The Return of Jonah Gray Read Online Free Page A

avuncular former radio-station manager, his stomach straining against the spongy weave of a golf shirt, his all-purpose, slip-on sneakers, and Miriam, who’d only started to work that year, half time at a children’s clothing store. She would get her hair set every week, was a crossword fanatic and probably carried her knitting in a public-radio tote.
    I didn’t know if the image I had built would be accurate, of course. I was never sure before I got an auditee into my cubicle. But I enjoyed the puzzle immensely, as well as the interim between the moment I wasn’t sure and seconds later, when I was. Imagine a life. Have you got it? I mean, have you really got it? Well then, let’s raise the curtain and bring out Donald and Miriam.
    I walked into our no-frills reception area and looked around. Three sets of folks were waiting. One guy, off the bat I knew he was way too slick. He wore a perfectly tailored suit and crocodile loafers. My folks, the Ritters, they were savers. They weren’t wealthy, but I reckoned they’d been saving ten percent of Don’s take-home for the past twenty years. The guy in the suit—he’d dropped some serious cash (or more likely, credit) on his threads.
    And anyhow, the crocodile man had an oily, better-than-you-are air. Donald and Miriam were softer than that, more hamburgers and horseshoes. The year before, they had donated an old car to a children’s hospital and hadn’t even claimed full value.
    The folks by the door were too young. I knew that the Ritters had recently moved into a senior-living community, and both members of a couple usually had to have passed fifty-five to buy into such a development. Call me a warehouse, but that was the obscure sort of rule I got paid to keep track of.
    â€œRitter,” I called out, looking directly at the couple I had pegged as Donald and Miriam.
    They stood. Tote bag and slip-on sneakers. I loved being right.
    â€œI’m Sasha Gardner,” I told them. “Would you follow me, please?”
    They looked unhappy to see me. I got no joy from ruining their day, but you can’t complete an audit without a face-to-face interview. It gives people a chance to explain themselves. Auditing might sound formulaic, but even I’d been surprised a few times. Sometimes, I would think I had someone pegged as an evader, and she’d arrive with a God’s honest explanation about the terrible year she’d had (and that’s why her numbers had gone all to hell). Other times, a taxpayer I thought I would surely let off would sit down and start lying through his teeth, even about the legit stuff. It didn’t happen often, but it happened.
    â€œHere we are, Mr. Ritter, Mrs. Ritter,” I said when we arrived at my cubicle.
    â€œCall me Mitzi.” As she folded up the newspaper she’d been holding, I could have sworn I caught sight of a crossword.
    â€œMitzi, then,” I agreed. “Have a seat.”
    I noticed her staring hard at me. “You’re so young,” Mitzi Ritter finally said. She turned to her husband. “This girl can’t be older than Molly.” She turned back to me. “You’re not, are you?”
    â€œMolly?” I asked.
    â€œOur daughter,” Mitzi said. “You don’t know that? They said you’d know everything about us.”
    â€œThey?”
    â€œOur new neighbors got audited once,” Don Ritter said. “Everybody has an opinion.”
    â€œI don’t know everything,” I said. “But we don’t mind the rumor if it keeps people honest.” I smiled at Don Ritter to try to put him at ease.
    He didn’t smile back.
    I had assumed that the Ritters had kids by the size of their former house. “I take it Molly’s not a dependent anymore,” I said.
    â€œOh no. She’s been out of the house since, gosh how long has it been, Don?”
    â€œTen years,” Don said.
    â€œHas it