CHAPTER SEVEN: THE MAN WHO BUILT THE PLAQUE

Caleb arrived at Nora’s apartment before sunrise the next day.
He looked as though he had not slept.
“Someone has been calling my father all night,” he said.
“What did they want?”
“They wanted him to sign a statement saying he confused your mother with another worker.”
“Who called?”
“The calls came from different numbers.”
Nora made coffee while Caleb paced between the table and the window.
“He’s starting to doubt himself,” Caleb said.
“He isn’t doubting what happened,” Nora replied.
“He’s frightened of what happens when he says it.”
Caleb stopped pacing.
“You sound certain.”
“My mother lost work for telling people about a blocked exit.”
“I know.”
“You didn’t know yesterday.”
“I know now.”
Caleb took a breath.
“I also learned something about my father.”


Nora waited.
“He was invited to the unveiling of the plaque when he turned eighteen.”
“Did he go?”
“He stood beside Grant Voss and thanked him in front of a crowd.”
Nora set down her cup.
“Why?”
“Because his own father told him to.”
Walter’s father had worked for the Voss company.
After the fire, the company offered to pay for Walter’s medical appointments and schooling.
The arrangement was never explained to Walter as a bargain.
It became one anyway.
“Your father isn’t responsible for what adults made him say at eighteen,” Nora said.
“He thinks he is.”
“Then he needs to tell me that himself.”
Caleb nodded.
“He will.”
Nora looked at the photograph propped against her sugar bowl.
“I don’t want a statue of my mother,” she said.


“I want to know why the exits were blocked.”
Caleb sat down.
“There’s another person who might know.”
“Who?”
“Paul, the demolition foreman.”
“Why would he know?”
“Because his grandfather installed the service doors.”

CHAPTER EIGHT: THE FOREMAN’S DECISION

Paul agreed to meet them at a roadside diner beyond the shopping district.
He arrived with dust on his boots and a folded measuring tape clipped to his belt.
“I shouldn’t be talking to you,” he said before sitting down.
“Then why did you come?” Nora asked.
“Because somebody ordered me to destroy the west corridor before the structural inspection.”
Caleb leaned forward.
“Who ordered it?”
“Elliot Voss.”
“Can he do that?”
“He can ask, but the demolition contractor decides the sequence.”
Paul stirred his coffee without drinking it.
“The west corridor is stable enough to inspect.”
“Why does he want it gone?”
“Because there’s a blocked doorway behind the newer wall.”
Nora felt her pulse quicken.
“The doorway Ruth used?”
“Possibly.”
Paul unfolded a sketch he had made from measurements.
“The original service hatch opened into a passage that led outside.”
He traced a line with his finger.
“After the fire, somebody covered the opening and built storage shelves across it.”
Caleb stared at the drawing.
“Why cover an emergency exit?”
“Because the hall was renovated to reopen the following year.”
Paul looked at Nora.
“The city inspectors only saw the finished corridor.”
Nora remembered the thimble in Miriam’s tin.
“My mother opened that hatch from inside.”
Paul nodded slowly.
“That’s possible if the latch was jammed.”
“Can we see it?”
“Not while demolition work is active.”
“Then stop the demolition.”
“I can’t stop a contract because someone tells me an old story.”
Nora pushed the photograph across the table.
Paul studied it.
He pointed to the wooden cabinet behind Ruth.
“That cabinet isn’t furniture,” he said.
“It’s a movable display wall.”
He looked at Caleb.
“And it’s standing in front of the west passage.”