I shut my eyes and tried to remember what I’d done with the LifeStory printout. I’d stuffed everything into a desk drawer, because I knew Mary Louise was going to be in using the desk, and unorganized stacks of files drove her mad. I opened the drawer. Many of the papers had been pulled out, exposing a box of tampons I kept there. They were rolling around in the drawer, and I automatically stuffed them back into the box. They wouldn’t go in, so I picked up the carton, forgetting for the moment about evidence.

Inside was a plastic freezer bag filled with white powder. I stared at it, my numbed mind moving like a dog in quicksand. Cocaine. Maybe heroin—I wouldn’t know one from the other. Someone wrecked my office and planted drugs in it. I didn’t want to send it to a lab for testing, and I didn’t want to explain it to the cops. I didn’t want to explain it to anyone.

I leapt to my feet in a sudden frenzy and searched every drawer in the room, every light fixture, every crevice. I found two more bags—one taped inside the printer and the other tucked into a rip in the fabric underneath the couch.

I unbolted the door and ran down the hall to the bathroom, flushing and flushing until the powder was gone, until the bags—cut to pieces with Tessa’s cuticle scissors—were gone, standing under the shower in my clothes, running hot water over me until I thought any treacherous trace of powder was gone. I got out and changed into a clean set of Tessa’s work clothes. Hung my wet ones from a hook behind her studio entrance. A bubble of incipient hysteria made me want to leave a note on the refrigerator in our I took column. I took one pair of cuticle scissors and a pair of khakis and a T–shirt. Will replace ASAP.

Back in my office, I picked up the cell phone and called the cops. While I was waiting for them I put on a pair of latex gloves and looked gingerly through my papers. I had put the Frenada report in an old file, but I couldn’t remember which. I could only remember thinking Mary Louise would have typed a fresh label at once. The squad car still hadn’t shown when I came on the folder labeled Alumni Fund. The Frenada printout was still in there, along with the paramedics’ report Max had faxed me from Beth Israel.

The police come slowly to this end of Wicker Park. On an impulse born of fear, I stuffed all the papers into a manila envelope, addressed them to Mr. Contreras, and went down the street to the mailbox at the corner of Western and North.