my husband called me. He said his mother had settled down and he was on his way upstairs. ‘I’m starving,’ he told me. ‘Get breakfast ready so I can eat as soon as I get there.’ So I heated up the frying pan and started cooking the pancakes and bacon. I heated up the maple syrup as well. Pancakes aren’t difficult to make—it’s all a matter of timing and doing everything in the right order. I waited and waited, but he didn’t come home. The stack of pancakes on his plate was getting cold. I phoned my mother-in-law and asked her if my husband was still there. She said he’d left a long time ago.”
She brushed off an imaginary, metaphysical piece of lint on her skirt, just above the knee.
“My husband disappeared. He vanished into thin air. And I haven’t heard from him since. He disappeared somewhere between the twenty-fourth and twenty-sixth floors.”
“You contacted the police?”
“Of course I did,” she said, her lips curling a little in irritation. “When he wasn’t back by one o’clock, I phoned the police. But they didn’t put much effort into looking for him. A patrolman from the local police station came over, but when he saw there was no sign of a violent crime he couldn’t be bothered. ‘If he isn’t back in two days,’ he said, ‘go to the precinct and file a missing-persons report.’ The police seem to think that my husband wandered off somewhere on the spur of the moment, as if he were fed up with his life and just took off. But that’s ridiculous. I mean, think about it. My husband went down to his mother’s completely empty-handed—no wallet, driver’s license, credit cards, no watch. He hadn’t even shaved, for God’s sake. And he’d just phoned me and told me to get the pancakes ready. Somebody who’s running away from home wouldn’t call and ask you to make pancakes, would he?”
“You’re absolutely right,” I agreed. “But, tell me, when your husband went down to the twenty-fourth floor, did he take the stairs?”
“He never uses the elevator. He hates elevators. Says he can’t stand being cooped up in a confined place like that.”
“Still, you chose to live on the twenty-sixth floor of a high-rise?”
“We did. But he always uses the stairs. He doesn’t seem to mind—he says it’s good exercise and helps him to keep his weight down. Of course, it does take time.”
Pancakes, twenty pounds, stairs, elevator, I noted on my pad.
“So that’s the situation,” she said. “Will you take the case?”
No need to think about it. This was exactly the kind of case I’d been hoping for. I went through the motions of checking my schedule, though, and pretended to be shuffling a few things around. If you instantly agree to take a case, the client might suspect some ulterior motive.
“Luckily I’m free until later this afternoon,” I said, shooting my watch a glance. It was eleven thirty-five. “If you don’t mind, could you take me over to your building now? I’d like to see the last place you saw your husband.”
“I’d be happy to,” the woman said. She gave a small frown. “Does this mean you’re taking the case?”
“It does,” I replied.
“But we haven’t talked about the fee yet.”
“I don’t need any money.”
“I’m sorry?” she said, looking steadily at me.
“I don’t charge anything,” I explained, and smiled.
“But isn’t this your job?”
“No, it isn’t. This isn’t my profession. I’m just a volunteer, so I don’t get paid.”
“A volunteer?”
“Correct.”
“Still, you’ll need something for expenses…”
“No expenses needed. I’m totally a volunteer, so I can’t accept payment of any kind.”
The woman still looked perplexed.
“Fortunately, I have another source of income that provides enough to live on,” I explained. “I’m not doing this for the money. I’m just very interested in locating people who’ve disappeared. Or more precisely, people who’ve disappeared in a certain way. I won’t go into that—it’ll only complicate things. But I am pretty good at this sort of thing.”
“Tell me, is there some kind of religion or New Age thing behind all this?” she asked.
“Neither one. I don’t have a connection with any religion or New Age group.”
The woman glanced down at her shoes, perhaps contemplating how—if things got really weird—she might have to use the stiletto heels against me.
“My husband always told me not to trust anything that’s free,” the woman said. “I know this is rude to say, but he insisted there’s always a catch.”
“In most cases, I’d agree with him,” I said. “In our late-stage