Art used the broom to brush off his shoes and trousers and shook the snow from his jacket. Then he followed Monica inside.

As far as he could tell, she stood on the same spot where that egg had found its messy end—not in a puddle of yolk, though, but in her richly red coat.

Like one of Santa's elves.

Her dimples showed as she moved a strand of drenched, pitch-black hair from her face. The movement caused a substantial slab of snow to slide off her shoulders and to alight on the floor with a final, wet sound.

He cringed inside—fortunately, he didn't have staircase cleaning duty this week.

I'm starting to think like the natives.

She grinned at him. "I love this weather. It makes everything look so clean and innocent, fresh, and untouched."

"Yes, it's burying yesterday." He took a step toward her. "Cleaning the slate for a new start."

A drop of water was hanging from the tip of her nose, sparkling.

"Yep." She nodded, the motion releasing the drop to contribute to the small lake at her feet. "The snow is like a new book, a blank page waiting for a beginning... for the prologue." Her face grew serious again. "Yet sooner or later it will melt... the enchantment will come to an end."

"True, but it all will look different in the sunshine of spring, won't it?"

"So they say." Her eyes held his for a moment. And one more. Then she glanced at her watch. "Oops."

"What's the matter?"

"I didn't realize how late it is... A colleague of mine is sick, and I've promised to work the late dinner shift for her. I must hurry... I'm sorry." She turned to ascend the stairs.

Art followed, avoiding lake Monica and its islands of melting snow.

When he reached the landing of his apartment, she stopped some steps above him. "This has been fun, Art."

"Absolutely. We... should do another round of questions sometime soon." He really wanted that.

"Yep. This week, though, I'll be working dinner shifts." She drew her lips into a thin line.

"What about the weekend?"

"That might work." Her smile returned. "But, with that sick colleague of mine, I'm not sure yet... If it's okay for you, I'll just pay you a visit when I know more. Are you around next Saturday?"

"Sure."

"Okay, I'll come knocking... or ringing. And now I do have to run. I'm sorry... really." She waved her bag at him. "Have a fine evening."

"You too, thanks," he replied and watched the red coat and black boots disappear around the turn of the stairs.

Later, Art sat in his kitchen and ladled microwaved dal soup with his favorite spoon—an extra-large spoon, the only kitchen item he had imported from the States.

His thoughts revolved around his upstairs neighbor. After their goodbye, he had heard her pacing her rooms, probably hunting for clothes and getting ready for work. Then she had left the apartment and locked her door, and her footfalls had tolled out her descent in the staircase.

He had considered intercepting her on her way out, but she had said she was in a hurry. He'd have to be patient, he'd have to wait.

Waiting, wilting, wasting, wanting.

His eyes fell on the maraca that Bossi had found in his attic compartment. It was still lying on the kitchen table where he had left it. Was it Monica's? She had spent years in Latin America. But his compartment was wedged between Knooch's and Ralph's—he vividly remembered the former's police ribbons and the latter's anodized name tag. Monica's was somewhere else. So the maraca was unlikely to have made its noisy way from her stash to his empty storage cavern.

Art rattled the instrument and decided to ask Monica what she thought about it—when she would pay him the promised visit.

The plan made him smile.

To: [email protected]

From: [email protected]

Dan

You won't believe what has happened here.

In my last mail, told you about my neighbor, that elderly lady, remember?

She was murdered last Saturday night, no more than ten yards from where I slept peacefully!!! Someone strangled her!!!

The police were creeping all over the place—interrogating every single tenant, searching our apartments, confiscating computers, and snooping in everyone's electronic communication, including ours. Thought you might want to know that.

Well, as you will remember, I compared that poor neighbor to a turtle in my last mail. That did catch the authorities' attention. But they haven't arrested me yet, so it may not be sufficient "circumstantial evidence" to get me convicted of murder.

But they do suspect that one of us is a murderer. Scary, isn't it?

However, tragic as it is, there's also a good side to these ghastly events. I got to know my neighbors better. They're weird, as suspected, but some of them are quite nice. ;-)

I'll keep you posted.

Art

Dan replied the next day, asking which one of the neighbors—in particular—is quite nice, but Art didn't elaborate.

He spent the rest of the week with his mind focused on Monica's promised visit.

The days' work and the nights' sleep formed the large, frozen pole caps of the planet that was his world. His life took its meandering path between them, with daily crossings of the small gap of equatorial, temperate climate called 'free time'. Knowing that Monica was working, he spent most of that time with his colleagues Wang and Sven, eating, drinking, and—on Friday night—watching the latest reincarnation of King Kong.

It was late when he returned to Dumstreet 9 from the cinema, colorful 3D images still playing in his mind—clips of the giant ape swatting helicopters in righteous wrath.

At the porch, he ran into Rashid Pathan brushing his snowy boots with the broom guarding the front door.

"Hello, Rashid." Art was pleased to see the taxi driver and the friendly smile that lit up his face.

"Hey, Art." The man handed him the broom.

