“I’ll have the chef salad, Russian dressing on the side,” I tell her.

Gabriel gives me a look.

“What?”

“Nothing. I wouldn’t have pegged you for a chef-salad-dressing-on-the-side type of woman.”

The waitress laughs, but it comes out as a bit of a snort. “Sorry,” she says. “And for you?”

“Grilled Swiss and bacon.”

“Fries with that?” she asks.

“Yes, please,” Gabriel says.

“Coming right on up,” she says as she walks away. Struts away would be more accurate.

“I think I’m impressed,” he says.

“With Miss Rodeo here?”

He chuckles. “No. You asked what I think about McKenney, and I said that I think I’m impressed. With you, I mean. It’s not easy to take on your boss in that way, and you did it well.”

“Thanks . . . I think.”

“You think?”

“Well, I know you meant it as a compliment, but it’s a bit condescending. Lauren was my friend, and I’m after the son of a bitch who murdered her. If that’s Drake McKenney, then God help him.”

After lunch, we return to Gabriel’s office to find an extremely tall man waiting for us.

“Lou, I think I got something,” he says.

“Vincent, meet ADA Dana Goodwin. Dana, this is Vincent D’Angelo. He’s making the initial cut of the financial evidence we’re collecting. And in case you’re wondering, yes, he did play college basketball.”

D’Angelo holds a black loose-leaf binder. The label on the spine says “Bank Records.” He remains standing after we enter the office, even though Gabriel takes his position behind his desk and I settle into one of his two guest chairs. D’Angelo must think this will only be a short visit. Still, by standing beside me while I sit, his head is practically in another zip code.

“So what do you have?” Gabriel asks.

D’Angelo opens the binder and then turns it around so it’s facing Gabriel, upside down to me and him. Still, I can tell that the first page he’s opened to is not actually a bank record at all. Instead, it’s a calendar for the month of August. Dollar amounts are listed in a few boxes, in $200 or $300 denominations, but the figure “$300” is written in red on every Tuesday.