Fall Guy

buy every fall for school, like the ones I'd found at Tim's apartment. Only this one was current. I took it inside, put it into the briefcase, then went into the downstairs bathroom to wash my hands.
    I thought I'd sit outside with Dashiell until Maggie was ready, but then I remembered something from my first job as an undercover agent, when I worked for the Petrie Brothers before going out on my own. I was placed at a hospital on Staten Island, ostensibly working as a nurse's aide. In fact, I was there because of theft. Whenever I tried to take notes, the head nurse would open the bathroom door, see my white shoes and the pink uniform that was two sizes too big hanging down to my ankles. Then she'd yell at me to get back to work. In order to make notes so that I could write my daily report, I would stand on the toilet, then crouch down, using a little nib of a pencil and a folded three-by-five card to jot down names and things I saw. Then I'd slip the folded card and the pencil into a cigarette pack and go back to work. So I went back out to the car and looked inside the cigarette packs I'd seen in the glove compartment, but there was nothing there. I looked at the matchbooks, too, and this time I did find something. On the inside flap of one of them, written in pencil. It said, „Alexander.“ And then my phone number. I slipped the matchbook into my pocket and went back to wait with Dashiell.
    Maggie, in a white tunic, white pants and white thick-soled shoes, came out with two towels. She gave me one to use on Dashiell. She spread the other one on the backseat of Tim's old car, tucking it in carefully to protect the stained, torn upholstery seat. She opened the back windows, too, perhaps to dilute the smell of wet dog, which made me feel rude and foolish.
    Crossing the George Washington Bridge, Maggie said I should use my judgment about the things in Tim's apartment. She said she was sure I'd know what to hold on to and what to let go, but if there was a doubt about any particular item, she'd help me when she got there. She asked if ten was too early. I told her it wasn't. Then she asked me what the cross streets were, letting me know that if she had been there at all, it hadn't been for a very long time.
    As the cab drove down the Westside Highway, I looked out over the water, the afternoon light making ripples of bright silver where it moved, leaving it a deep blue-gray in places where there was the illusion of stillness. Though I had only been gone for a few hours and hadn't been all that far away, something in me fluttered, someplace there was joy at being back in the city.
    That's when I remembered that Parker was due to show up at Tim's apartment in the morning, Parker whose aunt had gone missing during the run of a play. The napkin he'd written his aunt's number on was on Tim's desk. I'd simply make up another story and postpone his visit. I needed more time to look things over by myself before he got the chance to spirit away anything I might find telling. And I needed time to figure out a way to keep Maggie O'Fallon from seeing what I had seen in the bathroom. The last thing on earth she needed was to upgrade her brother's death to suicide. I told the driver I'd changed my mind, to take me to Horatio Street instead of home.

CHAPTER 14
    As soon as I got inside O'Fallon's apartment, I dropped the briefcase on top of the desk and picked up the napkin, holding it under the light so that I could read the numbers Parker had written there. I dialed, still working on my story as I listened to the phone ringing at the other end. A machine picked up saying that Carolyn and Mark were sorry they couldn't come to the phone but that my call was important to them, so would I please leave a message after the beep. I didn't.
    The apartment was stuffy, so I opened the kitchen window and one of the front ones, letting a breeze blow through. Parker had given me a wrong number. Had he done it on purpose, so that I couldn't call him to cancel? He'd waited long enough to get his things. Whatever it was he wanted to retrieve, he wanted it badly. Not his clothes, though. I was as sure as I could be that if Parker needed something to wear, he was willing and capable of shoplifting it. And probably had. Was it the shrine? I opened the closet with his things, going through the clothes this time, my hand in every pocket, collecting whatever I found and dropping it into a plastic food-storage bag. Then I pulled over a kitchen chair