He pushed the door open.
She jumped as if he had fired a gun. She came up off her knees and spun around in one motion, and the can she had been holding, or a different one, he would think about that later, rolled off the edge of the folding table and hit the floor and rolled under the shelf. Her eyes were very wide. She was holding something against her chest with both hands, something in a small white paper bag.
"Hey," he said. "Hey. It's all right. I'm a police officer." He moved his jacket aside so she could see the badge on his belt. "I'm Officer Brisco. I live downstairs. What's your name?"
She looked at the badge and then at his face. He watched her recognize him; it went across her face like weather. "Del," she said. Her voice came out very small and she cleared her throat and said it again. "Delphine. Lowry. I live in 3C."
"Okay, Delphine. What are you doing in here?"
"Getting—" She stopped. She looked at the Fairmont totes and then back at him, and he saw her decide something, and he saw that what she had decided was not to tell him. "Nothing. I'm not doing anything. I was just—I'm going."
"Those aren't yours," he said. "Those bags. They belong to Mrs. Dunning in 2F."
"I know."
"So why are your hands in them?"
She did not answer. Her eyes went past him to the door, which had swung shut behind him and was resting, again, an inch from the frame. He was standing between her and it. He was aware of that. He was aware of how big he was in that narrow room, six-one and two hundred and ten pounds, in a jacket that made him bigger, and he was aware that she was aware of it, and he did not move.