“I know. I also know I’m in a ground floor apartment facing out on an airshaft and the burglars would trip over each other if I didn’t have bars on the window. I could get those window gates that you can unlock in case of fire but I know I’d never find the key if I had to, and I’m sure burglars can get through those gates. So I think I’ll just leave well enough alone.”
“I don’t blame you. Nobody got in this way unless he’s awfully goddamn skinny. People can get through narrower spaces than you’d think. When I was a kid I could crawl through a milk chute, and I could probably still crawl through a milk chute, come to think of it, because I’m about the same size I was then. And it looked impossible. It was about ten inches wide by maybe fourteen inches high, but I made it. If you can get your head through an opening, the rest of the body will follow.”
“Really?”
“Ask any obstetrician. Oh, I don’t suppose it works with really fat people.”
“Or with pinheads.”
“Well, yeah, right. But it’s a good general rule. Nobody got in this window, though, because the bars are what? Three, four inches apart?”
“You can leave the window open, Bern. It’s stuffy in here. They didn’t get in through the window and they didn’t pick the locks, so what does that leave? Black magic?”
“I don’t suppose we can rule it out.”
“The flue’s blocked on my fireplace, in case you figured Santa Claus pulled the job. How else could they get in? Up from the basement through the floor? Down through the ceiling?”
“It doesn’t seem likely. Carolyn, what did the place look like when you came in?”
“Same as it always looks.”
“They didn’t go through the drawers or anything?”
“They could have opened drawers and closed them again and I wouldn’t have noticed. They didn’t mess anything up, if that’s what you mean. I didn’t even know I’d had anybody here until I couldn’t find the cat. I still didn’t know somebody’d been in here, not until I got the phone call and realized somebody stole the cat. He didn’t just disappear on his own, Bernie. What difference does it make?”