briefcase to leave and the knives don’t jingle.
My office is on the same floor. Unlike the cubicles, mine is actually an office. It’s at the end of the corridor, just past the toilets. The door has my name on it. It’s one of those little gold plaques with black lettering. Joe. No second name. No other initial. Just Joe. Like an everyday average Joe. Well, that’s me. Everyday and average.
I have my hand on the handle and am about to turn it when she comes up behind me and taps me on the shoulder.
“How are you doing today, Joe?” Her voice is a little loud and a little slow, as if she’s trying to break through a language barrier with somebody from Mars.
I force the smile onto my face, the one that Detective Schroder sees every time he shares a pleasantry with me. I give her a big-kid smile, the type with all teeth, spreading my lips as far apart as possible in every direction.
“Good morning, Sally. I’m fine, thank you for asking.”
Sally grins back at me. She is dressed in a pair of black overalls that are slightly too big for her, but don’t hide the fact that she is slightly too big herself. Not fat, but somewhere between solid and chubby. She has a pretty face when she smiles, but it isn’t pretty enough for somebody to ignore the few extra pounds and slip a ring on her finger. At the age of twenty-five, it’s her chances that are getting slimmer, not her weight. Smudges of dust on her forehead look like the remnants ofa fading bruise. Her blond hair is tied into a ponytail, but it doesn’t look like it’s been washed in weeks. She doesn’t look slow—it isn’t until she speaks that you know you’re talking to somebody whose parents kept dropping her on her head for fun.
“Can I get you a coffee, Joe? Or an orange juice?”
“I’m fine, Sally. That was nice of you to ask, though.”
I open my door and get half a step inside before she taps me on the shoulder again.
“Are you sure? It really wouldn’t be a problem. Not really.”
“I’m not thirsty right now,” I say, and she looks sad. “Maybe later.”
“Okay, great, I’ll check on you later then. You have a good day, okay?”
Sure, whatever. I slowly nod “Okay,” and a moment later I get the rest of the way into my office and close the door.
CHAPTER SIX
Sally says hello to everybody she knows on her way to the elevator, and to those not in earshot she offers a small wave. She pushes the button and waits patiently. She never feels the temptation to keep pushing the button like others do. The elevator is empty, which is a shame, because she would have liked the company on the way to her floor.
She thinks about Joe, and what a nice young man he is. She’s always had the ability to see people for what they really are, and she can tell Joe is a wonderful human being. Though most people are, she thinks, since they’re all made in God’s image. She wishes there were more like Joe, though. Wishes there was more she could do for him.
When the elevator comes to a stop, she steps out, ready to smile, but the corridor is empty. She makes her way to the end of the hallway and walks through the door marked Maintenance. Inside, the room is full of neatly kept shelves on which are several varieties of hand and power tools, different types and sizes of wooden beams, metal beams, spare panels of suspendedceiling, spare floor and wall tiles, pottles of adhesive and grease, jars full of screws and nails, clamps, a spirit level, various saws, different types of everything.
She moves over to the window and picks up the glass of orange juice she set there twenty minutes earlier, just before rushing downstairs to say good morning to Joe. She isn’t sure why she made the effort. Probably because of Martin. She thinks about Martin more than ever over these two days of the year, and that has somehow led her to start thinking of Joe. People outside her family did very little to help Martin. Some, and she thinks about the kids at school,