"How's your taxiing?"

Rashid unlocked. "Ah, it's okay, thank you. Congested, but otherwise fine. And how are your mathematics?" He entered and held the door open for Art to follow.

"Convoluted," Art answered, "but otherwise fine, too."

Rashid laughed as he let the door swing back. "Convoluted. That must be the core, the essence of mathematics." He moved his door key through the air, sketching intricate symbols with it.

"Hm..." Art hesitated, trying to put a concept into words. "In fact, good math shouldn't be complicated. It should shine with simplicity and elegance."

"Well... if you say so." Shrugging, Rashid turned to lock the door and then pointed towards the stairs. "I think we share the same path."

They climbed the steps while Art searched for an example of simple and beautiful mathematics. "Take complex numbers, for instance..."

"Yes?" Rashid stopped on the first-floor landing and looked at Art, eyebrows arched.

Laughter could be heard from Adriana's apartment. A single-person laugh—she was probably on the phone, talking to someone.

Art took a breath. "Complex numbers are such an elegant notation for expressing anything wavelike, anything having an amplitude and a phase. They are an example of simple elegance in mathematics."

Rashid chuckled. "Listen to the mathematician." He raised a finger. "Complex numbers are an example for..." He opened both hands, palms upwards. "...simple elegance."

Art couldn't help laughing. "Yeah, I see. It does sound weird, but one day I'll show you..."

"Complex simplicity... yes, I'd like to hear more about that." Rashid nodded, his grin wrinkling the corners of his eyes. They continued upstairs.

Upon reaching the second floor, he placed a hand on Art's arm and glanced at Knooch's closed door. He pointed his chin at it. "Terrible business." His voice was hushed, and his smile had disappeared—he was all dark eyes, black hair, caramel skin, and coal mustache.

Art turned to look at the door. The red and white police ribbons were gone, and so were the black smudges. He wondered if it had been fingerprint powder. "Yeah." Art nodded. "Terrible business."

"Do you know if they have found anything?" Rashid asked.

"Nothing that I would know of." Art wondered why they all seemed to think he knew something they didn't.

Rashid stroked his mustache with a finger. "Well, Mrs. Knooch was a cantankerous lady, wasn't she?"

Art shrugged and scratched his beard. Even though Rashid's statement rang true, he felt sorry for the turtle and not in a mood to discuss her shortcomings.

"She was very Tavetian," Rashid continued, apparently unaware of Art's reluctance for the topic. "She was stalking everyone, making sure we swept the stairs and cleaned the washing machine and dryer after using them."

"Well, maybe. I don't know." Thinking about Knooch made Art uneasy.

"I know, one shouldn't speak ill of the dead. But let's face the facts. I used to have the Thursday for washing, that was the day before hers, and she always got back at me when there was a single fluff of lint or a lone hair in the dryer filter. Now, fortunately, I've swapped my day with Adriana's. And a week or two ago, I've heard the two of them arguing, I can tell you."

"Adriana and Mrs. Knooch"?

Rashid nodded. "Yes, about the art of cleaning the dryer's filter. Knooch could go on about this for hours."

Well, now she couldn't, not anymore, but Art refrained from saying so.

"You're a foreigner here, just like me," he said, hammering the three syllables of 'foreigner' in a hard staccato. "So you'll understand me when I say that the Tavetians are all rules, all order." He moved his hands along an imaginary rectangle in front of him, then he pointed at its center. "They live in tidy, little boxes, expecting everyone else to live in one, too, without ever stepping out of it." His fingers walked the air across the frame of his rectangle.

Art looked at the virtual box Rashid had left hovering in midair between the two of them. He liked the neatness of the image. You could tesselate shapes like these, completely cover a whole surface with them, without overlap or gap.

"Is something wrong?" Rashid asked.

The image of perfect tessellation dissolved, replaced by Rashid's frowning face.

"Er... no, just liked your metaphor about the boxes... or rectangles."

Rashid's concerned look became another grin. "Nothing metaphoric there. It's a fact. Do you see what I mean?"

"Yeah, I guess I do. But, to be honest... I am happy the Tavetians try to keep order, considering what has happened here." He waved at Knooch's door.

"True." Rashid nodded, his face sober again.

A yawn was trying to pull Art's jaws open—it was past 11 p.m., and he didn't feel eager for more Knooch talk. "Okay, I should turn in now. It's been a long day."

"Sure... sorry for boring you with this," Rashid said. "Let the dead rest... and the past be the past. We must have a beer together, one of these days. When all of this is over. Then you can explain the simplicity of your complex numbers." Rashid waved his hand. "Bye!"

The next day was Saturday. The day Monica would ring his doorbell.

Only, she didn't.

In the afternoon, Art went up to the third floor and rang hers. No one answered.

He tried again on Sunday. Twice—without success.

The apartment above his remained silent.

-----

A/N

This chapter is dedicated to @LiberGoat888 for her fine comments and for giving me the 1000th read. If you like funny reads, check out her book "Curiosity and the Cat".