Chapter 17: Flat as a Table

Richard walked across the lot with the cane clicking on broken brick.

The excavator had stopped.

The operator had taken off his hat, and the foreman stood with his clipboard against his chest.

Windows had lit along Calumet Street.

An old man in a cardigan came out of the house across the road, then two women in coats over their nightgowns, then a boy on a bicycle.

They stood at the edge of the lot and looked at me.

"Tommy's girl," the old man said, and his voice cracked in the middle of it. "That's Tommy Brennan's girl."

I had never seen him before in my life.

"I ran the number four lathe for him eleven years," he said. "They told us the shop went bankrupt. Forty of us, out the same week."

"It didn't go bankrupt," I said.

"Hazel," Richard said, very pleasantly. "You've had a night. Give me the box and we'll talk about it in the morning."

"No."

"It's stolen property from a building I own."

"Then call the police."

"I did," he said. "On the way here."

"Good," Gavin said. "So did I."

Richard blinked.

It was the first time I had ever seen him lose a step.

I opened the box on the hood of the excavator, under the work lights the crew had set up, and held up the cream page.

"This is a letter on your letterhead," I said. "I'll read it, since you like things that are legal."

The old man took off his cap.

I read it aloud, the three lines, and the date.

I read it slowly so every person on that street could hear the part about the wife and the house.

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