By the time we finished, the other guy, Brimford, had taken off. I shrugged. I didn’t think talking to him would help me any. Going through Boom Boom’s tidy, well-sorted drawers, I quickly realized he could have had a dozen dangerous documents connected with the shipping industry and I wouldn’t know it. He had lists of farmers supplying Eudora Grain, lists of Great Lakes carriers, lists of rail carriers and their jobbers, bills of lading, reports of loads, by date, back copies of Grain News, weather forecasts … I flipped through three drawers with neatly labeled files. They were all organized topic by topic but none of it meant anything to me. Other than that Boom Boom had gotten totally immersed in a very complicated business.

I shut the file drawers and rummaged through the top of the desk, where I found pads of paper covered with Boom Boom’s meticulous handwriting. The sight of it suddenly made me want to cry. Little notes he had written to himself to remind him of what he’d learned or what he had to do. Boom Boom planned everything very carefully. Maybe that was what gave him the energy to be so wild on the ice—he knew he had his life in shape behind him.

His desk diary was filled with appointments. I copied the names he’d entered in the last few weeks of his life. He’d seen Paige on Saturday and again on Monday night. For Tuesday, April 27, he had written in John Bemis’s name and Argus with a question mark. He wanted to talk to Bemis on the Lucella and then—depending on what was said—he would call Argus? That was interesting.

Flipping through the pages, I noticed that he’d taken to circling some of the dates. I sat up in my chair and started through the diary page by page. Nothing in January, February, or March, but three dates in April—the twenty-third, the sixteenth, and the fifth. I turned back to the front cover, which displayed a 1981 and 1983 calendar along with 1982 at a glance. He had circled twenty-three days in 1981 and three in 1982. In 1981 he’d started with March 28 and ended with November 13. I put the diary in my handbag and looked through the rest of the office.

I’d covered about everything there was—unless I looked at each sheet of paper—when Janet reappeared. “Mr. Phillips has come in and he’d like to see you.” She paused. “I’ll leave those files in here for you before you go … You won’t say anything to him, will you?”

I reassured her and went over to the corner office. It was a real office—the heart of the castle, guarded by a frosty turnkey. Lois looked up briefly from her typing. Efficiency personified. “He’s expecting you. Go on in.”