stepped onto an elevator and turned to face the front. The doors closed.
Allowing himself to breathe again, Powers used the screwdriver to force the lock. The door wouldn't budge. He tried again, applying more power. There was a creaking sound. He stopped. He could hear himself breathing. Again he tried, applying even greater force. The doorjamb creaked loudly, and the lock snapped open. Powers pushed on the door and stepped inside.
He closed the door behind him gently so as not to make noise. With the feeling that his heart was beating uncontrollably in his throat, he put his ear to the door and listened for a moment to determine if he'd alerted any neighbors. There was no sound in the hallway. He took a deep breath, let it out, and turned to face the room. There was a faint smell of perfume ... a perfume, unless he was mistaken, different from the brand he'd smelled when Marilyn had walked into La Serre.
The living room was furnished neatly with a plaid sofa and sectional, a wall lamp, and a tall bookcase. On the walls were landscape prints: a waterfall gushing into a lake, a forest near a stream. The furnishings were the opposite of what he had expected. Perhaps because of the trendy way she dressed, her confident recherché gait, he would have guessed she would choose Art Deco or Danish Modern rather than such traditional furnishings. But, after knowing Senator Victor Garland Danforth, a nattily dressed conservative former Republican presidential candidate Powers had once been assigned to protect, he had learned that image didn't always fit with digs. Danforth lived in a filthy three-bedroom house in Silver Springs, Maryland, with a sloppy alcoholic wife and at least twenty ringwormy cats and dogs.
Powers pulled the gloves from his pockets and put them on.
In the bedroom, the fragrance of perfume was stronger. On the facing wall, a large framed print of Gainsborough's Blue Boy was hanging over a queen-sized bed covered with a flowered print bedspread. The walnut dresser was Queen Anne style and had a tall oval-shaped mirror. Women's toiletries were scattered across the top of the dresser, including two small black glass bottles of Passion perfume sitting in a small porcelain tray.
At the closet, he slid the door open. It was bursting with women's clothes. On the floor, extending from one side of the closet to the other, was a neat line of paired women's shoes.
Moving quickly, he opened dresser drawers. The top right-hand drawer was filled with scraps of paper: laundry and credit card receipts, canceled checks, telephone bills bearing Marilyn's name, pens and pencils, and other miscellany. He checked the other drawers and the rest of the room and found nothing out of the ordinary.
In the living room, he removed the sofa cushions and checked them carefully, then turned the sofa upside down and checked underneath by running his gloved hand along the frame from end to end. There were no places where the covering had been altered. Turning the sofa upright again, he replaced the cushions. He checked the rest of the furniture in the room the same way.
Most of the books in the bookcase were on foreign affairs and international relations, though there were a few Raymond Carver short story collections. He began lifting books from the shelves one by one and flipping them open. Starting from the top, he completed the first, second, and third rows, replacing each book precisely where he had taken it. From the second-to-last row, he took out a Raymond Carver book titled Fires and fanned its pages quickly. Something heavy fell to the carpet. He knelt down and picked up a Minox miniature camera the size of a cigarette lighter. The pages of the book had been hollowed out to fit it. His breathing quickened as he checked the frame counter window. There was no film in the camera.
Replacing the camera in the hollowed portion of the book, he set the book back on the shelf from where he'd taken it and checked the rest of the books on
Allowing himself to breathe again, Powers used the screwdriver to force the lock. The door wouldn't budge. He tried again, applying more power. There was a creaking sound. He stopped. He could hear himself breathing. Again he tried, applying even greater force. The doorjamb creaked loudly, and the lock snapped open. Powers pushed on the door and stepped inside.
He closed the door behind him gently so as not to make noise. With the feeling that his heart was beating uncontrollably in his throat, he put his ear to the door and listened for a moment to determine if he'd alerted any neighbors. There was no sound in the hallway. He took a deep breath, let it out, and turned to face the room. There was a faint smell of perfume ... a perfume, unless he was mistaken, different from the brand he'd smelled when Marilyn had walked into La Serre.
The living room was furnished neatly with a plaid sofa and sectional, a wall lamp, and a tall bookcase. On the walls were landscape prints: a waterfall gushing into a lake, a forest near a stream. The furnishings were the opposite of what he had expected. Perhaps because of the trendy way she dressed, her confident recherché gait, he would have guessed she would choose Art Deco or Danish Modern rather than such traditional furnishings. But, after knowing Senator Victor Garland Danforth, a nattily dressed conservative former Republican presidential candidate Powers had once been assigned to protect, he had learned that image didn't always fit with digs. Danforth lived in a filthy three-bedroom house in Silver Springs, Maryland, with a sloppy alcoholic wife and at least twenty ringwormy cats and dogs.
Powers pulled the gloves from his pockets and put them on.
In the bedroom, the fragrance of perfume was stronger. On the facing wall, a large framed print of Gainsborough's Blue Boy was hanging over a queen-sized bed covered with a flowered print bedspread. The walnut dresser was Queen Anne style and had a tall oval-shaped mirror. Women's toiletries were scattered across the top of the dresser, including two small black glass bottles of Passion perfume sitting in a small porcelain tray.
At the closet, he slid the door open. It was bursting with women's clothes. On the floor, extending from one side of the closet to the other, was a neat line of paired women's shoes.
Moving quickly, he opened dresser drawers. The top right-hand drawer was filled with scraps of paper: laundry and credit card receipts, canceled checks, telephone bills bearing Marilyn's name, pens and pencils, and other miscellany. He checked the other drawers and the rest of the room and found nothing out of the ordinary.
In the living room, he removed the sofa cushions and checked them carefully, then turned the sofa upside down and checked underneath by running his gloved hand along the frame from end to end. There were no places where the covering had been altered. Turning the sofa upright again, he replaced the cushions. He checked the rest of the furniture in the room the same way.
Most of the books in the bookcase were on foreign affairs and international relations, though there were a few Raymond Carver short story collections. He began lifting books from the shelves one by one and flipping them open. Starting from the top, he completed the first, second, and third rows, replacing each book precisely where he had taken it. From the second-to-last row, he took out a Raymond Carver book titled Fires and fanned its pages quickly. Something heavy fell to the carpet. He knelt down and picked up a Minox miniature camera the size of a cigarette lighter. The pages of the book had been hollowed out to fit it. His breathing quickened as he checked the frame counter window. There was no film in the camera.
Replacing the camera in the hollowed portion of the book, he set the book back on the shelf from where he'd taken it and checked the rest of the books on
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