I’ve been trying very hard today not to investigate anything, partly because Pandora asked me not to and mostly because yesterday demonstrated that my instincts, while occasionally impressive, have a tendency to arrive at the correct general conclusion by traveling through several completely unnecessary countries first. I knew Pandora and John Mercer were hiding something from me. I knew Karen was involved. I even suspected Mr Whiskers, and all of that turned out to be technically correct except that the secret operation I’d uncovered was a surprise cake, while the cat’s participation consisted primarily of being present near people who knew about it. Pandora insists this means I was wrong. I maintain that it means my threat assessment was disproportionate to the threat, which is an entirely different thing. Either way, I promised myself today would be different. No theories, no surveillance, and absolutely no interpreting Mr Whiskers’ facial expressions as intelligence reports. I was going to accept ordinary life as ordinary life unless presented with actual evidence to the contrary, which is why I wasn’t concerned when Pandora started acting strangely before breakfast.
I noticed it, obviously, because not noticing things is how you end up walking around with egg stuck to your sock while everyone else in the kitchen watches, but noticing something isn’t the same as investigating it. Pandora was quieter than usual, kept checking her phone, and twice looked toward the front window when she heard a car outside. Then Mr Whiskers meowed at her while she was making tea and she didn’t answer him. Normally she responds to him, which is ridiculous because he’s a cat, although after yesterday I’m no longer prepared to make definitive statements about how much information passes between those two. Still, none of this proved anything. Pandora could have been tired. She could have been waiting for a message from work. She could simply have decided that eight in the morning was too early to begin another conversation with an orange animal who contributes nothing financially to the household. There were dozens of reasonable explanations, and I intended to exhaust every one of them before considering any unreasonable ones.
The problem was that Pandora didn’t seem to appreciate how reasonable I was being. When I casually asked whether everything was okay, she said everything was fine, and I accepted that immediately. I want that entered into the record because the old me might have questioned her tone or pointed out that she’d checked her phone halfway through answering me, whereas the new me merely drank his coffee and observed Mr Whiskers sitting beside her chair. Pandora looked down at him, he looked up at her, and for a moment I thought she was going to say something. Instead she picked up her phone again. I took another drink of coffee and reminded myself that nothing suspicious was happening because I’d made a mature and conscious decision that nothing suspicious was happening. Pandora eventually caught me looking at her and put the phone down. “Don’t,” she said. This seemed unfair because I hadn’t actually done anything, which I explained to her. She told me she knew the look on my face. I asked what look, and she said it was the one I got immediately before connecting three unrelated events and ruining an otherwise peaceful morning. I told her that was an insulting characterization, particularly because I currently had at least four unrelated events available and hadn’t connected any of them. The expression she gave me suggested this wasn’t as reassuring as I’d intended.
Around lunchtime John Mercer stopped by, which normally wouldn’t matter because John visits often enough that his appearance doesn’t require an investigation. Today, however, he walked into the kitchen, saw Pandora, and said, “So, are we still doing pizza tonight?” Pandora gave him a strange look, John stopped talking, and there was a pause that lasted maybe two seconds. Two seconds isn’t much time under ordinary circumstances, but it’s plenty of time when somebody has suddenly realized they’ve said something they weren’t supposed to say. Pandora asked why they wouldn’t be having pizza. John said he didn’t know and was just checking. Then he looked at me, Pandora looked at me, and I looked at both of them while Mr Whiskers, who was sitting near the refrigerator, looked at absolutely nobody because apparently somebody in this household had received professional training. I asked whether there was some uncertainty concerning dinner. John said no. Pandora said no. They said it almost simultaneously, which I was sure was a coincidence because coincidences happen constantly when you’re making a deliberate effort not to investigate your friends.
I asked why John needed confirmation if there was no uncertainty, and he told me he was hungry and thinking about pizza. That was plausible. John thinks about food with enough frequency that I’ve never considered it evidence of criminal activity. Pandora offered him coffee, the conversation moved on, and I allowed it to move on because that’s what emotionally balanced adults do. I didn’t mention that Pandora had now checked her phone three times since John arrived or that John kept glancing at her whenever she did. I simply sat there listening to them talk while privately congratulating myself on an extraordinary display of restraint. Eventually John left, and nothing happened. There were no secret envelopes, no whispered instructions, and no suspicious exchange with Mr Whiskers. If anything, the complete absence of evidence should have reassured me, and it probably would have if Mrs Jenkins hadn’t caught me in the hallway twenty minutes later.
Mrs Jenkins was carrying a small basket and told me she’d been doing some cleaning. We talked for less than a minute, mostly about nothing, until she gave me one of those looks older neighbors give you right before saying something that sounds simultaneously obvious and prophetic. “Sometimes it’s good to keep things tidy before they become a problem,” she said. Now, I know Mrs Jenkins well enough to understand that this could refer to almost anything. Her apartment, the hallway, her garden, my apartment, the building, possibly civilization itself. She has opinions about all of them. I told her she was probably right, and she gave me a small, knowing smile before continuing down the hallway. I stood there for perhaps ten seconds after she left, considering whether “before they become a problem” had been intended as general housekeeping advice or a warning. Then I remembered my commitment to rationality and went back inside, where Pandora was checking her phone again.
