She was almost amused. “How has Agent Solomon never explained this to you? We are not facilitators. We don’t have clients. Our clients are the American people, as a nation.”

“You are an agent of an investigatory body. I believe we are speaking about the same thing.”

“No, we are not. I am a law enforcement officer, an agent of the federal government. Duly sworn. You are…I still don’t know what you are.”

“I am Hugo Blackwood. I was trained as a barrister, if that is what you mean. That was quite a long time ago.”

“A lawyer,” she said. “Me too. And how did you get in here, by the way?” She was getting weirded out again.

“Oh, the door,” he said.

“The door has two locks.”

“Indeed, it does. I opened both.”

Odessa sat with that a moment. “A well-mannered burglar is still a burglar.”

“I assure you, I am not here to burgle. Perhaps we can get back to the matter at hand. I believe you may be of some assistance to me.”

“Yes, let’s get back to the matter at hand…but I am not offering my assistance to you. I wrote you at the suggestion of Agent Solomon, who thought you might be able to assist me in figuring out what is going on.”

“It is very important to you not to appear submissive or subservient in any way, isn’t it.”

Odessa crossed her arms, looking at this man curiously, still unable to get a handle on him. Smart retorts flew through her mind, but Hugo Blackwood appeared to be making an observation, not an insult.

She got to her feet again. “I want to show you something.”

Odessa opened the news articles on grave robbing she had saved as pdf files on her MacBook. When she set it down in front of him, Hugo Blackwood sat back and shook his head. He declined even to touch the laptop. “You operate the machine,” he said.

“You not an Apple guy?” she asked.

He squinted at the type as though this were his first time encountering text on an LCD screen. He scanned the “Baby Mia” stories, then the article about the man who died in 1977.

“Would you…where did the first document go?” he said, frustrated.

“Okay,” she said, spinning the MacBook back toward herself, bringing up the article, spinning it back. “Luddite much?”

“Luddite?” He glanced at her. “If you are referring to the early-nineteenth-century protest by textile workers who smashed their looms in fear of being replaced by lesser-paid, lesser-skilled workers, then no. I would gladly welcome obsolescence. If you refer to the modern misconception of that protest, implying an aversion to technological advancement in general, then yes.”

“Thus the paper letter in the precise envelope dropped in a slot in a slab of stone in Manhattan. You know you can get text messages on your phone, right?”