“He can’t hear you,” Alma said. “He took the batteries out of his hearing aids last night. Told me they made everything sound like crickets.”

Loretta knocked again.

“Henry, your cards are on the porch, and I have a new partner for dominoes!”

That did it.

The door opened a few inches. Henry Harris, eighty-one, looked out wearing plaid pajamas and one bedroom slipper.

“Since when did you find a partner?”

“Since you became too slow to answer a door. Put your shoes on. We’re leaving.”

“Why?”

“Because my daughter says the river is being unreasonable.”

Henry glanced toward the window. “That’s a job for the city.”

“My daughter works for the state.”

“The state never fixed my elevator.”

“Well, the state is trying to keep you alive long enough to complain about it next week. Hurry up.”

By the time Vale came upstairs with two firefighters, Loretta had Henry in proper shoes, Alma holding a plastic pouch of medications, and four neighbors gathered in the hallway. One was crying. Another was furious about abandoning a casserole in the oven. A younger man who worked nights was trying to carry a small oxygen concentrator without pulling its cord out of the wall.

Vale took the equipment case from him.

“We’ve got a bus in the lot.”

“Not yet,” Loretta said. “That woman at the end of the hall has no family and a cat.”

“Fire will check every apartment, ma’am.”

She studied his nameplate. “Vale. You new?”

“Four years, ma’am.”

“New enough. My daughter used to know everybody in this town.”

“What’s her name?”

“Lena Mercer.”

The case nearly slipped from his hand.

Loretta noticed. Her eyes narrowed with maternal precision.

“What?”

“Nothing. I met your daughter this morning.”

“Then you know she doesn’t tell me to leave unless she means it.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he said.

He could not bring himself to tell her where he had met Lena or what he had done. Not here, not while a firefighter was lifting Mr. Harris’s neighbor into a wheelchair and the power lights were beginning to flicker.

Outside, the first bus arrived, tires sending dirty water over the curb. Vale helped people onto it one at a time. He carried bags and steadied walkers. He ran back into the building for a forgotten medication case. Rain drummed against the hood of his cruiser.