I didn’t say anything. She saw me looking and put it down. I still didn’t say anything. “Don’t,” she said again. I reminded her that I was literally standing there silently, and she told me silence had never prevented me from developing a theory. I decided there was no productive response to that and went into the living room, where Mr Whiskers was stretched across the couch with the smug tranquility of a creature who has never had to explain his whereabouts to anyone. Yesterday Pandora had rewarded him with a treat after telling him he’d done a good job keeping me distracted. She claimed it was a joke, and I’d accepted that explanation because I’m generous. Today, however, he’d spent a suspicious amount of time moving between Pandora and the front window. That could mean absolutely nothing. Cats patrol familiar territory. Cats respond to sounds outside. Cats sit near people. I repeated these facts silently while Mr Whiskers stood up, walked to the window, and stared outside. Thirty seconds later Karen arrived.
I’m not proud of how quickly I looked at the cat.
Karen had stopped by to see Pandora, which was perfectly normal, and the two of them sat in the kitchen drinking coffee while I remained in the living room doing something that was absolutely not eavesdropping because they were speaking at a normal volume and the apartment wasn’t large enough to provide meaningful acoustic privacy. Their conversation was painfully mundane. Work, traffic, something Karen had bought, Pandora’s new scarf, and a video Karen had seen online. Mr Whiskers wandered into the kitchen, Karen immediately reached down to pet him, and nobody exchanged secret documents or used code words. Nobody even lowered their voice. I was beginning to feel ridiculous for having noticed anything when Karen suddenly said, “So she still doesn’t know?” Pandora answered, “No,” and I froze.
There are moments when the universe provides evidence so generously that ignoring it becomes irresponsible. Pandora said something else too quietly for me to hear, Karen laughed, and I leaned slightly toward the kitchen without leaving the couch because I have standards. At that exact moment Mr Whiskers walked back into the living room and sat directly in front of me. Of course he did. I looked down at him and whispered, “You’re doing it again.” He sat there. I pointed toward the kitchen and told him they’d sent him out to keep an eye on me. Mr Whiskers began washing one paw with the exaggerated indifference of an operative who knows you have nothing admissible. I told myself I was joking. Mostly. From the kitchen Pandora called out that she could hear me talking to the cat, and I replied that I was having a private conversation. Karen laughed again, which I didn’t appreciate.
Karen left twenty minutes later. She said goodbye normally, scratched Mr Whiskers behind the ears, and told Pandora she’d talk to her tomorrow. There was no secret handshake and no coded glance that I could identify. After she left, Pandora returned to the living room and asked whether I wanted to watch something with her. It was all so ordinary that I nearly became embarrassed about the entire morning. We sat together on the couch, Mr Whiskers wedged himself between us, and for almost an hour I stopped thinking about the phone calls, the scarf, John, Karen, Mrs Jenkins, or the mysterious woman who apparently didn’t know something. Then Pandora’s phone buzzed again. She read the message, and her expression changed. It wasn’t dramatic; if I hadn’t been paying attention, I might not have noticed at all. Her smile disappeared and her forehead tightened slightly. She read the message a second time before putting the phone down.
This time I didn’t theorize. I simply looked at her and said, “Something’s wrong.” Pandora didn’t answer immediately, and that frightened me more than anything else had all day. When I asked again, she exhaled and looked down at her hands before finally admitting that something had happened at work. It wasn’t catastrophic, but a project she’d put a great deal of effort into had run into trouble, and she’d been waiting all day to learn whether it could be salvaged. That was why she’d been distracted, why she’d kept checking her phone, and why she’d taken a call privately earlier. She hadn’t told me because there wasn’t anything I could do, and she didn’t want me spending the entire day worrying about something neither of us could control.
For a moment I just sat there because something really had been wrong. I knew it. Unfortunately, almost none of the evidence I’d collected was related to it. John’s pizza question was about pizza. Mrs Jenkins’ ominous warning about keeping things tidy before they became a problem concerned the recycling bins downstairs. Karen had given Pandora the scarf because she’d bought two and decided she preferred the other color, while Karen’s mysterious question about whether “she still doesn’t know” concerned a woman at work who hadn’t yet been told about a surprise retirement party. Even Mr Whiskers’ repeated trips to the window had an explanation: a pigeon had apparently spent most of the afternoon sitting on the ledge outside. I looked toward the window. The pigeon was still there. Mr Whiskers was staring at it. Fine.
I put my arm around Pandora and told her she could have told me she was worried. She said she knew but hadn’t wanted me worrying too, which I pointed out was ridiculous because I’d spent the entire day worrying anyway, except about substantially more elaborate things. That made her laugh despite herself, and she rested her head against my shoulder while I asked whether there was anything I could do. She said there wasn’t, really; she just had to wait until tomorrow and see what happened. So we sat there together, and for once I didn’t try to solve anything. I didn’t ask questions, didn’t investigate, and didn’t even look at her phone when it buzzed again. Mr Whiskers eventually climbed onto Pandora’s lap, she scratched behind his ears, and he started purring as though he’d successfully completed another assignment.
I looked at him, and he looked at me, and for the first time all day I felt completely vindicated. I had known something was wrong. I couldn’t prove it because I’d been investigating the wrong things, but that was a methodological problem rather than an instinct problem. If anything, the day’s events demonstrated that my underlying detection system was functioning perfectly well and merely required some refinement in evidence classification. Pandora lifted her head from my shoulder and said, “No.” I stared at her and asked what she meant. “Whatever you’re thinking,” she said. “No.” I told her I wasn’t thinking anything. She narrowed her eyes and said, “You had the look.” I glanced down at Mr Whiskers. He closed his eyes without moving.
I’m starting to think those two have developed a system.
