It was too much of a coincidence that Dawn had resigned just as this story broke. It had taken Zanne a full day of sleuthing and eavesdropping and being in the right (or wrong) place at the right (or wrong) time to put the story together. Had Dawn already put it together? Did she know the truth? Once the lawyers got their hands on the archives, any incriminating emails were likely to disappear behind a wall of security. But Zanne could still access them now.

The administrative cottage was mostly empty; only Steve was there to man the phones. A prisoner to his post and to his bladder, he ducked into the restroom with his headset still on. Gross, but they’d all done it. Zanne went straight to her desk, unlocked her desktop, and clicked through to Phoebe’s old archive, hidden within the archive of her successor, Todd Trout. Ted was a zealot about institutional memory, but here was the downside: full transparency, if you bothered to look. In a moment, Zanne had narrowed her search to the year of the assault. She found the emails from Jerry’s assistant at the time, confirming and reconfirming Phoebe’s meeting and, the next day, an email to staff that Phoebe was taking a sick day. After that, there were a lot of emails about Budapest, where Ted was shooting the second Starfighter. Then the emails stopped.

But all of this only confirmed what Zanne already knew. She would need to look through the records that came next, when Todd became chief of staff, the first person to hold the title formally. Searching for references to Phoebe was too broad, too many hits. Message after message about how difficult it was for anyone to follow in her footsteps, how much information she’d retained in her head. Zanne understood that Phoebe’s departure and Todd’s inability to replace her had been the birth of Ted’s obsession with institutional memory. Never again would his operation be crippled by the departure of someone he’d trusted with his life’s work.

Zanne added the search terms “produce” and “direct,” but it didn’t help her find what she was looking for.

The bathroom door opened and Steve returned to his desk, two cubicles down from Zanne. “Ted Stabler’s office, please hold. Ted Stabler’s office, can I help you,” he said.

The calls were picking up. Because of the interview? Because of the statement before that?

The emails had to be here, but she couldn’t find them. Zanne sat back in her chair.

“Ted Stabler’s office, thank you for holding,” Steve said, raising his eyebrows at Zanne as if to say what the fuck happened out there? “I’m sorry, he’s not available, but I can refer you to his representation.”