“I have a cat.”
Tarrant clears his throat. “May I have your key to the front door?”
I dig in my bag again. My father’s joke is miles away. With effort, I produce the keys. “This one is to the front door. The next one is the apartment door.”
He takes the key ring by the front door key. “We’ll check it out. Please stand back and clear the door.” He throws a brawny arm in my path and guides me away from the entrance. My stomach begins to churn. In a few minutes, I’ll find out what the fuck is going on.
They leave me there and enter the building. One of my neighbors across the way, the one with the Bianchi bike, watches curiously from the window. None of the other neighbors are at the windows. The shades are drawn again in the apartment across from mine. Whoever lives there is never home. A lawyer.
Out of the corner of my eye, I see Marv crossing the street and heading in my direction. I stand away from the building and look up to see if anything’s going on in my apartment. The slats in the window blinds are suddenly illuminated. The cops must be in the living room. I bite my lip.
“Did they find anything?” Marv peers up with me at the building.
“They’re still up there.”
“Don’t worry. Anything got taken, you can get replaced. It’s only money.”
“Except my cat.”
“You think they took your cat?”
“No. I’m just worried about her.”
“Me, I hate cats.”
“Me too.”
Suddenly, the window blinds are pulled up and Officer Lewis’s silhouette appears in Alice’s window. He fusses with the screen and pokes his head out briefly, then replaces it. I crane my neck to see inside the apartment, but I can’t see past the cop. He does the same to the other window.
“I wonder what he’s doing,” I say.
“Seeing how the guy broke in. I heard some guy broke into an apartment on Lombard last week. Climbed right up the front of the building to the third floor. Like a mountain climber. Like Spider-Man.”
I look up at the apartment. Two bright windows face the street, glowing from the front of the building like the eyes of a jack o’lantern. I wonder how much longer the cops will be. I wonder what they’re finding. Suddenly, Alice springs onto her windowsill and does a luxuriant stretch.
“That’s Alice! That’s my cat!” I can’t remember being so happy to see her.
“Cute,” Marv says, without enthusiasm. He frowns at the window. “You know, a girl like you, you don’t need a cat. You need a dog, for protection. Cats are good for nothing.”
Officer Lewis appears in the window behind Alice and picks her up. He makes her do a little wave at me in the window, until she leaps out of his arms.
“Look at that, Marv!”
“Very cute.”
A couple of minutes later the cops come out the front door. Lewis is sneezing almost uncontrollably. He runs by, coughing and sneezing, and leaps into the squad car. Officer Tarrant walks over to us, grinning broadly. I can’t figure out what’s going on.
“Nice cat,” he says to me.
“What happened?”
“My partner found out he’s allergic.”
I look over. The white cop is in the throes of a sneezing fit. “Is he okay?”
“Might have to shoot him.” Tarrant laughs, and so does Marv.
“What did you find upstairs?”
“It’s fine, ma’am. Everything is absolutely fine. It looks untouched.”
“Really?”
“Really.”
“No one’s there or anything?”
“No.”
“It’s totally safe?”
“Unless you’re allergic to cats.” He bends down to peer into the squad car at Lewis, still hacking away.
I can’t make sense of this. “But the door was open.”
“Come on in with me. We’ll take a quick walk through and you tell me if anything is missing.” Tarrant opens the front door for me.
“Would you mind going first?”
“Age before beauty, huh?” he says, and walks ahead of me. It all seems so strange; I’ve never left the door unlocked before. When we reach the door to the apartment, he swings it open wide and we go in.
Everything looks normal. A small living room, with a paisley sofa and a scrubbed-pine coffee table. The TV is in place and the VCR under it. The stereo sits on the shelf. As usual, Alice doesn’t even look at me. I reach for her, but she jumps from my arms with a soft thud.
“This how you left it?” Tarrant asks.
“It looks the same.”
“Let’s check the bedroom.” He walks in front of me and flicks on the bedroom light. The bed’s unmade, my clothes are piled on top of the computer, and there’s a stack of paperbacks beside the bed on the floor. Neat, it’s not. But it looks like it always does.
“Take a look at your jewelry box,” he says.
I walk to my bureau obediently and look into the open jewelry box. I don’t have a lot of jewelry, but there are a few gold chains, a set of pearls, and my gold power earrings for client meetings. “Everything’s here.”
“You’re lucky. You have a lot of expensive things lying around. The TV, the VCR, the computer. You ought to think about a safety deposit box for the jewelry.”
“Did you search the whole apartment? I mean, am I alone?”
Tarrant nods. “We even checked under the bed.”
I think he intends this as a joke, but it sends a shudder up my spine.
“Like I said, you’re lucky, ma’am. I’ve seen places turned over, cleanedout. Next time make sure you lock your door.”
“You sure you looked everywhere? I mean, I’m not doubting you, it’s just that lately some weird things have been happening to me.”
“Like what?”
His eyes are a deep, friendly brown, and his manner is professional. I feel like I can trust him. I take a deep breath and let it rip.
12
“Wait a minute,” Tarrant says. “Did you report any of this?”
“No. If I did, you’d investigate.”
“That’s the point, isn’t it?”
“Well, what would an investigation involve?”
“We’d start with your statement. Then we’d interview anyone you suspect, any witnesses to the incidents with the car.”
“There aren’t any witnesses.”
He purses his lips. “Do you suspect anyone?”
“I think it’s someone at my firm.”
“I see. What did the note say exactly?”
“It said,Congratulations on your partnership.”
He laughs. I see my credibility fall off the table. “That’s all it said? Why do you call it a hate note?”
