Chapter 6 - The Man Across the Street
Ed Kessler shut the garage door before the gray sedan had time to move.
"That car's been there twice this week," he said. "Could be a neighbor. Could be somebody who wants me nervous. Either way, it's working."
He led Naomi and Maya through his kitchen and showed them a photograph from the original inspection. It was a blurry picture of Rosa standing beside a rusted basement panel, pointing at a red warning light. Across the bottom, Ed had written: Resident worker reports ongoing low water pressure; immediate correction required.
Naomi pressed her thumb against the edge of the photo. "Mom called them?"
"Three times that month. Your mother wasn't careless. She was a pain in the neck to management." Ed gave a sad smile. "That's a compliment from a fire inspector."
"Why didn't you say this after the fire?"
"I did. The city attorney told me the contractor's records overruled my field notes. Then I was reassigned, and later I retired. I should have fought harder."
Maya leaned forward. "Would you testify?"
Ed looked at Naomi. "If I can put one thing right before I'm gone, yes."
Outside, the sedan finally pulled away. Naomi noted the plate but couldn't make out the last digit. Maya told her not to follow it.
"They're trying to starve me into shutting up," she told Maya over the phone.
"Then we document every move."
At home, Isabel was sitting cross-legged on the floor with a box of Rosa's photographs. She held up one taken the summer before the fire. Rosa, wearing a yellow raincoat, stood with a boy and a woman Naomi didn't recognize.
"That's Aaron," Isabel said. "The kid Mom saved. He came by the memorial last year."
"Who's the woman?"
May you like
"His grandma. They moved south."
Naomi turned the picture over. On the back, in Rosa's careful handwriting, was a date and one line: Aaron's grandmother saw who locked the stairs.
