We waited, LuEllen dangling the sock. The late visitor did not turn on the office lights but came straight down the hall, moving in the dark. From the light footsteps I decided that the visitor was female. The steps passed Ballem’s door, went on for a few feet, then stopped. There was a moment of silence, then a distracted humming. A woman’s voice, and a saccharine tune from the fifties called “Tammy”; I remembered it from my piano lessons.

We waited, stressing out, huddled in the dark, and the Xerox machine started. And went on. And on. For more than half an hour, without stopping, the copy light flashing under the door like distant lightning. Then, just as suddenly as she’d shown up, she left, whoever it was. The Xerox machine stopped, the footsteps retreated down the hall, and the outer door clicked shut.

“Jesus Christ, she must have been copying her fucking novel,” LuEllen said. I stood up, pulled the panty hose off my head, and handed them to her. She stuffed them in her satchel, returned Ballem’s will and the other papers to the hidden box, folded down the carpet, and wheeled the globe back into place.

After a final, meticulous check of the office, to make sure that everything was back in place, we were out. In the hallway we heard the unseen woman laugh again.

“Her boyfriend must be a sex machine,” LuEllen muttered as we went down the stairs.

“This is no time for jealousy.”

I talk a good burglary, but on the street I was gasping for air. “I’m glad you didn’t have to slug anybody,” I said after a while.

“So am I,” she said. “I’d do it, but I think

“

“What?”

“Whacking people on the head

I don’t know. The theory sounds OK, with the soft potato and all, but I’ve got a feeling that some of them might die.”

An entry floods your system with adrenaline. Riding the high, with sleep an impossibility, I spent most of the night reviewing the files from Ballem’s computers. And found nothing but two cryptic, and nonincriminating, letters about the sewer pipe company.

“Nothing at all?” LuEllen asked.

“Nothing,” I said. But the letters about the sewer pipe bothered me. “You’re sure there was nothing in his desk or the files about the sewer pipe company?”

“I’m sure. That’s one of the things I was looking for.”

“Well, shit. The thing is

” I called up one of the files. “Look at the numbers in this thing. He was using some kind of reference

you don’t just remember those kinds of pricing and engineering details; you don’t pull them out of thin air. Marvel noticed the same things about those letters her people found: too many details without references.”

“Maybe he dumped whatever reference he was using.”