“Good. Nobody replaced it. Come inside.”

The theater smelled of dust, old paint, and cold concrete. Seats had been removed from half the auditorium. Yellow tags hung from light fixtures, and white chalk arrows marked equipment scheduled for disposal. A contractor in a hard hat told June she had no right to bring visitors inside.

“I have permission until five,” June replied. “You can telephone your supervisor if you need to hear him say it again.”

He walked away muttering.

June led them through a corridor lined with photographs of past productions. Lily recognized the moon from Walter’s picture. Beneath it, a child actor in a paper sailor’s cap stood on a platform while painted walls curved around him.

“That was Benji,” June said. “He was seven. He loved the show so much he learned every line.”

“Where is he now?”

“He runs a bicycle repair shop in Akron. He won’t come back here. I don’t blame him.”

They entered a workshop full of abandoned flats and wooden frames. A long cabinet stood against the wall, its brass lock dark with age. Lily used the key. Inside were six hand-painted wooden pieces shaped like portions of a room, each with a narrow groove along its bottom edge. The pieces fit together around a small circular platform.

“A model,” Lily said.

“Your father made it for the children. He wanted them to understand the movement before they stepped inside.”

She assembled the pieces. The walls formed a blue chamber with a tiny paper boat in its center. On the back of one panel someone had written: THE WALL LISTENS.

“What does that mean?” Lily asked.

June reached over and tapped the panel. It slid toward the center. A second panel, attached by a hidden string, moved outward at the same time.

“It means one wall follows another. We used to tell the children the walls were listening to each other. Your father disliked the phrase. He said it made us forget the people operating them.”

Lily examined the model. There was a little notch on the underside of one wall, almost invisible under the paint. She pressed it. The wall stopped short.

June watched her closely. “That’s what he noticed.”

“A stop?”

“A missing stop. The real wall was supposed to stop before it reached the center. On the night of the accident, it didn’t.”

“And you want to know who removed it.”

“No,” June said. “I want to know why the replacement was still in the cabinet when they locked the room.”

6. THE WOMAN WHO STAYED

They had lunch at a bakery across from the theater. June ate tomato soup with both hands around the bowl, while Walter struggled with a sandwich and stubbornly refused help until Daniel cut it in half.