Ten
 Later that morning, when she walked into her condo, she screamed. Someone had gone through the place. Books lay scattered on the floor amid papers and food and broken glass. She felt sick to her soul and started to cry as she staggered from one item of destruction to the next. The bed had been stripped, the mattress torn, the cushions thrown off the couch.
The police arrived within twenty minutes in the form of a man in a woolly herringbone business suit. A tired looking middle-aged man, with gray hair and sallow skin, introduced himself as Detective Sergeant David Amal. He showed her his badge and an I.D. card where his name was correctly spelled. "What happened?"
She spread her arms helplessly, started to explain the obvious, and started crying again. After a few minutes, she sat on the couch holding a tissue box on her lap, and he sat in a reconstructed easy chair opposite. "I don’t know what happened. Maybe it was just a burglar."
Amal raised on eyebrow. "A burglar who was looking for something specific. A casual burglar would have grabbed your pc or your tv or your stereo"—he pointed to each item in turn—"and would have been out of here in a few minutes. We see that every day. This is different. So, Miss Bancroft, what was our burglar looking for?"
She reacted in horror. "My check! I just received a huge paycheck. If someone knew about that… but I just deposited it in the bank. But I had it here for a few days."
"Interesting. Maybe someone knows you hold on to checks, but didn’t know you’d already deposited it. Someone connected with your employer?"
Sylvie frowned. Claire? No, how could someone so pleasant be responsible for a mess like this. Then again, what if she had an accomplice.
The phone rang. Amal got up to look around, holding his pen in one hand and a small pocket notebook in the other.
It was Rob. "Hi, just called to see how you are feeling."
"Terrible," she wailed and started crying again, "someone broke into my condo and trashed the whole place."
"I’m sorry to hear that. Can I come over and help?"
"Let me call you back a little later."
"Okay, darling. I’ll be out, but I have my pager. You know the number."
"Yes. Thank you."
Frankly, she was suspicious of him too. He’d forced himself into her life, and within less than a week, this had happened.
As if to underscore her dismal feelings, a huge cloud bank was moving in from the Pacific. She cleaned off the small plastic radio from the kitchen and replaced it on its shelf. She comforted herself with music from her favorite radio station. Amal had apparently finished his inventory, for he said: "Well, Miss Bancroft, I see no unusual signs. The burglar, let’s call him, forced the screen door on your patio. Simple. He—it was probably a man—came in and trashed the place. Who do you know that would come in looking for something specific? And what do you have they could be after?"
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Copyright © 1996 by John T. Cullen, Clocktower Books. All Rights Reserved.
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