By late morning on October 21, before the afternoon when the Alabama caller's discrepancy would occupy him, Martin had received an authorized update about a demand for ten million dollars. The amount seemed almost easier to grasp than its implications. He read it once, then again, resisting the temptation to make the figure explain everything that had happened. A documented demand was something investigators could examine. It was not permission to declare that the whole terrible sequence now made sense.
The account concerned a note connected with the Ashland attack. It had been discovered after its Monday deadline; Martin was given no precise discovery time, and supplied none in his own understanding. What reached his desk was a summary for assigned coordination, not the original material. Around him, people were changing places for the next stretch of work. Someone emptied cold coffee into a wastebasket lined with yesterday's newspaper. Ruth pulled a chair close enough to speak without raising her voice.
'People will want a reason,' she said. Martin knew which people she meant: community contacts, exhausted staff, anyone hoping a demand had turned uncertainty into a transaction with an imaginable end. 'We have a demand,' he answered. 'That's what we have.' She nodded. They checked the boundaries of what could be relayed through their assignments. Neither a theory about motive nor a prediction about compliance belonged in the routine information they were responsible for conveying.
Martin had arranged a short visit to Daniel's apartment during an agreed break. There was no meal to cancel this time, no table waiting somewhere with a second place set. He had said he would come by before Daniel left for work, and he went. The apartment building smelled of warm dust from radiators coming back into use. On the second-floor landing, a bicycle stood upside down beside a door, its front wheel slowly turning under someone's testing hand.
Daniel let him in wearing his work shirt unbuttoned over a white undershirt. A grocery list lay on the kitchen table beside a utility bill. Martin noticed both and asked what time the shift ended. Daniel gave him the time. Then Martin asked whether someone else could take it. The change in his son's face was small but unmistakable. Daniel put the shirt buttons together one by one before answering. 'We had this conversation at the diner.'
'I know.' Martin remained standing, which made the kitchen feel more like an interview room than he intended. He sat down. Nothing from the morning's authorized information could properly enter this argument, and he did not hint that private knowledge entitled him to obedience. He had only the same parental fear he had brought last week. 'I keep thinking one more day at home might help.' Daniel asked what would happen the following day. Martin had no honest answer.
Daniel pushed the grocery list toward him. 'Here's something that helps. I need these before tomorrow, and I won't get to the other store.' The list contained coffee, detergent, and a particular kind of cereal sold more cheaply elsewhere. Martin almost said he could bring all that if Daniel stayed home. He heard the bargain forming and stopped it. His son was offering an errand, not putting a price on his own independence. Martin folded the list and put it in his pocket.
'I can call when I get there,' Daniel said. 'And once during a break, if there's time. If I miss the break, it means I'm working. It doesn't mean you come looking.' Martin asked what they should do if a call failed. They settled on trying again, leaving a message when possible, and saying plainly when their plans changed. It was a family arrangement, neither a protective system nor a substitute for emergency help. Daniel insisted that Martin make no more of it.
For a moment the refrigerator motor was the loudest thing in the room. Martin wanted to add conditions: which door, which parking space, whether Daniel would accept a ride. Every additional condition threatened to consume the offer already on the table. He took out the grocery list again and asked whether the detergent had to be the unscented kind. Daniel pointed to the word he had underlined. It was an ordinary answer, and Martin let it remain one.
At the door, Daniel said he would call at a quarter past three, after he had put away his things at work. Martin checked the time without proposing a different one. He would be back at his assignment by then; if he could not answer, he would return the call when free. Daniel nodded and reached for his keys. The first check-in belonged to his son's schedule, not to Martin's instructions. Martin went down the stairs carrying the list.