Chapter Twenty-Five

“Did you hear that?” Meera whispered.

“Hear what?” Dame whispered back.

Meera killed the flashlight. Dame sighed and did the same. In the shadows of Sharon Fischer’s office, the two women listened and waited.

After about ten seconds, Meera turned her flashlight back on. “I hate this,” she hissed. “You’re a bad influence, you know that?”

Dame turned her own light on and opened the top drawer of a filing cabinet. “You’re the one who insisted on coming.”

Earlier that afternoon, when Dame had taken the elevator down six floors to case the Municipal Review Board offices, she was amazed at how empty the place already was. It seemed as though a lot of MRB employees had started their weekend early.

Now, at almost seven o’clock, the place was a ghost town. Custodians had been short-staffed all month, and security was mostly concentrated where the mayor hung his chain of office on the second floor of the rotunda. Still, it paid to be cautious. And quiet.

“I figured the door would be locked, and that would be it,” Meera whispered. “I didn’t think you’d pull some James Bond break-and-enter kit out of your ass.”

Dame shushed her.

“I can’t help it. I’m nervous. I talk when I’m nervous.”

Meera twisted her hair up into a bun, and then made her way over to Fischer’s massive desk. “What are we even looking for, anyway?”

“I’m not sure.”

Dodge used to warn her about taking unnecessary risks on a hunch, but a hunch was all Dame really had. If the two arson cases were somehow connected, Fischer’s fingerprints were on them just as much as Aki Miyamoto’s.

Dame scanned the room with her flashlight. Seeing it again, it was hard to imagine that this was someone’s day-to-day workspace. It looked like one of those offices you’d find in a swanky hotel suite. The smooth laminate, the pastel watercolours, the ergonomic office chair — the room was scoured of personality.

“Check it out.” Meera reached into the wastepaper basket and produced an empty carton of plain yogurt. “Everything about this woman is boring.”

“Not everything.” Dame pulled out a file labelled “Planning 1990–2003.” She shone her light on the papers inside. “Did you know Fischer used to work for Heritage?”

“Really? Weird.”

“Years ago.” Dame turned a page. “She even pushed to have the Sainte-Marie Hotel designated when Marinetti tried to demolish it.”

“Also weird.”

Dame returned the file and eased the cabinet drawer shut. “Did you look in her desk?”

“Not yet, I’m just — oh my God.”

“What?” Dame hurried over to where Meera stood.

“Do you see how cute her son is in this picture? How old is he? Five? Six? He’s adorable!”

Dame shook her head.

“I feel like I’ve seen him before. Has she ever brought him into work?”

“Meera, Sharon Fischer is pushing sixty. That kid’s probably older than we are, now.” She picked up a teddy bear from a shelf behind the desk. Dead eyes stared out from its smooth beige fur. “Can you imagine the Fish as someone’s mother?” Dame shuddered and put the bear back down.

Meera opened one of the drawers and rifled through it. “Man” — she held up a small black tube of lipstick — “even her makeup is no-name, generic stuff.”

“Come on, Meera.” Dame shone the flashlight at her friend. “Stay focused.”

“I can’t even tell what shade this is.” Meera popped off the top and twisted the base, but instead of a bevelled red edge, the tube ended in a square metal plug.

“What is that?” Dame asked.

Meera handed the small cylinder to her. “Looks like some kind of flash drive.”

Just then, someone rattled the knob on the office door.

Dame looked at Meera. They snapped off their lights and crouched behind Fischer’s desk. Dame slid the fake lipstick into her pocket. The doorknob twisted again, back and forth. She could hear Meera take a deep breath and hold it.

There was a gentle tapping on the door. In the narrow glass panel beside it, a face appeared, cupped by two hands. “Meera? Dame?”

Meera exhaled. “Oh, for fuck’s sake.”

“You told Lewis?”

“Hey, I have no secrets from my husband.”

Meera stood up from behind the desk and turned on her flashlight. She crossed the room and opened the door.

Lewis came in, breathless and sweaty. “Oh my God, you guys —”

“Shhh!” they shushed him.

He put his hands on his knees, tried to catch his breath. “I ran into this —”

“Shhh!” they shushed him again.

“I ran into this security guard on the way up,” he whispered. “I think she recognized me from our floor. She said, ‘You sure are working late.’ So I said, ‘Yes, and — I can’t go home until I file a report.’”

“Good work, Lewis,” Meera said. “Way to use your improv skills.”

“Did you find anything incriminating?” Lewis asked.

“I’m not sure,” Dame said. “I’m not sure there’s really anything to find.”

“Maybe we should call it then, before that Pinkerton walks by,” Meera said.

Dame agreed.

As they rode the elevator up to their floor, Meera slouched against the mirrored wall. “Well, that was both terrifying and useless.”

“Maybe,” Dame said. She reached into the pocket of her jeans and pulled out the flash drive. “Maybe not.”

“You stole her lipstick thingie?”

“Sure. Why not?”

“Because it’s illegal. That’s why not.”

“So is breaking and entering.”

The door to the elevator opened and they all stepped out and started walking back to Heritage.

“Think about it,” Dame said. “Everything in that office was crazy organized, right? I mean, she sorted her paper clips by size and colour.”

“So?”

“So, you found this with all her makeup. Why would Fischer keep a flash drive with her makeup?”

“Maybe she just forgot what it was,” Meera said. “It fooled me.”

“Maybe.” Dame scrutinized the device between her thumb and forefinger. “Or maybe she was hiding it for a reason.”