Turns out we did find the paper’s twin.  On a desk beside the window on the top floor of the building.  The window looked down at the street in front of our office. Open only a crack, just like the other one.   

I lead the way out of the room and then down the hall. I strained my ears, listening for any sound that would lead me to what I was looking for. Whom I was looking for. I couldn’t hear a damn thing over that kid’s heavy feet.

I stopped short.

“Can you lift those boots a bit or should I get you a couple of pillows for you to walk on?” I whispered with a half glance over my shoulder.  When we carried on Scoop did his best imitation of a church mouse.

“There’s nothing here, Cloudy” Charlie said after we’d stuck our noses into each deserted room.  “Unless you think the killer is hiding in that broom closet.”

How could I miss it?

“That’s not a broom closet,” I said.  I went forward and pulled the slim door at the end of the hall open.  The dust beneath the doorframe, already disturbed not so long ago, danced easily.  We did out best to see through the dark and the musty air into that room.  I pulled out a match. The spark hurt our eyes, but when it was gone we could see into the small space. I hadn’t expected to find a staircase, but I’d hoped. Beneath the mops and the brooms, some cracked a few without heads, a narrow set of stairs led up to a trap door.

“Where do you suppose it goes?” Scoop said. The crack in his voice had been replaced with a shaky kind jitter, almost a stutter. 

“The roof,” Charlie and I said together.

  

“It looks as deserted as every other room here,” Scoop said. “It doesn’t look like anyone has come this way in near a decade.”

“Look again,” I said and held the match out to cast a richer light on the steps. The same kind of disturbance I’d noticed in the dust under the door showed on the steps. Not quite footprints, but definite imprints, places where the things inside had been moved aside and then replaced. And the top stop looked clean, the polished wood shimmered in the match light.

“Let’s go,” Charlie said.  For a moment I felt a twinge of fear leap through my heart.  I thought Charlie meant to turn back, leave the place and the case to be solved by someone else.  Someone who would undoubtedly be too late.  Then he charged forward, stepped smoothly passed me and took the lead up the stairs. He didn’t bother to replace the mops and brooms as our predecessor had on his trip up, and neither did Scoop when he followed behind me.  In the movement my match went out.

There were only about ten steps, steep ones that felt more like a latter than stairs. We hunched together in the dark on the top five or so, crammed in just below the unopened trap door. 

“What if he’s armed?” Scoop said. 

“Then so are we,” I said.

I heard a metallic click as Charlie undid the latch.  A blinding light broke in, shattered the illusion of blackness, and turned my world into a red blanket when I closed my eyes against it.

I blinked to clear my vision and when I could see properly again I found Charlie squinting through the crack out to the rooftop. We waited.  When nothing happened we waited a bit longer.

Then Charlie pushed the door another inch.

“Stop!”  A voice from the other side called down at us. It sounded distant, as if it were not right over the door, but close to it. 

Charlie froze, but did not drop the door. “Who’s there?”

“None of your business,” the voice called back, not an inch closer than before. “Shut the door and go away.”

“It’s over, son,” I yelled to Charlie’s back. “There’s a whole bunch of us down here and we know what you did.”

“You’re lying,” the voice came. A man.  A scared man.

“Not this time.”

“I’m armed,” he said. “I’ll shoot you if you move that door again.”

“Do you really think that’s going to help your situation?” I was surprised how confidently I was lying to this armed stranger. I’m not sure what made me think to do it.  Maybe it was the only weapon I’d found in my arsenal.

After a long pause Charlie spoke up.

“We’re going to come out.”

“No you are not,” the man cried.

“Just want to talk is all,” Charlie said. We’d heard this colloquialism used before during the police resolutions we’d observed, and I thought this other man might have heard the same.

“I got a revolver here that’s pretty chatty,” the man said, and to my great displeasure he sounded closer than before.

“Is that what you want?” I called out. “Another body on your conscience? And do you really think shooting another man will save you?”

There was nothing after that for a long time.  Charlie pushed the door open another two inches.  Waited. No gunshot, and the man stayed quiet.

Charlie shoved the door hard and it flew open. “We’re coming out.”

Charlie got his head and shoulders out of the trapdoor before the amazing crack broke through the air.  The sound still echoed in my head when felt the entire weight of Charlie fall on top of me and a sticky warmth splattered my left cheek.