“To get to the roof, the man had to go under the stand and climb back up to the last row. There’s an iron ladder through a hatch. We figure your man went up there earlier when he could do it without drawing attention, during the fourth or fifth races. The press box is on the roof down at the clubhouse end, at the finish line, but if he stayed back to this side, he could keep out of sight. The man I sent up yelled down that the shoes were there and so were his keys and wallet. I said not to touch them. He didn’t hear me because of the noise under him in the stand, he said. He brought everything down with him. He just picked it up. The cops asked him where they had been, and he said that the shoes had been about twenty feet apart, but the wallet and keys had been close together, not near the edge, not near the shoes, either. Your man’s socks had only a little bit of tar on them. It was ninety-two degrees that day and that tar was tacky. And hot. He couldn’t have walked around in his socks much.

“We could all see money in the wallet, so the cops were careful. I suggested that they find out who he was, but they weren’t going to open the wallet without supervision. I couldn’t blame them. They had to wait for the medical examiner and a cameraman. There was the rush hour and then the jam leaving the track. The examiner couldn’t get near here until twenty-five to seven. The cops called their sergeant and he came out with the captain. There was nine hundred dollars in the wallet. I signed an affadavit to that effect. They got his name right away, but they went through his papers right there. I didn’t get a good look. Mostly business cards. One belonged to a building contractor.

“They had his telephone number, but they waited for the medical examiner. First they wanted to see if he had left any notes, they said. I thought that was strange, to tell the truth. What difference would a note make? They waited, just standing around, then the medical examiner showed up, the cameraman made his pictures—he needed a flash by then, because the shade of the bathrooms was across the body—and then the patrolman went to the office to make the call. The captain and the sergeant took off. That was about eight o’clock. I was here until nine, calling in my report to my boss.”

Leland nodded. The caution of the police reeked of guilt. He had told Norma that the death of a man was taken seriously in this state, and the Clausen police had acted as if they had been only too aware of it. There was a reason behind their call to their superiors. Nothing had been taken from the wallet. Norma had it in her possession and its contents had seemed ordinary to her. But then, so had MacIver’s books.