E Is for Evidence

about thirty seconds into my recital, but what alarmed me was the silence that fell when I was done. Mac is a man who fires questions. Mac gives pop quizzes. He seldom sits and stares as he was doing in this case.
    "You want to tell me what this is about?" I asked.
    "Did you see the note attached to the front of this file?"
    "What note? There wasn't any note," I said.
    He held out a California Fidelity memo form, maybe three inches by five, covered with Jewel's curlicue script. "Kinsey… this one looks like a stinker. Sorry I don't have time to fill you in, but the fire chief's report spells it out. He said to call if he can give you any help. J."
    "This wasn't attached to the file when it came to me."
    "What about the fire department report? Wasn't that in there?"
    "Of course it was. That's the first thing I read."
    Mac's expression was aggrieved. He handed me the file, open to the fire-department report. I looked down at the familiar STFD form. The incidental information was just as I remembered. The narrative account I'd never seen before. The fire chief, John Dudley, had summed up his investigation with a no-nonsense statement of sus-pected arson. The newspaper clipping now attached to the file ended with a line to the same effect.
    I could feel my face heat, the icy itch of fear beginning to assert itself. I said, "This isn't the report I saw." My voice had dropped into a range I scarcely recognized. He held his hand out and I returned the file.
    "I got a phone call this morning," he said. "Somebody says you're on the take."
    I stared. "What?"
    "You got anything to say?"
    "That's absurd. Who called?"
    "Let's not worry about that for the moment."
    "Mac, come on. Somebody's accusing me of a criminal act and I want to know who it is."
    He said nothing, but his face shut down in that stub-born way of his.
    "All right, skip that," I said, yielding the point. I thought it was better to get the story out before I worried about the characters. "What did this unidentified caller say?"
    He leaned back in his chair, studying the cold coin of ash on the end of his cigar. "Somebody saw you accept an envelope from Lance Wood's secretary," he said.
    "Bullshit. When?"
    "Last Friday."
    I had a quick flash of Heather calling to me as I left the plant. "Those were inventory sheets. I asked Lance Wood to have them ready for me and he left 'em in his out box."
    "What inventory sheets?"
    "Right there in the file."
    He shook his head, leafing through. From where I stood, I could see there were only two or three loose pa-pers clipped in on one side. There was nothing resembling the inventory sheets I'd punched and inserted. He looked up at me. "What about the interview with Wood?"
    "I haven't done that yet. An emergency came up and he disappeared. I'm supposed to set up an appointment with him for today."
    "What time?"
    "Well, I don't know. I haven't called him yet. I was trying to get the report typed up first." I couldn't seem to avoid the defensiveness in my tone.
    "This the envelope?" Mac was holding the familiar envelope with the Wood/Warren logo, only now there was a message jotted on the front. "Hope this will suffice for now. Balance to follow as agreed."
    "Goddamn it, Mac. You can't be serious! If I were taking a payoff, why would I leave that in the file?"
    No answer. I tried again. "You really think Lance Wood paid me off?"
    "I don't think anything except we better look into it. For your sake as well as ours…"
    "If I took money, where'd it go?"
    "I don't know, Kinsey. You tell me. If it was cash, it wouldn't be that hard to conceal."
    "I'd have to be a fool! I'd have to be an idiot and so would he. If he's going to bribe me, do you think he'd be stupid enough to put the cash in an envelope and write a note to that effect! Mac, this whole thing has frame-up written all over it!"
    "Why would anyone do that?" At this point, his man-ner wasn't accusatory. He seemed genuinely puzzled at the very idea. "Who would go to such lengths?"
    "How do I know? Maybe I just got caught in the loop. Maybe Lance Wood is the target. You know I'd never do such a thing. I'll bring you my bank statements. You can scrutinize my accounts. Check under my mattress, for God's sake…"I broke off in confusion.
    I saw his mouth move, but I didn't hear the rest of what he said. I could feel the trap close and something suddenly made sense. In the morning mail, I'd gotten no-tice about five thousand dollars credited to my account. I think I knew now what