Back in his apartment, Art was about to check his e-mails when he heard voices from the staircase. One of them was loud and strident, but he could not make out the words.
His doorbell rang. He opened and found himself face to face with a man wearing a white overall and white gloves. Beside him was Betty Bossi.
"Good evening, Mr. Sharpe." Bossi carried a large binder and looked tired. "As I told—"
"Dammit!" The strident voice again, coming from upstairs—it was definitely Monica's. "I need that phone."
"As I said," a calm male voice replied, "you can pick it up at our station by tomorrow afternoon. Thanks for your—"
A door slammed.
Bossi hunched her shoulders, relaxed, tugged her ponytail, and smiled at Art. "Good evening, one more time."
"Hi, Mrs. Bossi." Art stood aside to let her enter. "Do come in."
"Thanks."
They shook hands. She wore a wedding ring.
A man carrying a plastic case came down the stairs and exchanged some words with Bossi's companion, then continued his descent.
Bossi retrieved a document from her binder and handed it to Art. "That's the warrant."
Art motioned the woman and her companion along his hallway while glancing at the warrant's small-print legalese.
"Please leave the door open... my second colleague will join us in a minute," Bossi said as Art wanted to close. "We won't take long. As you'll see from the warrant, we need to check out some specific personal items, such as shoes, computers, and other smart devices. And we need to see any plastic gloves you may have."
Shoes... and other smart devices—you don't really mean that, do you?
Only then the whole statement registered with him. "Computers?"
"Yes." She nodded. "Don't worry, it's routine. We'll have to take all these devices to the station to copy their data for analysis. It's normal procedure. We do that with everyone here. You'll get your stuff back tomorrow."
She entered the living room while Overall remained in the corridor and investigated a wooden crate that Art used as a makeshift shoe cabinet.
"Are these all your shoes?" the man asked.
"Yeah." Art nodded. "I don't have a lot of shoes. I arrived a few weeks ago."
His mind was with his computer, though, wondering if they'd be able to analyze his browsing history.
The man pulled a pair of loafers from the crate and placed them on the floor, upside-down. He retrieved a compact camera from a pocket of his overall, squatted down, and took a photograph of the footwear's business side.
"We have to search the apartment, I'm sorry." Bossi tugged on her ponytail again. Her head tilted to the right when she did that. Yesterday, Art had found the gesture endearing, but now it irritated him. He looked at his laptop computer sitting defencelessly on the table in his living room as the woman approached it.
"We'll need the password for that one... and for any other such devices, such as smartphones."
Art glanced at the warrant again, searching for anything related to computers. It did mention them, and it granted authority to seize all electronic devices capable of data storage.
The second overalled man entered the hallway. He still carried a yellow box.
A box to seize my computer. My tablet. My phone.
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The Egg at Dumstreet
غموض / الإثارة[Completed] A U.S. expatriate is cast into a rainy, foggy corner of Europe. He went there on the pretense to work on his research, but he actually wanted to put as many miles as possible between himself and his ex. The university he works for has fo...
