Chapter 4: Well-Read Means
Well-Worn

“Judith Lucas and Andrea Bachman, Private Investigators,” replied Judith, before I could find words to say or the composure to say them. It pleased me that she was calling herself my colleague.

“I didn’t call for you,” murmured a voice as exhausted as it was anxious.

At that very moment I observed that a private investigator’s reliance on government agencies for job-critical resources creates a major conflict of interest in a case where the missing man is hated by one of the agencies that provide those resources—so I asked, “Did you call for any P.I.s?”

She shut the door.

“We aren’t cops!” I shouted through the thick wood. “And we know better than to work with them!” A truth that—against our ethical judgment—did not survive the weekend.

The chain clinked and clattered, then the door opened all the way. Beyond it stood a woman midway in height between me and Judith, around 5′7″, hair shaved to fuzz, soft features fit for celluloid marred only by a hint of despair’s shadow along her jaw and upper lip, and a robe with red and orange flowers—straight out of the blessed ’70s—cinched tight around her waist. She might have been the victim’s tortured wife in a how-catch-em; she could be an innocent witness… or, just as easily, the devious guest star. Her thumbnail-chewing implied an excess of anxiety, and from her tense, pointed posture I inferred that she was no less prepared to slam the door on us and scream for help. If she was acting, she was very good at it. Most Columbo villains could fool the average viewer who missed the first half-hour during which the who, why, and how of the crime had been revealed. She couldn’t fool me, though. I’d seen every episode a hundred times, I knew every trick in the murderer’s handbook. I was an expert.

Of course… There was still the possibility that this had not been a murder, so all the investigative skills I had learned by observing the master sleuth’s work might well be useless.

Even so, I decided to treat her as an innocent witness for the time being. “None of the private investigators would work for you, would they, ma’am?” I asked.

Her feet shifted, opening her posture to us a little. With profound disappointment and excruciating despair she told us, “I asked for help… and they hung up on me as soon as I mentioned his name. Every detective agency in the state.”

“They didn’t want to risk the PD retaliating by withholding future assistance or interfering with their work. Your husband’s disappearance is a hot potato and we’re the only ones with the pain tolerance to handle it.”

“Smooth,” remarked Shosh.

Geraldine stopped biting her thumb, which was reassuring. After looking each of us in the eye for a solid 3 seconds apiece, she solemnly bid us, “Come in.”

And just like that, I had planted the seed of trust, the first factor in encouraging any witness to cooperate.

Or so I thought.

She gestured towards a vintage couch with modern upholstery and sat in an even older and even more anachronistic arm chair across from us. Her eyes danced between me and Judith, each saccade driven by the cruel spurs of hope.

I turned my memo pad to the first blank page, noted the date and time—10:54 on Saturday, July 13^th, 2024—as well as the interviewee’s name, and initiated the questioning. “Around what time did he leave that morning?”

Before she could answer, a husky voice called out from elsewhere in the apartment, “Geraldine?”

“Yes?”

A person—about 5′6″, with short black hair and wearing jeans and a button-up cowboy shirt—came in from another room. “Ah. I see we have visitors. Goody…”

“Yes. Judith, Andrina, this is Harris, my cousin.”

“Harriet,” corrected the cousin. “Nice to meet you, Andrina and Judith. Are you friends of Geraldine’s?”

“Private investigators,” said Judith.

“Dicks.”

“You could call us that,” I admitted. “Though P.I. is a little more dignified, if you don’t mind.”

“I like ‘dicks’,” said Judith.

I raised an eyebrow at her. “I’ve known that for almost as long as I’ve known you.”

Her cheeks grinned past her mask.

Harriet rolled their eyes. “And what are you here to investigate?”

“Xander’s disappearance,” replied Judith.

Harriet nodded. “Alright. Please avoid upsetting her. She’s… delicate.”

“You got it, dude,” I acknowledged with an upbeat tone and a thumb’s up.

“Please don’t call me ‘dude’, friend.” They took a seat in the chair next to Geraldine’s. “Proceed.”

