction workers sitting in clumps of two or three, having a late lunch and a couple of drafts to wash it down. When I asked the barkeeper for Teagle, she said she’d never heard of him. Then I said he was in a band. The keep nodded and said, “Try downstairs.”
    The stairway was dark, the basement darker still, so much so that I had trouble making out the pony bar that would be directly below the one on street level. The only lights in the basement were above a man with long, graying hair at a control panel halfway to the stage and against the left wall. On the stage, which was really just a platform maybe two feet off the floor, were Rush Teagle and three other young guys I’d never seen before. One, a skinny kid who might have been Korean, had long hair like Teagle, only braided into dreadlocks. The second was an olive-skinned Hispanic boy with short, styled hair. Number three, the drummer, was burly, pale, and clean-shaven, head as well as face. They made an interesting grouping.
    Unfortunately, I couldn’t say the same for their music. It was awful, atonal rock, with no apparent rhythm or melody. Teagle shrieked into a mike as he raped his guitar, the other long-hair more strumming his instrument while the short-haired kid pounded a keyboard and the no-haired kid preferred cymbals over drums.
    The man at the control panel adjusted a few levers in front of him and made some notes, then held up his hand in a stop sign. Everybody saw it but Teagle, who wailed for a few more chords before realizing he’d gone solo.
    Teagle said,