The Egg at Dumstreet

Janitorial Enquiries

The janitor's hallway sported a blood-red linoleum floor. A crowd of hanging coats and jackets populated one of its walls, and a patchwork of framed photographs was cluttering the other. In a combined effort, the coats and photos gracefully succeeded in hiding most of the large-flowered orange-white wallpaper.

Art expected Mrs. Meier to ask him to take off his shoes while offering him a pair of felt slippers, just as Adriana had done the night before. But she just motioned him on.

Not into the living room, this time, but into the kitchen.

The Meier kitchen was dominated by a yellow-topped table and by a smiling Ralph holding court on one of the yellow chairs surrounding it.

"Hey, neighbor!" The janitor's son got up to shake hands.

"Hello, Ralph."

The smell of coffee was heavy in the air. But it wasn't the rich bouquet of fresh ground beans, nor the subtle fragrance of espresso from a piston machine, but rather it was the olfactory product of hot water being forced, by mundane gravity, through stale grounds and a filter.

Art took the chair that Mrs. Meier offered and accepted a cup of the brown liquid.

"Mr. Sharpe has asked if he could have Mrs. Knooch's laundry day," she explained to her son. "The Fridays."

Art felt the urge to justify his request. "As I've already told your mother, we have a seminar at our department on Monday evenings. So I've asked if another day might be available."

"A seminar, I see." Ralph nodded thoughtfully as if he had seminars every day. Then he looked at his mother. "I'm sure we can change the day, can't we?"

"Of course." Mrs. Meier nodded, then she smiled at Art.

"Thanks." Art added a liberal amount of sugar to his coffee and took a sip. It was tepid.

A coffoid. Something coffee-shaped.

Mrs. Meier cleared her throat. "So, how was your interview at the police station, yesterday?"

Art shrugged. "Inspector Savage asked me questions about Mrs. Knooch, and about the people living here. I couldn't tell him much, though. Haven't been here for long, as you know. How was yours?"

"It was similar," Mrs. Meier answered. "I told him about Gertrude Knooch. She was a fine lady. It's so hard to imagine that someone wanted to kill her."

"Well, she did have her arguments with Monica Marez, most of the time about sweeping the staircase," Ralph added. He looked at his fingers and started picking at his cuticles, adding to the desolate state of the skin around his nails. "And last Saturday, they had a row about that egg. The one you've cleaned away. But that wouldn't be a reason for murder."

"The egg?" Art was surprised. "Did Monica break it?"

Ralph lifted his shoulders. "Don't ask me. For some reason, Mrs. Knooch thought she was the one who did it. They had quite a loud discussion about it, Saturday afternoon."

Art remembered that Knooch had suspected Rashid as the culprit when she had shown him the egg. Obviously, something had made her change her mind and set her suspicious eyes on the waitress.

"Did inspector Savage tell you anything about the results of their investigation?" Mrs. Meier asked, tearing Art from his memories of Knooch.

"No." Art shook his head. "I doubt he would have done that, even if they already had any results. Or did he tell you anything?"

"Well..." Ralph took a deep breath and placed his elbows on the table, steepling his fingers. "He did say that they believe no one broke into the house."

"Yes, I've heard that, too." Art remembered that he wanted to ask the Meier's about Jake, the dashing nephew. "Er... I understand that you've told Inspector Savage about Jake, Knooch's nephew."

"Of course." Ralph nodded. "He's the only one who does not live here but who still has a key—"

"—except for the owner, of course," Mrs. Meier added.

"Sure. Anyway..." Ralph pressed his lips together. "Inspector Savage has promised us that they'll check him out. He thanked me for the lead." He leaned back in his chair and folded his arms.

"Do you know Jake?" Art looked at Ralph, then at Mrs. Meier.

"Of course." A smile spread on Mrs. Meier's face. "Young, athletic, a handsome man. And helping his aunt with her groceries." She glanced at her son and, for a moment, the corners of her mouth lost their perpetual smile.

"We don't know much about him, though." Ralph laid a hand on the table and studied the wasteland around his fingernails.

Silence descended upon them.

"The police have called me today," Art said in an attempt to keep the conversation going. "They told me they want to search our apartments."

Mrs. Meier nodded. "Yes, they're already here. They started with mine, and then they searched Ralph's."

"I think they're now in Adriana's," Ralph added.

Art glanced at his watch. "Oh, then I guess I should go back to mine."

"Of course." Mrs. Meier got up. "Thanks for joining us for coffee."

With a brief glance at his half-empty cup, Art rose as well and said his goodbyes to Ralph. He followed Mrs. Meier into the hallway.

"Thanks for stopping by," Mrs. Meier said.

"It was my pleasure. Thanks to you, too."

A large, red-framed photograph behind her head caught his attention. It showed a curly-headed woman and two smiling teenagers, one short and squat, the other lanky and bespectacled.

Mrs. Meier followed Art's gaze. "Aren't they cute? That's me and the boys. You know Ralph." She placed a finger on the shorter one. "And this is Chris, his brother." A smile spread on her face as she moved her finger to the taller boy. "Chris is a doctor. He works at the clinic on the lake, as a plastic surgeon. A renowned expert in his field, and he has some famous patients."

"Mom, don't bore Art with old family stories." Ralph had made his way from the kitchen into the hallway. "You know he's got to get ready for Mrs. Bossi and her people."

"Yes, of course." The janitor was all teeth again. "Sorry for holding you up."

As the Meiers' door closed behind him, Art grinned.

Fridays for laundry. That worked well, didn't it?

He ascended the stairs to his apartment, planning to wait there for Betty Bossi's search squad to arrive.

Betty Bossi's bobbies. What would they want from him?