“Alright,” I said. “Um…”

“You were asking when he left,” Shosh reminded me.

“Oh, right. Thanks. As I was asking before the introductions: Geraldine, what time did your husband leave the apartment that morning?”

“Which morning?” she asked back lethargically.

“I should have specified ‘the morning he disappeared’—my apologies, ma’am.”

“Oh… That morning. That dreadful morning. The weather was actually nice, but—‍” She choked down tears. “—he left. He left and he didn’t come back!”

“He’ll come back. What time did he leave?”

“What does it matter?”

“She’s hiding something,” suggested Shosh.

I accepted her suggestion, and asked, “Geraldine, is there something you’re having a hard time telling us?”

Her eyes narrowed, and she inserted a dramatic delay before calmly growling, “Are you accusing me of withholding information from you? Of harboring secrets like a villain?” Calmly at first, but increasingly irate. “Do you take me for some half-rate wife who would sooner have him declared dead so that I can collect the insurance money than see his face again? Is that what you think I am?”

“No—not at all—but—could you please focus on the interview and tell me what time he left?”

“‘Focus!’ How can I focus when my other half is missing?!”

Their voice thick with suspicion, Harriet asked, “Do you two have licenses?”

“Probationary,” suggested Shosh.

“Probationary,” I repeated.

“‘Probationary’?” echoed the cousin skeptically.

I nodded as I insisted, “Probationary.”

“Could I have your business cards?”

“(Uh…)”

Shosh came to my rescue. “There was a typo, so you had to get them reprinted.”

“There was a typo, so we sent them back,” I quickly explained.

“Right,” muttered Harriet. “How inconvenient.”

“Geraldine, would you please tell us when he left?”

“It doesn’t matter. He’s gone!”

“Geri,” said Judith, “I know you’re strong. I know you’re able to gather yourself up to answer a few questions. You can do it.”

Geraldine sighed and calmly replied, “8:37.”

“Is that down to the minute?” I asked.

“‘Is that down to the minute—’ I gave you the minute, do you think I made up the last digit for spits and giggles? Of course it’s down to the minute!”

“Oh-kay, uh. You must have an impressive memory.”

“I remember numbers.”

“You remember things, too,” Shosh reminded me. “You could bond with her over that.”

I decided that was an excellent idea. “Wow! Me, too! And license plates and car models and lotsa other things. We could start a club.”

“A club. You want to start a club. A club for people who remember trivial details. What are we gonna do all day, see who can memorize the most digits of pi? Play card-matching games competitively?”

“(If… that’s what you want to do.)”

“I would never waste my time with a group of circle-jerking elitists who think they’re better than everyone else because they have an advantage in pointless parlor games, and I would prefer that you stop wasting my time by proposing such asinine concepts.”

Judith discreetly whispered to me, “You’re off topic.”

“(Right. Um… ) What was he wearing when he left?”

“I don’t see how his fashion choices are relevant.”

“It’s for identification. Clothes are easier to describe to potential witnesses.”

“‘Witnesses’?” she asked frantically. “Was there a crime?”

“We don’t—know—what happened—yet.”

“Please stop agitating her,” said Harriet.

“I’m sorry! She’s just so damn…” I groaned.

“This queen needs to suck it up,” said Shosh.

“I wish she would. Geraldine, would you please cooperate?”

“I am cooperating!”

Judith nudged me and whispered, loudly, “(Go easy on her.)”

“(I am going easy!)” I hissed quietly.

“(Relax, take it easy, go easy.)”

I huffed. “Geraldine… People who have seen him since he left the apartment might have an easier time identifying him by his clothing than by his face.”

“Is that it? You should have explained that earlier, we could have avoided a great deal of discord. You have a lot to learn about communication. You need to explain things before you go charging in with questions. Do you understand how important it is to get your point across?”

I took a deep breath to ease the stress of interacting with this woman. “Yes. I understand. I was a very solitary child, so I am aware my interpersonal skills are not… exactly… impressive. Would you please—‍”

“Your barren childhood isn’t an excuse for being socially inept. You need to get better, by interacting with people, by practicing, by reading.” She took in a breath.

