Fall Guy

door, and lowered my voice.
    „Where is he now? In jail?“
    There was another silence on the line, this one longer.
    „Michael?“
    „Believe me, we'll find him.“
    This time I was the one who had nothing to say.
    „The closets at her apartment were full of his things, most of them new,“ he said.
    „Freshly shoplifted?“
    „Could be. He had a nice little shrine set up on the coffee table. There was almost nothing of his aunt's personal effects in the place. You'd think he had been there for years, that it was his apartment, not hers.“
    „He threw her stuff out?“
    „When the detectives spoke to him earlier, he claimed she went on a trip, took her things with her. He said she left him a note to that effect, saying he could stay there until she got back.“
    „Let me guess. He neglected to save it.“
    „That's what he said.“
    „And he had nothing to do with ...“ I turned around to see if Maggie was listening, but she
    was gone. That's when I heard the shower curtain being ripped back.
    „I've got to go/' I said, ending the call and running toward the bathroom.
    The door was open. She stood in the middle of the room, staring at the tile wall, her body so still I thought she might no longer be breathing. But then she made a little noise, almost like a cough but not quite. When she turned around, her face was composed.
    „Where shall we begin?“ she asked. As if nothing out of the ordinary had happened here, as if she didn't understand the meaning of what had been right before her eyes.
    „Maggie, I—“
    She waved a hand at me, took a deep breath. „Are there any other photographs?“ she asked. I stepped out of the way and she walked past me, through the kitchen and back to the living room. I put some water in the kettle and lit the stove. „I gave this to Timothy just last week,“ she said, holding the photograph of Kathleen, the one that had been found on his desk the afternoon he'd been found dead in the bath. She looked around for a place to put it. I figured she'd take it, take all the family pictures.
    „Let's put the things you want to take on the daybed for now.“
    She walked over to the daybed, Tim's bed, carefully smoothed the cover I'd smoothed less than an hour before, and put the photo down. Then she began to look at the pictures hanging on the walls.
    „It's all the family,“ she said, her hand to her lips. „When we were young.“
    I followed behind her. Dashiell did, too, staying at her side.
    She began to take the photos off the walls and I went to get the paper towels, so that we could dust them off, wishing I'd thought to bring some boxes so that she had a place to pack them. While she dusted and stacked the framed photos of herself and Tim and Dennis and Joey, I made two cups of tea and set them on the table. Then I picked up the briefcase from the floor near the desk, taking out the letter Maggie had written to Tim after seeing him the week before.
    „Come in the kitchen. Let's have a cup of tea,“ I said, walking to the table ahead of her, the blue envelope in my hand.
    „What's that?“ Standing behind her chair.
    „I've been collecting Tim's mail,“ I said. „The lawyer for the estate, Tim's lawyer, pays the bills and sends me the checks to sign. She'll take care of all that. But this was in the mailbox the first time I came.“
    I pulled out my chair and sat. Maggie remained standing.
    „He never read it then?“ She pulled out the chair and sat, putting her hands around the mug. „No, of course he didn't. I didn't mail it until Saturday night. He couldn't have read it, could he?“
    „No, he couldn't have read it.“
    I took the letter out of the envelope and handed it to her. She moved her cup aside, wiped the table with her hand to make sure it was dry, and put the letter down in front of her, smoothing it flat with her hands.
    „Will you tell me about Breyer's Landing, Maggie?“
    She took a sip of tea, looking into the cup after she'd put it back on the table. „They say hot tea cools you off in summer,“ she said.
    „There's not much here. It was either tea or water.“
    „This is fine. I always find a cup of tea comforting, don't you?“
    Dashiell lapped some water from the bowl I'd put down, then sighed and slid down noisily next to Maggie's chair. Then there was only the sound of the air conditioner, the compressor cycling on.
    „It's up on Clausland Mountain, in Upper Nyack. The boys would ride their bikes up old Tweed Boulevard and