Seven Minutes to Noon

yellow signs on the way over.
    “That’s the big question,” Alice said. “We don’t really know what it means right at this moment.”
    Peter jumped up. “Now can I ring the bell?”
    “No, me!” Ethan followed him to the strip of doorbells too high for them to reach.
    Simon jogged up the stoop and pressed the buzzer for 2B, eliciting staunch objection from all three children.
    “Done,” he said.
    As soon as Simon pushed open the heavy door, Nell, Peter and Ethan battled past each other to get in first, then ran up the flight of stairs. Maggie greeted them at the apartment door, letting the kids hustle past her, then stepped into the hallway to whisper, “It isn’t good at all in there. Just a warning.”
    The apartment was eerily quiet with no sign of any of the children, which meant they had already sequestered themselves with Austin in front of the TV in Lauren and Tim’s bedroom. Alice abruptly decided they would order Chinese food from the place whose number she had memorized. They would hobble through the night as best they could, together.
    Alice, Mike and Simon followed Maggie into the living room, where Tim sat hunched, strangely, on a tiny chair at Austin’s little art table between the street-side windows. Both were open, inviting bursts of warm air through the sheer white curtains. The diaphanous fabric Alice remembered Lauren choosing and fitting to the long windows now billowed dramatically. Billowed then sucked hard against the screens with the breeze’s sudden evacuation. Alice noticed a crinkle of dust, the kind of small accumulation Lauren never would have tolerated, under the art table at Tim’s feet.
    There he sat, with stringy hair that had been neither washed nor brushed, inhaling deeply on a cigarette. Not once in all their years had Alice known Tim to smoke.
    Alice was the first to approach him. Then Maggie. Mike. Simon. The friends huddled around Tim, who remained on the little seat as if pressed down by an unbearable load. When the long ash of his cigarette threatened to fall, Simon caught it in the cupped palm of his hand and held on to it, refusing to move.
    “The police were here,” Tim finally said. His voice was thin, exhausted. “They were here all afternoon. But why? Why did they ask me all those questions?” He looked searchingly at Mike, who responded by settling a hand on Tim’s shoulder. They said nothing. These men, who grilled together; painted each other’s homes; hefted each other’s cartons; shared hours of debate on politics, art, movies and sports; and routinely traveled together to the Bronx to see the Yankees or to Coney Island to see the Cyclones, could find between them not a single word. Nothing to bridge Tim’s private anxiety to the fact that they were now all gathered together in the single physical body of their friendship.
    “They came to us too,” Alice said.
    Then Maggie: “They came to all of us.”
    Tim squashed the bright ember of his cigarette into one of Austin’s open paint jars. White, now darkened with oily streaks. Three other butts had been squashed in the paint.
    “They were here for hours.” His voice rose. He ran his hands through his unkempt hair then let them flop to his sides. The skin beneath his eyes was dark purple. “Do they actually think I had something to do with Lauren’s disappearance? Could they?”
    “Of course not.” Mike stepped up next to Tim. “They’re just doing their job. You’re the person closest to her, so they need to ask you questions.”
    The person closest to her. Was he? He worked such long hours that, other than weekends, he was hardlyhome. Who was the person closest to Lauren? Austin, Alice decided. And the sisters, of course.
    “They’re treating me like a suspect,” Tim nearly whispered. “I’m a lawyer. I know what’s going on. This is a nightmare. They want answers from me.”
    One thing that was clear to Alice was that Tim did not deserve this. How could he? He was a good man who worked hard, cared for his family, loved them. Alice and Mike had known Tim for five years; they knew him. If the police suspected him of anything, they were looking in the wrong direction, losing time.
    “They want answers,” Simon said in his most soothing voice, “from everyone and everywhere.”
    “That’s right, Tim darling,” Maggie chimed in. “It seems to me they’re casting a wide net. That’s all. You needn’t worry.”
    Her lead-footed remarks could usually be ignored, but