“Her childhood wasn’t ‘barren’, and she isn’t ‘socially inept’,” growled Shosh.

Geraldine exhaled. “How old are you, Miss Bachman?”

“I just turned 34. But—‍”

“Thirty-four? You are thirty-four and you proudly admit to having the manners of somebody one-third your age? You should be ashamed.”

I concentrated on breathing, deeply, slowly, evenly. I managed to hold onto my sanity.

“I can’t believe this woman,” muttered Shosh.

“Geraldine,” interjected Judith calmly, “we’ve veered off-topic. We need to know what your husband was wearing at the time you last saw him so that we can ask people if they’ve noticed anybody matching his description.”

Geraldine glanced at me critically. “Is that what you were trying to ask?”

“Yes.”

“You have some serious communication issues. Did your mother neglect you?”

“Her mother did her best under the circumstances!” snapped Shosh.

“My mother taught me to be kind to others,” I told Geraldine. “I wish you could have been my sister.”

Geraldine scoffed. “I can’t say I would have had a very pleasant childhood with you microagressing against me at every turn.”

“What the hell is ‘microagressing’?” asked a very confused and extremely irritated Shosh.

“Geraldine… Could you explain what you mean by the word ‘microaggress’?”

“Merriam Webster defines a microaggression as ‘a comment or action that subtly and often unconsciously or unintentionally expresses a prejudiced attitude toward a member of a marginalized group.’”

“Thank you. Does knowing that clarify the comment about pleasant childhoods?”

“I wouldn’t have said it if I didn’t think my meaning would be clear.”

“Nope,” admitted Shosh. “Sounds like mumbo-jumbo to me.”

I nodded. “It isn’t mumbo-jumbo… but I still don’t understand the intended message.”

Geraldine groaned irritatedly. “Like I said, you need to practice communicating, and the most important component of effective communication is listening to others. But it is not my job to teach you or tell you how to go about improving yourself. Besides, your underdeveloped social skills have driven us completely off topic.”

I nodded my numb head.

“But I will help you this one time. All you need to tell me is what you want to know. No details, no explanations, no qualifiers, just tell me what it is you want to know in the simplest language possible.”

“(I… don’t know if I… know how… to…)” I gulped.

“Esti, you know how to word the question. Just ask it.”

I began shaking. I opened my mouth. I choked.

“We’d like to know what he was wearing,” said Judith, to my rescue.

“Oh, what a simple question! I don’t understand why you have insisted on unnecessarily complicating this interview, Miss Bachman! He was wearing his Smash the Piggy Bank T-shirt, his new blue jeans, and his tan sustainable vegan sneakers.” Her face scrunched in agony. “And his vintage Casio watch that I bought for him at the thrift shop back when we were still dating—it’s an ‘old-fashioned’ digital timepiece with a metal band—a work of art, he’s very fond of it. It’s as valuable to him as his wedding ring. He proposed the next day. And now… Oh God…!”

“Geraldine, we’ll find him,” I said.

“He’s gone forever!” she cried out. “Him and his watch!”

“We’ll find him and his watch,” Judith assured her.

She calmed down instantly. “(Thank you,)” she murmured weakly. “(I’m feeling… better now. Thank you, Miss Lucas.)”

“(What the fuck is going on?)” whispered Shosh.

“(I need to work on my people skills, I guess,)” I mumbled. I had seen the shirts advertised in fundraisers on Hootr, so I already knew the color of the fabric (plain white) as well as the print (a cartoon piggy bank dressed in a police uniform being smashed by a hammer). I put on a strained smile and, in the happiest, most grateful voice, told Geraldine, “These are some great details that you’re giving us, ma’am. Where did he go?”

She sighed. “To ‘a meeting’.”

“A meeting with whom?”

“He didn’t say. He never says. Because he doesn’t want me telling anyone who has ‘no need to know’ where he is, especially if they try to ‘legally compel’ me.”

