Page 126 of Whistle

“Well, for surethat’snot happening, unless he brings donuts, too.” She made a face. “No, he’s too weird. Not even for a lemon-filled.”

“You wanna try him now, see if he’ll take the bait?”

Susie studied Harry for a moment. “Okay.”

He followed her back into her office, sat on the other side of her desk while she looked up the number and dialed. Waited. Suddenly she raised her index finger, signaling that someone had picked up at the other end.

“Hey, Mr. Nabler, it’s Susie at the community center... Right,Edwin. I was pulling together some numbers for you, Edwin, and wondered if you had some time this evening to come out and have a look at them.”

She nodded, listened. “Terrific. How’s around seven? I gotta work late tonight, setting up for a flower show they’re holding here on the weekend. Okay, good.”

Susie hung up.

“This guy’s not, like, a serial killer or something, is he?”

“I do not know him to be a serial killer, for certain,” Harry said, dodging a direct answer.

Susie spotted some lemon filling on her pinkie finger and licked it off.

“These donuts aren’t going to cover it. You owe me.”

A skill Harry had picked up over the years was how to pick a lock. He’d once arrested a break-in artist who’d agreed to show him the tricks of his trade. They’d even become friends after, and every once in a while Harry took him out for a beer in exchange for a refresher course.

But even then, it was never as easy as it looked on the TV shows, where someone whipped out an array of lock-picking tools and broke into a secret government installation in under twenty seconds. Real life was not an episode ofThe X Files.

Harry didn’t know whether he’d acquired sufficient skills to get into Nabler’s shop through the alley access. If he couldn’t, he might have to resort to using a blunt instrument, like a rock through the front window when no one was looking. Then, as a trusted officer of the law, he could enter the premises as part of aninvestigationinto an act of vandalism. But that was definitely Plan B.

He once again phoned and told Janice he would be late getting home.

“Same thing as last night,” he said.

“Roger that, over and out,” Janice said.

God, he loved her.

He muted his phone, slipped it into his pocket, then settled into the spot he’d used the night before, perched on the cinder blocks by the Dumpster. He was there when, at fifteen minutes to seven, the back door of Choo-Choo’s Trains opened and out walked Edwin Nabler.

Goodol’ Susie, Harry thought.

Harry watched the man double-check the lock, then walk around and get into his van. Harry slipped off the blocks and crouched down low as the van wheeled by him.

Seconds later, Harry was at the shop’s rear door, taking the lock-picking kit from his pocket. He knelt down and had a close look at the lock, wondering which pick his burglar buddy would choose.

Even before inserting the first pick, he thought he could hear something on the other side of the door. A mechanical sound of some kind. A chorus of metal spinning on metal. And something else. Something faint.

A mutedchuffchuffchuffchuffchuffchuff.

Harry knew Edwin left a train running all the time on a loop in the front window of the shop, but it wasn’t likely that he would be able to hear it all the way back here.

He gently worked one wire, then another, into the slot where a key would normally go, moving it one way and then another, feeling a little like a surgeon performing a delicate operation.

It took him just under five minutes. The lock disabled, he opened the door, holding his breath, hoping an alarm wouldn’t go off.

None did.

But the sound he’d heard earlier was now louder, closer to a din. Much more than achuffchuffchuffchuffand more like—

ChuffchuffCLICKETYCLACKclicketyCLACKwooWOOchuffCLICKETYchuffCLICKETYchuffWOOchuggachuggaclackclicketyCHUFFCHUFFclicketyCLACKwooWOOchuffCLICKETYchuffCLICKETYchuffWOOchuggachuggaclackclicketyCHUFFCHUFFclicketyCLACKwooWOOchuffCLICKETYchuffCLICKETYchuffWOOchuggachuggaclackclicketyCHUFF...

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