Tick Tock

Chapter 58

I DROPPED THE FILE BOX of victim data with a thud in the stuffy air of my apartment foyer and stood for a strange moment, just listening. After the usually thunderous chaos in our rambling three-bedroom apartment, silence was an almost unique experience.

Sorting through the mail, I smiled at the return address of a cardboard tube that had arrived. I went into the big boys' room and put up the action-shot Mariano Rivera Fathead that I'd gotten for my son Brian's birthday. Brian was going to go nuts when he saw it.

"Just me and you tonight, Mo," I said to the life-size wall cling as I left. "Welcome to old guy's night in."

I proceeded to turn on all the window air conditioners to high. Coming back through the living room, I lifted what looked like a plaid horseshoe off the floor. It was one of the girls' Catholic school headbands, I realized. I twirled it in my hand before placing it on a coffee table littered with Jenga pieces and Diary of a Wimpy Kid books.

Taking a load off on my beat-up couch, I reflected on all the craziness of the past fifteen years of family life. It was a blur of big wheels and videos and kitchen tables covered in Cheerios, a lot of tears, more laughter. We'd converted the three bedrooms into five by using the high-end apartment's formal dining room and half of the large, formal living room. Formal anything pretty much sailed out the window onto tony West End Avenue for Maeve and me once our incredible expanding family moved in.

The funny thing was, I wouldn't have had it any other way.

How I'd gotten my guys this far while putting away bad guys and keeping my job and a sliver of my sanity, I'd never know. Actually, I did know. Their names were Maeve, Mary Catherine, and, as much as I hated to admit it, Seamus.

Back inside my bedroom, I listened to the string of messages on the answering machine. The most recent one was by far the most intriguing.

"Yes, um, eh, he-, hello? Mary-Mary Catherine?" some fellow with a charming English stammer said. "It's Jeremy Griffith. I, um, spoke at your class? I, um, do hope you don't mind that I hunted down your number from the instructor. I don't normally do things like this, but I-well, I'm here at this atrocious party, and I couldn't stop thinking about those insightful links you made between German Baroque and Nordic Classicism. To be honest, I can't remember the last time I met someone who actually knew who Ivar Tengbom was, let alone would admit to being his number-one fan. Anyway, are you doing anything this week? I have another dinner with some MOMA people coming up on Friday and thought, eh, maybe you'd like to, uh, tag along. There, I've said it. If you can make it, wonderful. If you can't, well, my and Ivar's loss. Here's my number."

"Sorry, old chap," I said, immediately deleting with extreme prejudice Mary Catherine's Hugh Grant-like suitor. "Looks like you're going stag."

Was that wrong? I wondered, staring at myself in the mirror. I turned away. It most certainly was, and I most certainly didn't care.