“You married a very smart man, although he’s making our job a little more difficult than I’d like it to be.”

“‘Smart’?” she yelled, suddenly hysterical again. “On a good day I worry about where he would be if something happened to him! Wednesday ended up not being one of those ‘good days’, and now he’s missing and I don’t know where he is because he never tells me where he’s going!” She choked back a sob.

“Ah…”

“If you continue to upset her,” warned Harriet, “I might have to ask you to leave.”

I blanched.

“(Sympathize,)” whispered Judith.

I thought his secrecy was perfectly reasonable given his relationship with the authorities, but I was not inclined to contradict a wife scared shitless and on the verge of what would be one in a long series of breakdowns while her cousin was threatening to kick us out. “Yeah, um. Good point. Effective OPSEC…” (short for Operations Security) “…can be inconvenient.”

‘On the verge’ of a breakdown one second, stepping into it the next. Her face scrunched up in despair and her tear ducts threatened to strangle me. “You come into my home and insult my husband!” Harriet gave me a death stare. “You insinuate that he is so inconsiderate as to inconvenience his loved ones for the sake of… arbitrary principles! Do you have no respect for pragmatism?”

My jaw fell. I froze. I didn’t know what to say. Even if I knew what, I didn’t know how to say it. And even if I knew how, I wasn’t sure whether trying to say anything would help the situation.

“Esti?” asked Shosh. “Esti, snap out of it.” She shook my shoulder. I remained frozen.

“She didn’t mean to imply that he’s trying to make your life difficult,” Judith interjected after several seconds of silence from me. “He’s trying to protect himself and protect you. But you can explain your feelings about his secrecy to him once he’s safe and sound at home.”

Geraldine nodded, apparently reassured, and calmly stated, “Yes. That is exactly why he does it. It’s a necessary sacrifice, not some unnecessary inconvenience. We’ll have a chat once you’ve brought him safely home.”

I decided I was no longer in trouble, and thus defrosted. The cousin, on the other hand, was scrutinizing my actions ever more closely, as though I was the one making scene after scene.

“The cousin looks close to calling it off,” said Shosh, “but she wouldn’t dare to kill this queen’s only hope of getting her husband back.”

Emboldened, I continued, “Missus Pasteur, I need you to buck up and take this investigation seriously. Did your husband say anything else before leaving your apartment?”

Bumbling thus, I pushed her towards the edge once again, undoing Judith’s careful diplomacy. The now very upset wife shouted at me, “All he told me was, ‘Geri, I’m going to a meeting, I don’t know exactly how long I’ll be out, but I should be back before seven!’ And of course he didn’t say where he was going! All this secrecy drives me crazy! I’m always worried about him when he goes out, but now…” And then she started to shake herself to pieces. “…this time, this time it’s finally happened! And I don’t know what it is, I don’t have even a tiny clue, he might have gotten lost, he might have been kidnapped, he might have—might have been kill—‍”

We didn’t want this woman falling back into the bottomless pit of despair she’d been trapped in before our arrival, and we also didn’t want to be kicked out, but I did nothing to catch her—my avoidance of human contact beyond Shosh had robbed me of all opportunity to learn the art of comforting strangers, so I had none of the confidence necessary to handle her reaction, and no clue how besides. Judith elbowed me, spurring me to… do something, anything, to leap the treacherous expanse separating me from this woman beset by terror and hopelessness, where I took her hand, squeezed it, and said the first thing that came to mind… “He’s still alive, Geri. He’s gonna be alright.” …with zero evidence to back my claim. “I swear, he’ll be back.”

“How can you know that?” Her eyes pleaded for me to give her a reason to believe…

…which I gave her… “If he were dead, we would know by now.”

“How could we possibly know that?”

“If someone went after him, an important public figure, they wouldn’t be keeping it a secret, they would have made a public example of him. And they would have done it by now.” …in the form of a big steaming pile of bullshit. “But that hasn’t happened, which means he’s alive, probably… I mean, probably stranded… maybe… without bus fare… or… he took the wrong bus… and got stuck… in the desert.” ((Or buried in the desert.)) I waved away the thought. “A town in the desert… and nobody will give him the bus fare he needs to get home. They’re too poor to afford to give it to him. Or they’re conservatives who hate him. But not enough to hurt him. Peaceful conservatives.”

