Chapter 8: Gerald's Morning
Gerald arrived at eight o'clock exactly.
He was a compact man in his late sixties who wore the same style of dark jacket every time I'd ever seen him, and he had a lawyer named Patricia with him — a woman about my age who carried a leather folder and shook my hand with the brisk efficiency of someone who had cleared her morning for exactly this.
We stood in the hallway outside my apartment.
Gerald knocked.
Asher answered.
He looked at Gerald, then at Patricia, then at me.
His expression didn't change, but something behind it did.
"Mr.
Colton," Gerald said.
"I'm the building owner.
I'd like to come in."
"You need to give notice before—"
"I gave notice last night by phone to the primary tenant." Gerald's voice was pleasant and completely immovable.
"I'm here to conduct a welfare inspection of the unit.
That falls under my rights as the property owner.
You're welcome to have your own legal representation present if you'd like to call someone.
We can wait."
A pause.
Asher stepped back.
The apartment looked different in daylight.
More crowded.
More lived-in.
There were dishes in the sink and shoes in the hallway and a child's jacket hanging from the back of a kitchen chair.
Two small girls — I guessed five and seven — were sitting on the living room floor watching something on a tablet.
They looked up when we came in.
Adeline was standing by the window.
She had her arms crossed and her chin up and she looked like someone who had rehearsed this moment.
"You can't remove us," she said.
"We have children.
We have residency rights."
Patricia opened her leather folder.
"Ms.
Marsh, I'd like to walk you through a few things."
"I know my rights."
"I'm sure you do," Patricia said.
"So let me tell you what I know." She removed a single sheet of paper and placed it on the coffee table.
"This is the sublease agreement signed by you and Mr.
Colton.
It specifies two occupants.
As of this morning, there are six people residing in this unit.
That is a material breach of the agreement."
"We had nowhere else to go—"
"This is a second document." Another sheet.
"This is a record of the storage unit rental, paid for using a credit card registered to Mr.
Marcus Webb, containing property belonging to the primary leaseholder — property that was removed from this unit without consent."
Adeline's chin stayed up, but her eyes moved to Asher.
"And this," Patricia said, placing a third document on the table, "is a copy of a police report filed this morning regarding a missing passport belonging to the primary leaseholder, removed from a sealed box in the storage closet of this unit."
The room was very quiet.
The children were still watching the tablet.
The sound of something small and animated came from the speakers.
"That has nothing to do with us," Asher said.
"The report names a Derek Faulkner as a person of interest," Patricia said.
"Mr.
Faulkner has been residing in the second bedroom of this unit.
Do you know his current whereabouts?"
Asher said nothing.
Adeline unfolded her arms.
It was a small movement, but I noticed it.
"We have until Friday," she said.
"You said Friday."
"The informal request was Friday," Patricia said.
"The formal notice, which I am serving you now, gives you forty-eight hours from this moment.
That is within the legal minimum for material breach of a sublease agreement in this jurisdiction." She closed the folder.
"I'd also like to note that we are aware of at least one prior incident in which a similar situation occurred at a property on Calloway Street eighteen months ago.
If you'd like to contest this notice, that history will be part of the record."
Adeline went very still.
"How do you—" she started.
"Ms.
Marsh," Patricia said.
"Forty-eight hours."
Gerald looked around the apartment once — a slow, thorough look, the look of a man cataloguing damage — and then turned to me.
"I'll be back Thursday morning," he said.
"If the unit is not vacated, we proceed through the court."
We walked out together.
In the hallway, Patricia tucked her folder under her arm and said, quietly, "The Calloway Street incident — I found that in forty minutes this morning.
There may be more.
I'm going to keep looking."
"Thank you," I said.
"Don't thank me yet." She glanced back at the closed door.
"The passport concerns me more than the tenancy.
If Faulkner moved it, that's a federal matter.
The local report is a start, but you may want to contact the passport agency directly and flag it as potentially compromised."
I hadn't thought of that.
"I'll do it today," I said.
She nodded and walked toward the elevator.
Gerald lingered for a moment.
"You handled this well," he said.
"A lot of people would have gone in there yelling.
That would have made everything harder."
"I wanted to," I said honestly.
He almost smiled.
"I know.
That's why I'm telling you."
He followed Patricia to the elevator.
I stood in the hallway alone for a moment, looking at my door.
From inside, I heard Adeline's voice — low, urgent, too muffled to make out the words.
Then Asher's.
Then silence.
May you like
Then the sound of drawers opening.
They were already packing.
