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“But I still don’t see how-”
Markham slid a two-page interview report across the table. On top was stamped the word Classified and the initials D.D. “That morning, at 7:12 A.M., soon after arriving, Ms. Selios called in a repair order for the laser printer on her floor. At 7:48, the technician arrived, as you’ll see by his interview. The technician had always found Ms. Selios to be-” Markham looked at his notes. “ – smoking hot. That morning, he flirted with Ms. Selios, who was, he claims, not entirely unaware of his intentions or unimpressed by his mac-daddy game. Dude was workin’ it, when March suddenly received a telephone call. She appeared agitated by the call. The technician was removing a jammed sheet of paper from the laser printer when he looked up and saw March Selios walking toward the elevators, crying. The technician himself left a few minutes later, arriving on the main floor, and was, as far as we know, the last person to get off that floor before…” Markham mouthed the word boom, and shrugged, as if that explained it.
Remy was surprised to hear himself asking questions. “Did anyone see her leaving the building? Or afterward? Is there any other evidence that she’s alive?”
Markham looked pleased. “These questions are why we brought you in.”
Remy looked down at the interview transcript. “I don’t know. I mean – couldn’t that call have been anything?” he said. “An argument with a boyfriend? Maybe she wasn’t going to the elevator. Maybe she went to the bathroom. What have you got here – a horny repairman and a recipe. And that’s supposed to prove she got advance warning?”
Markham pointed at the close-up of March Selios’s cubicle. “Imagine the walls of a young woman’s cubicle. Covered in pictures and recipes, Cathy cartoons, and Buddhist koans. Now, let’s say she has a fight with her boyfriend, as you say, and she runs off to the bathroom. Would she really stop to strip the walls of her cubicle on her way out? Would she grab recipes and pictures? Why would it occur to her that she was not coming back?”
Markham held out his palms again, then began collecting his papers. He glanced up at Remy. “Any questions before you get started?”
Remy didn’t know where to start. “This all seems so… sketchy. Maybe it’s just me, but…” He rubbed his eyes, trying for the millionth time to clear the streaks. “I’m having a lot of trouble… co
Markham stared at him for a long moment and then nodded and looked like he might cry. “I know. It’s hard. I forget sometimes that you guys went through hell that day. I can’t know what that was like. None of us can. This is tough. And it never gets easier. But that’s precisely why we wanted you.” Markham reached back into his briefcase for the index card in the baggie. “Read the last line of this ‘recipe.’”
Remy read it: Garnish with two twisted orange slices.
Now Markham handed him another detail blowup, this one from the photo of March and Bishir Madain at di
“A FORMALITY,” said a woman in her fifties, tall and professional, staring over the rims of stylish glasses up at Remy. She sat at a wide desk, next to a rooster-haired man roughing up his nose with a wet handkerchief.
“There are no right answers,” the man said. “Relax.”
The woman asked, “Chronic back pain?”
“What?” Remy asked.
“Just to get the paperwork flowing,” the tall woman said. “A formality. We just have to check a box.”
The man asked, “Chronic back pain?”
Remy looked around the room. There was a poster on the wall behind him showing a cartoon man with a push broom through his head like an arrow and the caption: Industrial Accidents Are Nothing To Laugh At. Remy leaned forward. “My back is fine,” he said. “I mean, if I need anything, I guess it’s some kind of counselor. See, I’m having some trouble… focusing. There are these gaps. I lose track of things.”
They stared at him.
“And my eyes… my eyes are flaking apart. Macular degeneration and vitreous detachment. I see flashers and floaters.”
A few seconds passed. Remy laughed nervously. “My son’s been telling everyone that I’m dead.”
They stared.
“And I… I drink a lot. Most days, I think. And… uh…” He rubbed his eyes. “I shot myself in the head. But I think that was an accident. Or… maybe a joke.”
They stared.
“But… you know… I’m fine.”
They stared.
“Well… except for the gaps, obviously.”
After a moment, the man chewed his pen and looked down at the file, ru
“I WATCH a fair amount of television, Mr. Remy,” said the nervous woman with a silver skunk streak in her black hair. She glanced over at a set in the corner of her small apartment. Remy looked from the woman to her TV. On the screen, a man in coveralls was holding a piece of wood against a lathe. The sound was turned down. The skunk woman continued: “I haven’t turned off my TV since it happened. I was glued to the news coverage for the first few days. I even turned the TV so I could see it from the bathroom. I ordered out every meal and just went from cha
Remy shifted. He looked down at his palm-sized notebook. Written on the page in his handwriting was a series of fragmentary notes: the name A
Below A
“That morning?” A