The Cleaner

CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

She’s sick of not knowing. Sick of the questions. Sick of being sick.

At four fifteen, Sally leaves work. She doesn’t need to justify leaving early. Others here know her father is in bad shape and that she wants to spend time helping him. Not that anybody would notice-it’s been a very active day in the world of a homicide detective. She’s always hated days like this, and hates that they come around so often.

At four twenty, when she reaches the parking building, Henry isn’t here. She isn’t sure whether she ought to be disappointed or flattered that he must only show up at four thirty for her. She doesn’t know whether to feel used or wanted.

She drives past the police station, does a U-turn, and finds a parking spot on the opposite side of the road. Four thirty arrives, but Joe fails to. She can never remember him not leaving exactly at four thirty. Has he left already?

She waits another five minutes. Still no Joe.

Just what are you doing? Planning on following him around? Still trying to help him?

Exactly. She wants to see if he’s meeting anybody. Perhaps the woman he spoke to earlier in the week, the witness from the police station. Five minutes later, she starts the car and, disappointed, pulls away. She wasn’t comfortable about waiting anyway.

She’s at a red light when she sees Joe in the rearview mirror on the sidewalk. The lights turn green. She doesn’t know what to do. A car behind her starts tooting. By the time she turns around, Joe’s already disappeared. He’s probably already on the bus.

She starts driving to the graveyard, but a few minutes later she finds she’s not actually going in that direction, but back toward Joe’s apartment. She needs to talk to him away from the station. She hopes talking doesn’t turn into confronting. She parks down the street and decides to wait twenty minutes at the most. He arrives in half that time.

She waits in the car imagining the outcome of their talk and trying to figure out whether she should go and knock on his door, or just drive away. Plus sits waiting to see if anybody else is coming to see him, and all that waiting takes the decision to talk to him out of her hands because Joe is only in his apartment for a few minutes before coming back out. He starts walking away from her. She begins to follow him. By the time she rounds the corner, he’s turning left down another street. She slows down a little. She has never followed anybody before, and she suddenly realizes she isn’t very good at it. She inches her car closer to the corner, and is about to go around it when Joe appears from the left, driving through the intersection.

In a different car from the one she saw him in last time.

She keeps pace with him, trying to keep a car between them, until he slows down in an upper-class area and pulls over to the curb. Sally keeps on driving, watching him in the rearview mirror. He climbs out and walks to the end of the block, his briefcase swinging slightly back and forth with his momentum.

She follows him to a two-story house, where he heads up the path and disappears from sight within the alcove of the front door. Something about the house is familiar, but she can’t figure out what. And if it were something as innocent as meeting a friend, why would Joe park a short distance away? Why not just up the driveway? People who park a few blocks away are normally people who are having affairs, she thinks. Parking a few blocks away is definitely an affair kind of thing to do, but Joe isn’t an affair kind of guy. He’s not a. . a what? Well, he’s not a sexual kind of guy. He’s Joe. He’s like her brother. Only Joe can drive and sneak around and can steal and lie.

She drums her fingers against the steering wheel. She wishes she had the confidence to go and knock on the door and ask Joe what is happening, but if he is in danger, she may only cause him more grief.

Ten minutes pass. Twenty. After a while, Sally starts to realize she’s whispering a prayer. She wants Joe to reappear and carry on; she wants him to be okay. Maybe something bad is happening to him, and all she’s doing is sitting out here and waiting, letting the bad things happen to Joe the same way she let the bad things happen to Martin five years ago.

“Stupid, stupid, stupid,” she mutters, hitting the palm of her hand against her forehead.

Then, a few minutes later, a car pulls into the driveway and a man climbs out. She’s slightly too far away to recognize him, but, like the house, something about the man is familiar. He moves quickly to the front door and steps inside.