OPEN THE DOOR. NOW.
The voice jars me from sleep, thoughts rush to fit. My door? Mine? Me?
Chunka-chunk. The sound of a door being tried. Locked.
NOW.
Not my door, another’s. The voice is demanding, authoritative. Male.
Voices boil up, subside, boil up, withdraw. They trail down the hall and away. I hear the unbothered ding of the elevator. Silence.
I lie still, let wakefulness catch up. Should I call the police? Wait, I decide, Go look.
I tiptoe as if afraid the concrete floor will creak and slide aside the tiny metal disk that covers the peephole in the door. The hall is empty, expressionless doors shrink away toward their vanishing point at the far end. Nothing to see here, they say.
The street. I’m now mostly awake. Whatever was going on inside may have moved outside. I cross the living room, stop short of the window, crane my neck, and peer, any closer and I’ll be visible to those below. Police cars line the street facing backwards and forwards. Lights blue, red, flashing. A van. As if on cue two people emerge from the area of the building’s entrance below me and descend the steps and cross the sidewalk and go out onto the street, one escorted by the other, the latter’s hands in zip ties behind their back. The police ushers the hoodied other to the nearest car, opens the back door, and guides them in as if managing a helium-filled balloon, gingerly.
404, I think to myself, It’s 404.
404’s door is kitty-corner to mine, on the diagonal, across. He’s been my enigma for a year now. 401 and 403 are friendly, talking when we meet. Together the four of us form the sum total of occupants at our end of the hall. An enclave. Cozy and not, 404 keeping to himself.
401 and I roll our eyes about 404, however, because every weekday at approximately 7:30 am the same sound pierces our respective idylls: Chunka-chunka-chunk, chunka-chunka-chunk, chunka-chunka-chunk.
It’s the sound of 404 preparing to leave for the day. He’s locked the door, the one-by-two inch steel deadbolt now firmly in its hole in the commercial grade steel frame, and then he grasps and vigorously shakes the door handle to make sure it’s locked. Three times. Religiously. Monday to Friday.
OCD, 401 says when we finally check in with one another.
We don’t know whether 403 hears the chunkachunk or not, it isn’t something that rises to the level of investigation, it doesn’t warrant that much attention. 401 doesn’t even lock his door but security is clearly a matter of the highest for 404.
Lying in bed again after all the excitement I think of 404 and his door-shaking and his cloistered way and grow more convinced that it was him. He was the helium balloon being guided into the back of the police car. I’m sure of it.
Did you hear anything last night, I text 401 in the morning.
Like what, he texts back.
I describe it. He’s curious but he’s heard nothing. Let me know if you find anything out, he says. I have no number to text 403 and ask her and it’s news to the building manager when I ask him; no one’s contacted him during the night. The police seem to have gained access to the building on their own. I see 411 in the elevator. Did you see police cars out front last night? They did not.
It’s a leisurely process on my part: I ask whoever I happen to run into. The weekend unfolds. I continue to posit my theory about 404 being at the centre of things. I extrapolate. Triangulate. I involve friends, fan the conjecture. Otherwise, I go about my business. But there’s one last thing. It occurs to me that 404 might need help if he’s been arrested. 409 knows 404 has no family in town, she used to stand and chat with him at his door. They were workmates. But now she’s moved away. I’ll let her know, I think, and do. I text her. In the meantime I run into 407 and he tells me he sees police reports in the course of his work and he’ll check to see if anything was called in for our building on Friday night.
That’s it for my investigation. Done. A day or two passes. I run into 407: there was no report of the police having been here Friday night. 409 gets back to me and says 404’s fine. He’s in there. They’ve spoken. The week proceeds, chunka chunka chunk; yes, he’s in there. All appears well. The trail has more than run cold.
Two weeks pass. Three. The story has since stopped making the rounds; I’ve stopped telling it. I let it go. Move on. The building moves on. The building never stopped moving on, of course. The building is inscrutable. Maybe the police hadn’t been inside at all. Maybe their apprehension of an individual out front was simply coincident with noises in the hall, the two unrelated.
Coming off the elevator I see 403’s door propped open as if in the process of either receiving or disgorging its contents. I stop at the threshold. 403 is inside. You’re moving, I say surprised. Going home, she says. That’s great, I say, I’m glad for you and the kids. She’s been separated from them, living in town to nurse at a local hospital, shift work, and otherwise making the drive to see them when she can. We talk in her kitchen as the movers come and go.
The disturbance, I think, This is my chance. 403 is the only person I haven’t asked. It’s a long shot given how little she’s here but maybe. A couple of Fridays ago, I say, middle of the night, voices in the hall. I tell her everything. OPEN THE DOOR. NOW, police cars everywhere, a person in restraints. It’s as if I’m back in the moment, reliving it, heart racing.
That was me, she says.
My eyes bug out. I stop. I’m caught between raising my arms in victory and offering my condolences. I lead with the latter and confess to the former. I’m so relieved. She’s disarmingly forthcoming. Someone she describes as a boyfriend had called 911 to report that she was assaulting him. The police came, she refused them entry, things got loud, she finally relented. They bent me over the island, she said, gesturing to the flat expanse of countertop, Zip-tied my hands behind my back, took me out, disbelief tinging her words.
She’d more than heard the disturbance, she was the disturbance. Humbled I could now put my sorry powers of deductive reasoning to rest.
Both of these stories are mysteries. You're a mysteries-of-everyday-life-writer! You had me in both. But shouldn't we call Moxies to find out who ordered the food?