house. It was a low clapboard structure with paired front doors in the center and symmetrical windows left and right. There was a low wire fence defining a front yard. The yard had a lawn that was partly dead. No bushes or flowers or shrubs. But it was neat enough. No trash. The steps up to the door were swept clean.
"I'll wait right here," Froelich said.
Reacher and Neagley climbed out of the car. The night air was cold and the distant stereo was louder. They went in through the gate. Up a cracked concrete walk to the door. Reacher pressed the bell and heard it sound inside the house. They waited. Heard the slap of footsteps on what sounded like a bare floor, and then something metal being hauled out of the way. The door opened and a man stood there, holding the handle. He was the cleaner from the video, no doubt about it. They had looked at him forward and backward for hours. He was not young, not old. Not short, not tall. Just a completely average guy. He was wearing cotton pants and a Redskins sweatshirt. His skin was dark and his cheekbones were high and flat. His hair was black and glossy, with an old-fashioned cut still crisp and neat around the edges.
"Yes?" he said.
"We need to talk about the thing at the office," Reacher said.
The guy didn't ask any questions. Didn't ask for ID. Just glanced at Reacher's face and stepped backward and over the thing he had moved to get the door open. It was a child's seesaw made out of brightly colored curved metal tubes. It had little seats at each end, like you might see on a child's tricycle, and plastic horses' heads with little handlebars coming out of the sides below the ears.
"Can't leave it outside at night," the guy said. "It would be stolen."
Neagley and Reacher climbed over it into a narrow hallway. There were more toys neatly packed onto shelves. Bright grade-school paintings visible on the front of the refrigerator in the kitchen. The smell of cooking. There was a living room off the hallway with two silent, scared women in it. They were wearing Sunday dresses, which were very different from their work overalls.
"We need to know your names," Neagley said.
Her voice was halfway between warm friendliness and the cold knell of doom. Reacher smiled to himself. That was Neagley's way. He remembered it well. Nobody ever argued with her. It was one of her strengths.
"Julio," the man said.
"Anita," the first woman said. Reacher assumed she was Julio's wife, by the way she glanced at him before answering.
"Maria," the second woman said. "I'm Anita's sister."
There was a small sofa and two armchairs. Anita and Maria squeezed up to let Julio sit with them on the sofa. Reacher took that as an invitation and sat down in one of the armchairs. Neagley took the other. It put the two of them at a symmetrical angle, like the sofa was a television screen and they were sitting down to watch it.
"We think you guys put the letter in the office," Neagley said.
There was no reply. No reaction at all. No expression on the three faces. Just some kind of silent blank stoicism.
"Did you?" Neagley asked.
No reply.
"The kids in bed?" Reacher asked.
"They're not here," Anita said.
"Are they yours or Maria's?"
"They're mine."
"Boys or girls?"
"Both girls."
"Where are they?"
She paused a beat. "With cousins."
"Why?"
"Because we work nights."
"Not for much longer," Neagley said. "You won't be working at all, unless you tell somebody something."
No response.
"No more health insurance, no more benefits."
No response.
"You might even go to jail."
Silence in the room.
"Whatever happens to us will happen," Julio said.
"Did somebody ask you to put it there? Somebody you know in the office?"
Absolutely no response.
"Somebody you know outside the office?"
"We didn't do anything with any letter."
"So what did you do?" Reacher asked.
"We cleaned. That's what we're there for."
"You were in there an awful long time."
Julio looked at his wife, like he was puzzled.
"We saw the tape," Reacher said.
"We know about the cameras," Julio said.
"You follow the same routine every night?"
"We have to."
"Spend that long in there every night?"
Julio shrugged. "I guess so."
"You rest up in there?"
"No, we clean."
"Same every night?"
"Everything's the same every night. Unless somebody's spilled some coffee or left a lot of trash around or something. That might slow us up some."
"Was there something like that in Stuyvesant's office that night?"
"No," Julio said. "Stuyvesant is a clean guy."
"You spent some big amount of time in there."
"No