“You gotta be kidding me…” muttered Harriet.

And yet… my convoluted lie seemed to peel a thin layer away from Geraldine’s anxiety. Her eyes dwelled on Judith, even as her head was pointed at me. I glanced at Harriet, who seemed to be one tiny infraction away from pulling the plug.

“Where were we…?” I puzzled.

“He said he was going to a meeting and would be back by 7,” resumed Judith.

“Ah. Can you recall his exact words, Geri?”

“Those were his exact words.”

“You’re telling me that he said, quote, ‘He was going to a meeting and would be back by 7’, end quote.”

“Yes,” she replied with a weak nod, clearly exhausted from her worrying and outbursting. “His words. Verbatim.”

I blinked several times in frustration, but decided not to explain to her that it would be very strange for him to speak in the third person past progressive tense. “You have an excellent memory,” I told her delicately, “and it’s been a big help, and it’ll continue to be a big help.” This seemed to encourage her a little. “Does he have his phone’s location history enabled?”

“No, we both keep it off. And also the GPS itself, which means half the apps on our phones are useless. And he turns his phone off when he goes to activist functions anyway, because the cell towers can track his location. ‘Can’t trust the cops not to hack into our data.’ More paranoia…”

I exhaled. ((Shit. We only just started and we’ve already hit our first dead end.)) “Do you know how he was getting to the meeting? Bus, trolley, car, foot, bicycle?”

“He either walks or takes the bus or trolley. I can’t tell you which it was this time.”

“Does he change up his routes,” asked Judith smartly, “or does he always take the same ones?”

“I haven’t a clue. I’ve never gone with him to a meeting or a protest. He keeps me out of his business. He wants me safe at home in case something bad happens at an event.”

“Of course,” I said. “If the bus or trolley was running late or was at capacity, would he have taken a Ridr or a taxi?”

“Neither. He boycotts cars. He would simply wait for the next bus with space for him.”

“Interesting, and very useful information, thank you. Does your husband have any enemies that you know of?”

She eyed me suspiciously.

“She’s pissed,” said Shosh. “You said something wrong. Not sure what, your question was straight from the textbook.”

Cautiously, I asked, “Please pardon me, ma’am… Did I say something to offend you?”

With no small measure of agitation she asked, “What kind of person asks me or my husband, ‘Do you have any enemies?’”

“Alright, yes, I realize it sounds like a stupid question, but I still need to ask it. Specifically, I need to know who comes to mind first.”

“They all come to mind first!” I had, once again, upset her. “Everybody hates us!”

“Of course, but it would be very helpful to us if you were to share your gut feeling.”

“I don’t have a gut feeling, I’m paying you to have gut feelings for me!”

“Yes, that is our job, I’m just trying to gather enough information to figure out what exactly my gut is currently trying to tell me. Have you received any threats recently?”

“I’ve already told you, Alex and I are the most hated people in the city,” she pointed out exasperatedly. “We get threats every day!”

My patience was at last wearing thin. “Could you please tell me whether you know who sent them?”

She shook her head and gave me an incredulous stare. “How many times do I have to tell you? Everybody’s got a bone to pick with us! Why do you keep asking me about this over and over again?”

I suppressed an irritated growl. “Can’t you just—‍”

Harriet opened their mouth, no doubt to declare the interview over, but before they could speak a word Judith interrupted diplomatically, “Geri, dear, we’re just trying to build a more nuanced picture, and that means asking questions that may sound very similar to each other which nonetheless have subtle but critical differences.”

“‘Subtle differences’?” Geraldine echoed calmly. “Alright. Nuance away.”

A relieved sigh forced its way through my throat. I gathered myself back into one piece and asked, “Alright. Any threats in the 24 hours before you last saw him?”

Her ire returned as quickly as it had left. “Did I not just tell you that we get threats ‘every day’?”

