the front door to 1313 East Republican Street. The mailbox was outside.
Ben stashed his duffel bag in the cement stairwell leading to a basement door of the apartment building. The stairs and threshold area were covered with leaves. He piled a few on top of his bag until it was completely hidden.
Emerging from the stairwell, he checked his wristwatch: 11:10. Hannah and Guy were probably well on their way by now.
On the other side of the road, the mail carrier made his deliveries to the four cedar cottages. Ben waited for a few more minutes until the mailman moved further up the street. Then Ben darted across the way to the front stoop of number 1313.
He dug the envelopes out of the mailbox: junk mail and a bill from a place called VideoTronics. All of the letters were addressed to
Ben put the mail back in the box. He didn’t think anyone was home, but he rang the bell anyway just to be certain. A minute passed, and he rang again. No answer.
Glancing over his shoulder, Ben tried the door. Locked. He pulled out his credit card and slid it in the doorjamb. He tried again and again, but he couldn’t trip the lock.
He heard a car coming, and he quickly backed away from the door. He crept around to the side of the house, looking for a way in. Continuing on to the backyard, he peeked in the living room window, then gave it a tug. Locked. He tried the back door; also locked. Ben skulked around to the other side of the house, then stopped. The neighbor’s identical cedar cottage was only about twenty feet away. Ben didn’t see anyone in the other residence. There were no lights on, despite the dreary overcast sky.
He glanced back at Richard Kidd’s house and spotted an open window on the first floor, but it was out of reach.
Ben grabbed an empty garbage can from around back and hauled it to the side of the house. Turning it over, he set the tall, heavy-duty aluminum bin under the open window. He stole a glimpse toward the sidewalk and street. He didn’t see anyone, so he climbed on top of the garbage can. It was wobbly, and slippery from the rain. He grabbed ahold of the windowsill.
Checking over his shoulder, Ben suddenly froze.
A middle-aged man stood at the window of the house next door. He was facing Ben. He didn’t move.
For a moment, it seemed like a standoff. Ben wasn’t sure if he should make a run for it or not. Once the neighbor called the police, it would take less than five minutes for a patrol car to arrive. There was no time to search the house. There was barely enough time to get away now.
The man remained in the window, his face expressionless. Ben stared back at him, totally perplexed. Finally, he gave the man a tentative wave. No response. After a minute, the man wandered away from the window.
Ben watched him inside the dim house. With the overcast skies, he should have had at least one light on. The man moved to a clock on the wall and put his hand on the dial, touching the hour and minute hands.
“He’s blind, stupid,” Ben muttered to himself.
Sighing, he turned and raised the window higher. His hands were shaking. He glanced around one more time. With the coast clear, he hoisted himself up, then climbed through the opening.
Catching his breath, Ben realized he was in the pantry of Richard Kidd’s small, modern kitchen. On the counter, he saw something that looked like a small transistor radio. A tiny green light was blinking on it face.
He heard a strange series of clicks in the next room. He figured he must have set off some kind of motion detector or alarm device.
Ben hurried into the living room for the source of the mechanical noise. On the floor, tilted against the wall by the front door, he saw another little device with a flickering green light. But the clicking sound wasn’t coming from there.
It came from the VCR beneath the television set. Lights were blinking on and off. It was on some kind of timer.
Ben wasn’t sure whether or not he should cut his losses and get out before the police arrived. If an alarm had gone off, it was a silent one. But wouldn’t the police or security company phone before responding in person?
Still undecided, he stood in the middle of the living room, which was decorated with black leather furniture and chrome-and-glass tables. Very cold and sleek. Ben noticed two big boxes by the foot of the stairs. He knelt down and looked through them. He recognized several books that had been at Seth’s place last night. He also discovered the same envelope with photos of Seth and Richard together—on their group hike, and on the beach with that girl. Richard had removed these things from the garage apartment last night.
In one box, Ben found a wad of paycheck stubs from the community college. Hannah was right. Richard had been giving his paychecks to Seth Stroud.
Ben opened one of the books, a high school yearbook from Missoula, Montana. He looked up Stroud, Seth, and on page 37, he saw a graduation photo of the young man he’d met only once. His hair was longer, and he had one of those teenage-boy wispy mustaches, but it was the same man Ben had seen at the garage apartment.
E. Richard Kidd was on page 33. The glasses were different, and he had some baby fat on his face, but it was Paul Gulletti’s assistant, all right.
Ben found a photo of them together on page 59. Posed behind a table with a movie projector on it, they looked slightly nerdy with their six cohorts in the Film and Video Club.
At the beginning of the yearbook, Ben unearthed an old, yellowed clipping from a Missoula newspaper. The small headline read: “LOCAL HIGH SCHOOL STUDENT PREMIERES SHORT FILM AT GRAND CITIPLEX THEATERS.” The article had a photo of the young Richard Kidd without his glasses. He looked a bit pompous. The caption said:
Ben stared at the picture and wondered when Richard Kidd had started borrowing Seth Stroud’s name. He didn’t understand why Richard lived and received mail at this address, but took his friend’s identity to work. With his background in film, it didn’t make sense that he claimed to be someone else at the community college.
Ben kept looking through the two boxes, uncovering more books, two shirts, a bag of marijuana, a camera, and junk mail from the college. Ben also unearthed an address book. Richard Kidd’s name was in it, along with his address, phone number, and cell phone. Ben copied down both phone numbers.
He wondered how they worked out the phones. He checked Richard’s answering machine on the glass-top end table by the leather sofa. Ben played back the recorded greeting:
Ben imagined Seth’s greeting was just as anonymous. He couldn’t call to find out. The garage apartment was probably still packed with policemen.
Looking out the front window, he didn’t see anything unusual; no cops creeping up to the house. Perhaps those small transistor devices weren’t part of an alarm system after all.
He glanced over at the VCR again. It was counting down from twenty-two minutes. He’d never seen a VCR with a timer like that. It was strange how the machine had clicked on a moment after he’d climbed inside that window. Was it a coincidence? Or did those little transistors have something to do with it?
The telephone rang. Ben felt himself jump a bit. He waited until the answering machine came on with that anonymous greeting. The caller hung up.
Ben went back to work, quickly rummaging through a cabinet in the living room. Finding nothing of interest, he decided to try upstairs.
As he started up toward the second floor, the VCR counter read nineteen minutes.
Hannah peeked at the meter on the dashboard: sixty-one bucks so far. They were on Interstate 5, about thirty miles south of Seattle. Most of the way, Guy had been quiet, mesmerized by the taxi ride. Since she didn’t have a car, he rarely rode in one. This was a real adventure for him. Hannah had pointed out landmarks they passed: Safeco Field with its retractable roof, Boeing Field, and Sea-Tac Airport. She’d felt Guy’s forehead a couple of times, and checked his complexion. He seemed fine.
The cab driver was an East Indian man who said very little. He had the radio on, easy-listening stuff. He’d picked up her and Guy at the hotel across from Pacific Place. She’d told the driver to take them to Tacoma.
