Ruthie closed her eyes. “You’re a nice man,” she said. “And don’t I wish that it were true.”

9

In the morning, I arrived at work at 8:00 on the dot, toting the banker’s box I’d retrieved from the trunk of my car. I sidestepped the pile of mail that had been shoved through the slot from the afternoon before and proceeded into my inner office. I dropped the banker’s box and my shoulder bag on the desk and walked down the hall to the kitchenette, where I put on a pot of coffee. While the coffee brewed, I picked up the mail and sorted through the accumulation of bills and junk. Most of it, I tossed. Once the coffee was done, I returned to the kitchenette and poured myself a mug.

I set down the mug and took the lid off the box. I piled the files on my desk, removed the false cardboard “floor,” and took out the mailing pouch. I crossed to the near corner, pulled back a flap of carpeting, and opened my floor safe. I had to bend one end of the mailing pouch in order to make it fit, but it seemed like a better idea than leaving it where it was. I locked the safe, put the carpet back in place, and pressed it flat with my foot. I repacked the files and set the box on the floor near my office door.

I’d just settled at my desk when I heard the door in the outer office open and close. “I’m in here,” I called.

The man who appeared in the doorway looked familiar. Offhand, I couldn’t place him, but I pegged him as a cop of the plainclothes variety. Late thirties, nice-looking, with a long, narrow face and hazel eyes.

“Detective Nash,” he said, introducing himself. He opened his coat to reveal his badge, but I confess I didn’t peer closely enough to commit the number to memory. This was because his badge was attached to his belt in close proximity to his fly, and I didn’t want to seem too interested. “Sorry to barge in unannounced,” he went on.

“Not a problem,” I said. I stood and we shook hands across the desk. “Have we met before? You look familiar.”

He handed me a business card that identified him as Sergeant Detective Spencer Nash, of the investigative division of the Santa Teresa Police Department. “Actually we have. Mind if I sit?”

“Sorry. Of course. Be my guest.”

Detective Nash took one of my two visitors’ chairs and gave the place a cursory assessment while I did the same with him. He wore dark slacks and a blue dress shirt with a tie, but no sport coat. “You used to be over on State Street. The nine hundred block.”

“That was six years ago. I was working for California Fidelity Insurance in exchange for office space. Did our paths cross back then?”

“Once, in passing. There was a homicide in the parking lot. I was a beat officer and first at the scene.”