I was sitting under a naked lightbulb, on an old wooden folding chair I had found down there, renewing my family relationships. From time to time the furnace would go on and then, some time after, switch off. After I’d been downstairs for a long time, I heard the hot water heater go on and I figured Jack must be taking a shower, but I was as transfixed, as hooked, as I ever get and I kept turning over picture after picture, no longer looking for anything or anyone special, just looking with interest and nostalgia and an aching sense of being too late. Why had I not asked Aunt Meg years ago, during the time I was visiting regularly, if such pictures existed, if she could help me put a name or some kind of identity on them? It had not occurred to me. I had been in my twenties and I had looked forward, not back, and now I was sorry.

Dimly I heard my name called and I started out of my reverie.

“Chris? You home?”

“I’m down here, Jack.”

The door to the basement opened. “Down where?”

“I’m looking at old pictures.”

“You been down there all afternoon?”

“I guess.”

He came down the stairs. “You like spiders or something? I could have carried this stuff up and you could have sat in the living room.”

“It was better this way.” I stood up and took the framed wedding picture. Then I pulled the chain on the lightbulb and followed Jack up to civilization.

—

He had put lamb shanks in a pot with wine and herbs and vegetables before his shower, but cooking odors only go up and I had been unaware. He poured me a glass of sherry and took some of his favorite Scotch for himself.

“Find anything?” he asked.

“Lots and lots of stuff but no mysterious woman. I didn’t find any papers anywhere. As I remember, there are baptismal certificates and birth certificates in the box in the bank. I was a co-owner with Aunt Meg and I just kept it after she died.”

“The woman probably worked with your father and came out to say hello at the parade.”

“I’ll find out. I’ll go down during the week. Right now I have to decide whether to call this Wormholtz woman at home.”

“I’d say go for it.”

“That’s my feeling, too. I hope she doesn’t hang up on me.”

“Want some Scotch to stiffen your resolve?”

“The sherry’s fine, thanks. It’s mellowed me.”

“Ah, Christine Bennett Brooks, normally the world’s most unmellow woman.”

I smiled and went to the kitchen to make my call.

—

“Do I know you?” The voice was the one I remembered, firm, tough, unbending.

“My name is Christine Bennett, Mrs. Wormholtz. We spoke on Friday.”

“Refresh my memory.”

“I called Hopkins and Jewell to make an appointment. You got me one.”

“If you say so. What are you doing calling me at home?”

“I’m working on something very important and I think you can help me.”

“I work at the office five long days a week. You can reach me there any time from—”

“Mrs. Wormholtz, this isn’t advertising business. This is life and death. Natalie Miller Gordon disappeared over a year ago and I am trying to find out what happened to her. The receptionist at H and J refused to let me speak to you, and I know you can help me.”

“That’s who you are.”

“That’s who I am, yes. Please, give me a few minutes. Please try to help me.”

“What do you want to know?”

“Did you know Natalie?”

“I know every person who’s ever worked for H and J including the cleaning crew.”

“Did you know her personally? Did you ever talk to her? Did you have lunch with her?”

“A qualified yes to all three questions. We talked. She seemed like a nice enough person. I knew when she met the man she eventually married. I had lunch with her occasionally when we had a business party and a group went together. We weren’t friends. We didn’t meet after hours.”

“Did you like her?”

She took a breath before she said, “I liked her.”

“Do you know where she worked before she came to H and J?”

“No idea.”

“I understand you’re the office manager.”

“That’s right.”

“Can you tell me why you got rid of the material in Natalie’s personnel file?”

“What material?”

“Her references, her records of past employment—”

“Slow down, Ms. Bennett. Who exactly told you I got rid of that stuff?”

No one had. “I was led to believe—”

“By whom?” she interrupted.

“Arlene Hopkins said—”

“Arlene Hopkins never told you I removed any papers from that file because I didn’t and she knows it.”

“She said a lot of files were thinned out to save space when you moved to your present location.”

“No doubt that’s true. I didn’t do any thinning. And I definitely didn’t do any thinning of that file.”

“Do you have any idea who did?”

“I have an opinion on almost everything.”

There was little doubt that was true. “Will you tell me?” I was starting to feel like a trial lawyer, phrasing a new question to elicit each molecule of information.

“I will not. I’m the office manager, not the president of the company. It’s not my place to tell you something Arlene Hopkins won’t tell you.”

“How am I going to find out?”

“Talk to Marty Jewell.”

“Mr. Jewell?” I had half expected Jewell to be another woman. “How can I get to see him?”

“I’ll arrange it. When do you want to come?”

“Tomorrow.”

“Be there at ten. You may have to wait a while, but I’ll see to it he gives you your fifteen minutes.”

“I’ll be there. Thank you, Mrs. Wormholtz.”

“Good afternoon.”

10

The receptionist recognized me and gave me a plastic smile. Then she made a phone call and said, “She’s here.”

I waited a long time. Maybe I was being taught a lesson; maybe they were as busy as they seemed. People came in with deliveries, arrived for appointments that were kept pretty punctually, people left. At ten to eleven a woman appeared in the reception area.

“Miss Bennett?”

I stood up. “Yes.”

“Come with me.”

She was fortyish, thick in the middle, had dark hair she had forgotten to brush for several days, and she was dressed in a black skirt and blouse of an unidentifiable fabric that did nothing to enhance her looks, but she didn’t seem to care. She never introduced herself, just started to walk briskly, and I followed because I had been promised fifteen minutes of someone’s time and I didn’t want to waste any of it walking.

Jewell had the other corner office and he was on the phone when we got there. The woman stood in the doorway till he hung up, then said, “This is Christine Bennett.”

“Thanks, Wormy,” Mr. Jewell said with a sincere smile. “Come on in.” As I entered, he turned back to her. “You take care of that Goodman thing, OK?”

There was no acknowledgment, but I assumed her silence meant she was about to do some taking care of.

“Please sit down, Miss Bennett. Can I take your coat?” He rushed to make me comfortable.

As surprised as I had been to see Arlene Hopkins in her pin-striped suit and hair, I was equally surprised to see Martin Jewell. He looked as informal as his partner was formal, wearing a tieless white shirt and no jacket, the sleeves rolled up a couple of turns. He had a round face that at rest looked cordial and relaxed, ready to spring a joke on a willing listener.

“I understand you’re looking into Natalie’s disappearance.”

“That’s right. I’m not a professional, but I’ve had some experience, and her husband asked me if I’d try to find out what happened to her.”

“It was shocking,” he said. “She was crazy about him. You couldn’t talk to her five minutes without hearing Sandy this and Sandy that. I don’t know how she could have done it.”