Once he was gone, I turned my attention to the remaining eight boxes, which I confess didn’t have quite the same appeal. Doing a tedious chore in the company of a friend makes the labor seem less onerous. These files had been packed haphazardly without the benefit of Pete’s casual organizational skills. This was the work of his landlady, who was already annoyed with his bounced checks and probably not that sorry to hear about his unhappy fate. On the other hand, I was feeling slightly more charitable about the man. He might have been a skunk, but he wasn’t a malicious skunk; just someone with a tendency to deceive. Nothing wrong with a lie or two when the situation demanded it.

I sat down again and started to work. Ruthie was right about his being a pack rat. In the next box I tackled, the topmost file caught my attention. I opened the folder and had a quick look, leafing through photocopies of various articles related to a diabetes study and some to an NIH grant for a clinical trial being run out at UCST. All of it pertained to Linton Reed—the clinical trial, his educational background, his CV, and numerous scientific papers that made reference to a drug called Glucotace. I was curious about Pete’s sudden passion for medical matters. When I knew him, he seldom pursued a subject unless he smelled some monetary benefit. Clearly his interest in Linton Reed went beyond any suggestion that he was in a relationship with Mary Lee Bryce. That theory had been knocked flat. I set the folder aside, placing it on top of the one that contained Dietz’s surveillance notes and his photographs.

Next layer down, I came across a thick cross-section of signed contracts, surveillance logs, typed reports, and confidential client information from the old Byrd-Shine days, material Pete shouldn’t have had in his possession. I couldn’t imagine how he’d managed to get his hands on the files or why he’d held on to them all these years.

Tucked in one end of the same box, I found a pen mike and a handful of tape cassettes, along with his tape recorder, crude and clunky looking by today’s standards. I checked the window in the lid, where I could see a cassette still in place. The Sony Walkman had been his pride and joy. I remembered running into him years before when he’d first bought it. He was excited about the technology, which he considered cutting edge. He’d given me a lengthy demonstration, crowing with delight. At this point, the device seemed ancient. New cassette recorders were half this size.