Scott took it. “How is it you remember this? It’s been ten years.”

She smiled. “I’ve been waiting all that time for someone to come walking through the door and start asking questions about Michael O’Connell. I just never thought it would be someone considering giving him a job. Figured it would be the police.”

“You seem very certain.”

The woman smiled. “I was once his teacher. Eleventh-grade English. And he made a distinct impression. Over the years, there have been a dozen or so whom one never forgets. Half of those for the right reasons, half for the wrong. Will he be working in an office with young women?”

“Yes. Why?”

“He always seemed to make the girls here uncomfortable. And yet, they were drawn to him, as well. I could never quite figure it out. Why would you be attracted to someone you knew would cause you trouble?”

“I don’t know. Maybe I should talk with some of them?”

“Sure. But after all this time, who knows where they might be? Anyway, I doubt you can find too many people willing to talk about Michael. As I said, he made an impression.”

“His family?”

“That’s his home address. Like I said, I don’t know if his father still lives there. You can check.”

“Mother?”

“She was out of the picture years ago. I never got the full story, but…”

“But what?”

The woman stiffened abruptly. “I understand she died when he was little. Ten maybe? Maybe thirteen? I don’t think I should say anything else. I’ve already said too much. You don’t need my name, do you?”

Scott shook his head. He had heard what he needed to hear.

“Earl Grey, dear? With a little bit of milk?”

“That would be fine,” Hope replied. “Thank you very much, Mrs. Abramowicz.”

“Please, dear, call me Hilda.”

“Well, Hilda, thank you very much. This is most kind of you.”

“Be with you in a second,” the old woman continued. Hope could hear the kettle start to sing. She cast her eyes about, taking in as much of the apartment as she could. A crucifix was on the wall, beside a vibrantly colored painting of Jesus at the Last Supper. This was surrounded by faded black-and-white photographs of men in stiff collars and women in lace. They were juxtaposed with pictures of a dark but green landscape, streets filled with cobblestones, and a church with pointed spires. Hope added it all together: long-dead relatives in an Eastern European country not visited in decades. It was a little like papering the walls of the apartment with ghosts. She kept searching for the old woman’s story; paint peeling near the windowsill; a row of vials and containers of medications. There were stacks of magazines and newspapers, and a television set that had to be at least fifteen years old adjacent to an overstuffed red armchair. It all spoke of emptiness.

There was only a single bedroom. She looked around and spotted a basket with knitting needles near the armchair. The apartment smelled of age and cats. Eight or more were perched on the couch, on the windowsill, and by the radiator. More than one came over and rubbed up against Hope. She guessed there were double the number hiding in the bedroom.

She took a deep breath and wondered how people could end up so lonely.

Mrs. Abramowicz entered with two cups of steaming tea. She smiled down at the collection of cats, who immediately began rubbing her and trailing after her. “Not quite dinnertime yet, loveys. In a minute. Let Mother have a little talk, first.” She turned to Hope. “You don’t see your Socks in my little menagerie, do you?”

“No,” Hope said, adopting a sad tone. “And I didn’t see him in the hallway, either.”

“I’m trying to keep my darlings out of the hallway. I can’t, all the time, because they like to come and go, that’s the way cats are, you know, dear. Because I believe he is doing something very bad to them.”

“What makes you think-”

“He doesn’t realize it, but I recognize each and every one. And every few days, one will be missing. I want to call the police, but he’s right. They will probably take the rest of my little friends away from me, and I couldn’t stand that. He’s a bad man, and I wish he would move out. I should never-”

Mrs. Abramowicz stopped, and Hope leaned forward. The old woman sighed and looked around her apartment.

“I’m afraid, dear, if your little Socks came to visit, then that bad man might have taken him. Or hurt him. I cannot tell.”

Hope nodded. “He sounds terrible.”

“He is. He scares me and I usually won’t talk to him, except when we have words, like today. I think he scares some of the others who live here, as well, but they won’t say anything either. And what can we do? He pays his rent on time, doesn’t make any noise, doesn’t have wild parties, and that’s all the ownership cares about.”

Hope sipped at the sweet tea. “I wish I could be certain. About Socks, that is.”

Mrs. Abramowicz sat back. “There’s one way,” she said slowly. “You could be certain. And it might help answer some of my questions, too. I’m old and I’m not very strong anymore. And I’m scared, but I’ve got no place else to go. But you, dear, you seem much stronger than me. Stronger even than I was, when I was your age. And I will wager that you’re not scared of much.”

“Yes.”

The old woman smiled again, almost coyly. “When my husband was alive, our apartment was larger. In fact, it included all the space that Mr. O’Connell now occupies. We had two bedrooms and a sitting room, a study and a formal dining room, and this entire end of the building. But after my Alfred died, they cut it up. Made our one big apartment into three. But they were lazy when they did it.”

“Lazy?”

Mrs. Abramowicz took another sip. Hope saw her eyes flash with an unexpected anger. “Yes. Lazy. Wouldn’t you think it lazy to not bother to change the locks on some of the doors to the new apartments? The apartments that were once my apartment.”

Hope nodded. She felt a sudden, electric tension within her.

“I do so want to know what he’s done to my cats,” Mrs. Abramowicz said slowly. Her eyes narrowed, her voice deepened, and Hope realized that there was something formidable about the woman. “And I imagine you’d like to know about Socks, too. There’s only one way to be sure, and that’s to look inside.” She leaned forward, putting her face only a foot or two away from Hope, and whispered, “He doesn’t know it, but I have a key to his front door.”

“So,” she said as a shadow slipped across her face, “do you now see what was in play?”

Any reporter knows there is a necessary seduction between subject and writer. Or maybe it’s instinctively knowing how to cajole the most difficult of stories out of a source. Still, I knew she was steering the conversations, had been since the beginning. Our meetings were trysts for information, but by telling the story, I would be using her as much as she had used me.

She paused, then said, “How often do you hear amongst your middle-aged friends the desire to change things? To be something other than who they are? They want something to happen that turns their life upside down, so they no longer have to face the dreary, deadly routines of life.”

“Often enough,” I replied.

“Most people lie when they say they want a change, because change is far too terrifying. What they really want is to regain their youth. When you are young, all the choices are adventures. It’s when we reach middle age that we begin to second-guess our decisions. We stepped upon a path, and we have to walk it, no? And it all becomes problematic. We don’t win the lottery. Instead, the boss calls us in and tells us we’re being downsized. The husband or the wife of twenty years announces, ‘I’ve met someone new and I want out.’ The doctor looks up from the sheet of test results with a frown and says, ‘These numbers aren’t good. I’m going to order some additional exams.’ ”