Glenn took my elbow and started hustling me past her. “When he gets out. No rush. Ms. Morgan and I will be here for the next few hours.”

“Yes sir,” she said, going back to her typing.

Hours? I thought, not liking the way he hadn’t let me talk to Rose; I wanted to find out what their dress code was. The FIB couldn’t have that much information. The I.S. had primary jurisdiction of the crimes.

“My office is over there,” Glenn said, pointing to the bank of offices with walls and a door that lined the cubicle-divided space. The few officers at their desks looked up from their paperwork as Glenn almost pushed me forward. I was getting the distinct impression that he didn’t want anyone to know I was there.

“Nice,” I said sarcastically as he ushered me into his office. The off-white room was almost barren, the dirt obvious in the corners. A new computer screen sat on a nearly empty desk. It had old speakers. A nasty chair sat behind it, and I wondered if there was a decent chair in the entire building. The desk was laminated white, but the grime embedded into it from past use made it almost gray. There was nothing in the wire trash can beside it.

“Watch the phone lines,” Glenn said as he swept past me and dropped his bag-o-rat on the file cabinet. His jacket came off and he meticulously hung it on a wooden hanger which then went on a hat tree. Looking over the ugly room, I wondered what his apartment was like.

The twin phone lines from the jack behind the long table ran across the open floor to his desk. It had to be an OSHA violation having them strung like that, but if he didn’t care if someone pulled his phone off the desk by tripping on it, then why should I?

“Why don’t you put your desk over there?” I asked, looking at the paper-cluttered table in the logical spot for a desk.

Standing hunched over his keyboard, he looked up. “My back would be to the door, and I wouldn’t be able to see the main floor.”

“Oh.”

There were no knick-knacks of any kind—nothing of a personal nature at all—the single shelf holding only folders leaking papers. It didn’t look as if he had been here long. Light rectangular shadows showed where pictures had once hung. The only thing on the walls besides his detective certificate was a dusty bulletin board with hundreds of sticky notes thumbtacked to it, hanging right over that long table. They were faded and curling, with cryptic messages only Glenn could probably decipher.

“What are these?” I asked as he checked to see that the blinds on his window overlooking the open floor were closed.

“Notes from an old case I’m working on.” He had a preoccupied tone in his voice as he edged back to his keyboard and typed in a string of letters. “Why don’t you sit down?”