I used the pain from biting my tongue to distract myself from my frustration. “(Alright…) Were any of them unusual?”

“They’re all the same. They’re all the same! There’s nothing setting any of them apart from the rest. They. Are. Identical.”

“She’s a dense motherfucker,” opined Shosh.

“No comment. Geraldine, I get that most of the threats you receive are similar and nonspecific. I need to know if any of the threats you’ve received in the past have been specific about what they claimed they were going to do. Specific. Like, they have instructions, details, places, methods, etcetera. Can you tell me if any of them have been specific?”

“No,” she whined, “just ‘you’re going to pay’ and ‘watch your back’, that sort of thing. Like I already said: ‘They’re all the same.’”

“(Butter her up,)” whispered Judith.

I nodded. “I’m sure it must be difficult talking about these things, ma’am, thank you for pushing through this painful questioning. All of this is very helpful information.” Judith had a point: persuading a despairing witness—even an irritable one—into believing that they’re being the most helpful witness ever might be enough to pull them out of a rut. The perception that they can make a difference gives them hope, and hope motivates them to give up every piece of information they have, and some of those pieces are bound to be useful, thus proving that they can make a difference. Tell them that they’re the MVP you want them to be, and they will strive to become it. “Hm. You know what would be even more helpful to know? Whether he took anything with him. The things he brought along to the meeting could give us clues as to where he was headed. If you could tell us what he had on his person when he left, you’d be doing us a huge favor.”

And, sure enough, she perked up and eagerly yielded her investigative fruit to me. “Well, I can tell you that! His phone, his keys, and his backpack.”

“Did he pack his backpack himself?”

“No, I did.”

I did my best to contain my excitement to a level that wouldn’t put her or Judith off. “That’s very good to hear, ma’am, thank you! What did you put in it?”

“He gave me a list.”

“And…?”

“‘And’ what?”

“And what was on the list?”

“Oh, I wouldn’t bother memorizing a list. I don’t remember such trivial, ephemeral things as what my husband wants in his backpack.”

My heart fell a few inches. “And I wouldn’t expect anybody to memorize every list they come across, that’s humanly impossible. Do you still have it?”

“No,” she replied matter-of-factly.

I began very rapidly losing my cool. “What did you do with it?”

“I disposed of it,” she said, calmly.

I withstood a wave of anger before being walloped by a tsunami of depression.

“Why do you ask? I can’t see how an insignificant slip of paper could be important. It was trash. Trash belongs in the trash basket.”

Being a complete rookie, I had not yet mastered the art of tempering my expectations, which I had built up to metropolitan proportions. “And… you took out the trash, and the trash truck came and took it away forever.” Dismayed by my purely reason-based deduction that was not at all an aggressive leap in logic spiraling into a spiky pit of pessimism, I buried my face in my hands and resisted the impulse to cry.

“Well, there’s no need to get so worked up, Little Miss Drama, I haven’t emptied the basket yet!”

I lifted my head and, barely containing my irritation, exclaimed, “Then you do still have it! Why didn’t you say so?”

“I forgot because I’m not used to taking out the rubbish! Xander is responsible for it because I don’t like dirtying my hands. I’ve been hoping against hope for him to come home soon so that he can take care of it before I’m—God forbid—before I’m forced to do it myself!” Her voice cracked. Her soul shattered. Her hope evaporated. She wailed and moaned. “If my Aly doesn’t come back soon, I’ll have to touch trash!” I sat still, beyond words and beyond action.

Harriet stood, walked to the door, and opened it. “Please leave.”

But Judith rushed up to Geraldine and whispered gentle reassurances, giving me an expectant look and jerking her head towards the despairing woman.

I shook my head. ((What do you want me to do? It’s over. My dream, like any other, will be forgotten by morning.)) I got up to leave. “Come on, Judith. We aren’t welcome anymore.”

“Geri, could you please tell Andrea where you keep the can you tossed it in?”

