By morning, Glen had dismissed Isaiah. The notice was polite and final, even though Glen would not look him in the eye. Isaiah needed work immediately, so the building superintendent at an office complex offered him a temporary cleaning shift. A broom, a dustpan, and a gray work shirt replaced his diner apron. Outside the building, he crossed paths with an impeccably dressed older man carrying a walking stick. The stranger stopped when he saw the brass key on Isaiah’s ring. “Where did you get that?” he demanded. Isaiah explained only that a man in the rain had entrusted it to him. The stranger called himself Richard Vale and said the key belonged to a dead woman. Isaiah’s throat tightened. His mother’s name was Naomi Cole, and Richard spoke it before Isaiah could.
The superintendent, Mrs. Larkin, had handed Isaiah the broom with an apology, as though an honest job should embarrass either of them. Isaiah thanked her and asked where she kept spare trash liners. Working with his hands had never troubled him. Being treated as invisible did. Executives stepped around his cart while discussing travel plans and conference calls. They never realized he was listening closely enough to recognize the names of three medical foundations displayed on the lobby wall. One bore Richard Vale's surname. Isaiah had seen the same name on a faded bronze plaque outside the Orchard Street clinic. Until that moment it had been nothing more than a coincidence; now it felt like a thread he could follow.
Richard had the polished restraint of a man accustomed to having difficult conversations on his own terms. His silver hair was combed carefully, his suit perfectly pressed, but his grip on the walking stick betrayed a nervousness he could not hide. Isaiah leaned on his broom and resisted the impulse to step backward. He had spent too many years listening to strangers explain what they knew about his mother. Richard reached for his phone, then thought better of it. “Walter should never have returned,” he said. “Not without telling me.” Isaiah asked what had happened to the building on Orchard Street. Richard answered that somebody had died there.
Mrs. Larkin passed through the lobby carrying a clipboard. She greeted Richard by name but spoke to Isaiah with the same quiet respect she had shown him when offering work. It was such a small difference from how other people behaved that Isaiah nearly missed it. Respect, he thought, was most honest when nothing could be gained by giving it. The uncertainty remained.
Then Richard said a second person had been declared dead by mistake, and Isaiah understood that the key was more dangerous than either man had admitted.