Charles. There might be something in the obituaries about Dolores.”
“Yes, moddom.”
Getting away from the house was always the hardest part. Sarah donned a light raincoat over the too-summery outfit that she’d elected to wear because the blue silk was too dressy for the office and there wasn’t much else in the closet to choose from. Once on her way, she enjoyed her walk to the Windy Corner, which was no more than agreeably breezy this morning, pushed through the door into the lobby, and checked in at the reception desk. The receptionist knew her, of course.
“Well, Mrs. Bittersohn, we haven’t seen you around here much lately.”
“No, I’ve been staying at home, catching up on things. The office won’t be open today. I’m just here to work on the books and don’t want to be interrupted, so please don’t send anybody up unless I scream for help.”
They both found this notion mildly amusing. Sarah took the elevator up to her floor, unlocked the office door with Brooks’s magic key which only worked if one recited the proper mantra, went in, and took off her raincoat. There was nothing impressive about the Bittersohn Detective Agency’s headquarters except the gold-leaf lettering on the door. The old flat-topped oak desk and creaky swivel chair that Max had inherited from some previous tenant took up too much of the meager floor space. An impressive array of file cabinets along one wall and a couple of straight-backed, slimly padded chairs that didn’t encourage droppers-in to stay and chat once their business was done were the only other furnishings, unless one counted a few shelves that held office supplies and some pegs that Brooks had screwed to the wall because there was not room enough for a coat rack. Sarah hung her raincoat on one of the pegs and got down to business.
A fair amount of mail had been poked through the slot since Brooks was last in the office. Sarah picked the envelopes up off the dingy green-linoleum-covered floor and dumped them on the desk before she checked the answering machine. There were only a few messages on the tape, none that sounded important or urgent, the usual one or two from persons who were either mentally deranged or trying to be funny. Sarah jotted down those names and numbers that might be worth following up and turned to the mail.
Once the junk had been weeded out, she found her task rewarding in every sense of the word. There were no fewer than five checks, two of them for large sums that were long overdue, two that were almost equally impressive, and one that verged on munificence. She’d drop them in at the bank when she went out for lunch. This would not be a late meal or a meager one; it was high time she got some real food into her for a change. She’d done too much snacking since Max left. Charles’s tuna-fish sandwiches hadn’t been particularly filling. As for that Sunday luncheon at the Turbots’, the best she could say was that the food had been no worse than what she’d have got at Cousin Mabel’s. She hadn’t spoken to Mabel in ages. How nice.
The immediate tasks done, Sarah opened a ledger and got down to what she’d come for. This was work that many would call boring. So would she, perhaps, if she weren’t doing it for Max and Davy and the rest of the crew. She gave her small pile of checks a satisfied nod and went on with the next piece of business. There was the job book to be brought up-to-date, summarizing how many hours had been spent on a specific assignment, how much the operatives’ expenses had come to, all the picky details that the IRS could be so stuffy about if they weren’t properly documented.
Sarah’s particular care and pride were the oversized notebooks that described, often with carefully detailed sketches from her own pen, the wide variety of precious objects that Max and his cohorts had either recovered or were still looking for: their age, their provenance, their appraised values, their full descriptions;
“Yes, moddom.”
Getting away from the house was always the hardest part. Sarah donned a light raincoat over the too-summery outfit that she’d elected to wear because the blue silk was too dressy for the office and there wasn’t much else in the closet to choose from. Once on her way, she enjoyed her walk to the Windy Corner, which was no more than agreeably breezy this morning, pushed through the door into the lobby, and checked in at the reception desk. The receptionist knew her, of course.
“Well, Mrs. Bittersohn, we haven’t seen you around here much lately.”
“No, I’ve been staying at home, catching up on things. The office won’t be open today. I’m just here to work on the books and don’t want to be interrupted, so please don’t send anybody up unless I scream for help.”
They both found this notion mildly amusing. Sarah took the elevator up to her floor, unlocked the office door with Brooks’s magic key which only worked if one recited the proper mantra, went in, and took off her raincoat. There was nothing impressive about the Bittersohn Detective Agency’s headquarters except the gold-leaf lettering on the door. The old flat-topped oak desk and creaky swivel chair that Max had inherited from some previous tenant took up too much of the meager floor space. An impressive array of file cabinets along one wall and a couple of straight-backed, slimly padded chairs that didn’t encourage droppers-in to stay and chat once their business was done were the only other furnishings, unless one counted a few shelves that held office supplies and some pegs that Brooks had screwed to the wall because there was not room enough for a coat rack. Sarah hung her raincoat on one of the pegs and got down to business.
A fair amount of mail had been poked through the slot since Brooks was last in the office. Sarah picked the envelopes up off the dingy green-linoleum-covered floor and dumped them on the desk before she checked the answering machine. There were only a few messages on the tape, none that sounded important or urgent, the usual one or two from persons who were either mentally deranged or trying to be funny. Sarah jotted down those names and numbers that might be worth following up and turned to the mail.
Once the junk had been weeded out, she found her task rewarding in every sense of the word. There were no fewer than five checks, two of them for large sums that were long overdue, two that were almost equally impressive, and one that verged on munificence. She’d drop them in at the bank when she went out for lunch. This would not be a late meal or a meager one; it was high time she got some real food into her for a change. She’d done too much snacking since Max left. Charles’s tuna-fish sandwiches hadn’t been particularly filling. As for that Sunday luncheon at the Turbots’, the best she could say was that the food had been no worse than what she’d have got at Cousin Mabel’s. She hadn’t spoken to Mabel in ages. How nice.
The immediate tasks done, Sarah opened a ledger and got down to what she’d come for. This was work that many would call boring. So would she, perhaps, if she weren’t doing it for Max and Davy and the rest of the crew. She gave her small pile of checks a satisfied nod and went on with the next piece of business. There was the job book to be brought up-to-date, summarizing how many hours had been spent on a specific assignment, how much the operatives’ expenses had come to, all the picky details that the IRS could be so stuffy about if they weren’t properly documented.
Sarah’s particular care and pride were the oversized notebooks that described, often with carefully detailed sketches from her own pen, the wide variety of precious objects that Max and his cohorts had either recovered or were still looking for: their age, their provenance, their appraised values, their full descriptions;
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