“Ladies do not lackadaisically ‘toss’, we deliberately place,” the woman retorted. “You wouldn’t understand what it’s like to be caricatured as some clumsy oaf with delusions of being a real woman of sophistication and beauty!”

“Geri Berry, I’ve never wanted to be a lady… but I have carried, since I discovered my womanhood, the same burden that you have carried since you discovered your own. And you’ve carried that burden with you a great distance throughout a grand journey of deliberate, self-directed metamorphosis. In spite of society’s doubts and jeers, Geri… your body and your personality are beautiful.”

“I’m a mess!”

“You’re in rough shape because you’re going through rough circumstances. You just need a little self-care to shine again.”

“That sounds like a great idea, but there’s one little problem—I don’t know how to self-care.”

“Have you had your E?”

She cupped her eyes and groaned. “Oh, Lord. He was supposed to jab me Wednesday when he got home.”

“Maybe you should take it now.”

Geraldine sighed. “I suppose you’re right. I just… hate doing it myself. I can’t stand looking at the needle.”

She continued limply sinking into her chair until Judith interrupted her emotional decline by offering, “Want me to do it for you?”

She considered Judith’s offer briefly before nodding and replying, “I would appreciate that.” She stood. “Thank you, Miss Lucas.”

“Alright,” said Harriet. “Tall lady, you know how to calm her down. You can stay. Shorty, you make things worse. Leave.”

I wilted, but before all my hopes could desert me, Judith explained, “We’re a duo, a package deal. If she leaves, I leave.”

The cousin groaned. “Fine. I can’t stand needles, which means you have all the leverage.” They gently closed the door, and my dismay began giving way to triumph. “Make yourselves at home, but don’t rummage through the fridge—I just organized it.”

Cousin Harriet returned to the kitchen and Geraldine led Judith away. Without my hosts to show me where they disposed of paper waste, I searched the house for trash receptacles until I found a sheet metal can without a liner by their computer desk, nearly overflowing with dead trees, all crushed and crumpled to varying degrees. I peered inside with mounting eagerness, and discovered to my relief that, of what I could see from above, none of it was food waste or used tissues.

My mind was already fully aroused as my fingers were halfway inside—

My grin betrayed my swelling desire as I thrust my hands in and out and in and out, fondling and unfolding everything they touched—

Passion pumped my heart as I chucked aside the cardboard box for an LED light bulb sitting between me and the object of my desire—

My anticipation was as tense as the atmosphere between a buxom model and the novice artists sketching her nude form as I flipped over an envelope to inspect the other side for ink or graphite—

My breathing trembled with a passion that threatened to suffocate me as I checked the back of a receipt for writing—

My hopes ascended to their peak, pushing me to the edge of satisfaction as I uncrumpled a ball of printer paper with a speech rendered in toner on one side and on the other side penciled—

I felt a rush of adrenaline, a surge in cardiac overactivity, and a flood of endorphins as the sustained stroking of my ego came to its climax in the wake of the delayed gratification of a quarter of a century of pent-up yearning. “(Holy shit,)” I whispered under my breath, struggling to keep my respiration slow and quiet, fighting the instinct to vocalize the sublime plateau of my satisfaction, with a wish in the back of my head that Judith and Geraldine hadn’t entered the room just as I entered my ecstatic fugue.

My shame didn’t matter, though. Not when I had found it.

((My First Clue.))

I checked to see if the others were paying attention; to my relief, Judith was keeping herself and Geraldine—hair newly sprouted on her scalp and an absence of it on her face—distracted with her recollections and impressions of Alexander’s heroic exploits. I rubbed My First Clue between my thumb and forefinger and savored the sensation of the paper against my skin, then discreetly pulled down my mask and held her to my nose and breathed, admitted scent through my nostrils to let the volatile molecules circulate throughout my olfactory chambers, and etched within my hippocampus what would be an unforgettable fragrance—

I waited—for the high to wear off, for my muscles to relax, for my stupid euphoric grin to erode into a non-stupid euphoric grin—I waited to let them know, as I trembled under the influence of fading adrenaline—

“Ladies… I have found it.”