EDITH TIMMONS, a sixty-year-old realtor who managed the Crown and Palmer office at Madison and 60th Street was at her desk when a young man came into the office. Through her open door she could see him flash some sort of I.D. at the receptionist, and she got up and went to the door. “May I help you?” she said to the young man.
“Mrs. Timmons,” the receptionist said, “this gentleman is from the FBI; perhaps you should speak to him.”
“Yes, please come into my office,” she said. Edith turned back to her desk and began to take deep breaths, composing herself. She sat down at her desk and clasped her hands together to keep them from shaking. “Yes, come in,” she said.
The young man showed her his identification. “I’m Special Agent Harding, with the FBI,” he said.
“How may I help you?” Edith replied, trying to keep her voice steady. Forty years before, Edith, whose name was not Edith, had participated in a Weather Underground bank robbery in downtown New York, and a bank guard had been killed. She had only driven the getaway car, but she knew that somewhere in the Justice Department bureaucracy there was an arrest warrant with her real name on it and that there is no statute of limitations on murder.
“I understand that your firm handles short-term rentals on the Upper East Side,” Harding said. “Is that correct?”
“Yes, it is,” she replied, relieved that he did not seem interested in arresting her. “It’s a specialty of ours.”
Harding handed her a sketch of a middle-aged man. “Have you, during the past few weeks, shown an apartment or rented an apartment to a man who looks like this?”
Edith tried not even to blink. “No, we haven’t,” she said. “I handle the short-term rentals, myself, so if he had come in here, I would have seen him.”
“You’re certain you haven’t rented to someone who looks even vaguely like this man during the past weeks?”
She shook her head. “I’m sure; I’ve only rented to couples for the past three or four months. It’s been more than a year since I rented to a single man. And none of the men in the couples looked like this. Why are you asking?”
“It’s just a routine investigation,” Harding said. “We’re talking to all the realtors in the neighborhood.”
“I see.” She stood up. “Well, I’m sorry I couldn’t have been more help, Agent Harding. Good day.”
“Good day, and thank you.” The young man left her offices and turned up Madison Avenue.
Edith closed her office door, sat back down in her chair and rested her face in her hands, trying to tame her wildly beating heart. She took a tissue from the box on her desk and dabbed at the beads of perspiration that had popped out on her forehead, then she got out her compact and repaired her carefully applied makeup.
For a moment, there, she had thought her life would go up in smoke: her partnership in the realty firm, her marriage to a Park Avenue physician, her two sons and her five grandchildren.
What was that man’s name? She got out her card file of rentals and began going through them, then stopped at one. Foreman; Albert Foreman. She dialed the number.
TEDDY WAS IN HIS WORKSHOP when the phone rang. He routinely forwarded the calls from his apartment to this phone, but he never got calls, except from telemarketers. He picked up the instrument. “Hello?”
“Mr. Foreman?”
“Who’s calling, please?”
“This is Edith Timmons of Crown and Palmer. Is this Mr. Foreman?”
“Yes.”
“I’m sure you’ll recall that I rented you your apartment at the Mayflower a few weeks ago.”
“Of course, Mrs. Timmons. Is anything wrong? Are the owners returning earlier than planned?”
“Oh, no, nothing like that. I just wanted to tell you about something, purely for your own information.”
“Yes?”
“A few minutes ago I had a visit from an FBI agent, who showed me a sketch of someone who looked vaguely like you and asked if I had rented an apartment to such a person.”
Teddy’s gut clenched. “And what did you tell him?”
“Mr. Foreman, I have to tell you that I have no love for the FBI and I have no wish to help them. I told him that I had not rented to any such person, so you shouldn’t be bothered.”
“That’s very kind of you, Mrs. Timmons. It’s just a tax matter. I’ll contact them, and I’m sure we can work it out.”