I gave him a pat as I opened the newly clean door. “We’re still good, boy.”
But as we drove away, I took a last look around.
Scientists said that the eerie feeling we got of being watched was real. That it was based on subconscious cues from our eyes, which took in information beyond what was consciously processed by our visual cortex. We were aware on some level when someone was staring at us, even when they were watching peripherally, or from a distance.
Then again, maybe all this was nothing more than PTSD-fueled paranoia. During group sessions at the VA, a lot of my fellow Marines admitted to sharing the feeling. Like a phantom limb, it was the stubborn vestige of a war that demanded we scan every room we entered for possible threats. That we keep our faces toward the door. That we go into high alert at every loud bang.
I’d left the war. But it had followed me home, a dark, coiled stowaway.
“I don’t understand what any of this has to do with us,” she said.
Kaylee Wilkins, the supervisor at Top-A Cleaning, was one of those women who managed to look harried even when the worst thing going on—apparently—was that she hadn’t been able to break for lunch. Her desk was as clear as her skin, her phone a mute, black slab encased in shimmering red, and the only other thing breathing in the building aside from Kaylee, Clyde, and me was Candy.
And I wasn’t entirely sure of Candy. When I looked through Kaylee’s open door toward the front office, Candy had her elbow propped on the desk and her half-lidded face propped in her hand. She looked comatose. Probably I’d feel the same way working here.
“Tell me again why you’re here?” Kaylee said as I took the proffered chair in her office and Clyde settled next to me. “Candy said something about one of our clients. I do hope there haven’t been any, like, official complaints?”
“Do you get a lot of those?”
“Like, no way!” She beamed. “Not one since I’ve been here.”
Kaylee Wilkins. Valspeaking California girl. Holding back the Mongol hordes with her shiny blond ponytail and her powder-blue cashmere sweater set.
I took out my notebook. “Which is how long?”
“Five weeks. And two days.” The beam dimmed slightly to a dimpled smile. “So what is this about?”
“I’m following up a lead,” I said. “A man named Noah Asher used your services for a time. I’d like to know the exact dates and who cleaned his house.”
She touched the computer mouse with a blue-tipped fingernail, and the screen came to life. The screen saver bore the urgent message Make every day count! Kaylee entered a password and a crowded desktop popped into life. Maybe she was busier than her real-world desk suggested.
She clicked and opened a folder labeled Clients.
“Name of the customer?” she asked.
“Noah Asher.”
Kaylee typed. Her ponytail bounced as if animated by its own perkiness. A minute later a series of invoices popped up. She nodded.
“You’re right! He did use our service.”
And to think I’d had doubts.
She scrolled up and down the screen. “Back in February, looks like?”
“Maybe you could tell me,” I said.
“What? Oh, right!” A little laugh. “We cleaned Mr. Asher’s home beginning in November. Our last cleaning was on, like, February seventeenth?”
“On that date? Or like on that date? Which one?”
“What?”
I surrendered. “Nothing after February seventeenth?”
She scrolled some more. “Nope. February seventeenth was it.”
“Is a reason given for the termination?”
Pink glowed in her cheeks. “It’s usually a cost issue. We do good work, and we charge accordingly.”
The same thing Candy had said. The party line. Which didn’t make it untrue.
“No other information is given,” I said.
“Nope. Sorry.”
I was turning my own questions into statements to balance Kaylee’s valspeak. I course-corrected. “Who did the cleaning?”
Kaylee shook her head. “Our records don’t indicate that.”
“Someone had to make the assignment. Who would know?”
“Like, the previous supervisor,” she said. “He left six weeks ago? I took his place.”
After Noah canceled his cleaning service. “Were you an internal hire?”
“Oh, no. I don’t clean houses. I have an MBA.”
“Who’s your boss?”
“That would be Kurt Inger. He manages Top-A Cleaning. Nice guy, I guess, but a total nab. He might know who cleaned Mr. Asher’s house.” Her lip curled. “We’re not supposed to assign specific cleaners to a customer. Strictly against policy. But sometimes Kurt does it anyway.”
“Write down Mr. Inger’s phone number for me, please,” I said. “And I’d like copies of the invoices.”
She shrugged. “Sure. Give me a minute to print them? Candy has Kurt’s card.”
Like pulling teeth. “Can you get that for me, please?”
“Well, all right.” She pressed a few keys to close the database and then left her office. Through the open door I saw her talking to Candy, who had stirred to life when the printer did.
I looked around the office. Kaylee hadn’t put much of her own mark on it. But what was there was in the tone of Norman Vincent Peale. A bookshelf filled with identical blue coffee mugs that read STAY POSITIVE! Giveaways, probably, for new clients. And a framed quote suggested that Kaylee—and everyone else, presumably—was to BE EFFECTIVE!
There were a few more items of the same ilk—water bottles, pens. A printed scarf hanging on a peg near the door—there so you could strangle yourself on positivity if it got to be too much, I supposed. I envisioned Bandoni’s reaction if I showed up in a T-shirt emblazoned with the words, I am a highly effective person!
“What do you think, Clyde?”
Clyde huffed and settled his head on his forelegs.
“Yeah, me, too.”
Kaylee bustled back in, beaming. Positivity at work. “Here you go.” She handed me a sheaf of printouts and a scrap of paper on which was written the name Kurt Inger and a phone number.
“Candy didn’t have Kurt’s business cards, I’m afraid,” she said apologetically.
“This will work. So, Kaylee.” I tried my own winning smile. “It would be really
