“It could be. That puts it close to where Judy Binder grew up. Her passbook, or her mother’s.”
I thought of Kitty Binder’s outcry over the picture of Martina at the Radium Institute: Judy had stolen it along with Kitty’s pearl earrings and cash. Judy might also have stolen her mother’s savings book and drained the account.
The other interesting paper was a photocopy of a government document, partly redacted. Roberta and I both hunched over it. The header was from an “Office of Tec . . . al Serv . . . es, Of . . . Ins . . . al,” in the “United St . . . De . . . n . . . Co . . . rce.” The date was illegible.
“Technical Servers?” I said dubiously.
“Services,” Roberta suggested. “We get memos from the Department of Commerce, so I’m thinking that’s the third line.”
I thought that made sense, but neither of us could figure out “Of-Ins-al.” We studied the text together. Between the redaction and the Drano damage, we could only make out bits of it.
“city of Inns . . . he . . . a chemical engineer . . . duct underground te . . . She was a member . . . if she was to work . . . luded a major bomb . . . orking and living co . . . Nor did [redacted] ever witne . . .”
Frank coughed. “Kickoff’s in forty minutes, gals. Can you put that aside?”
Roberta and I got reluctantly to our feet. We folded plastic sheets around the papers we’d loosened, including the redacted document, and laid the packet in one of the drawers to protect it. The drawer with the passbook welded to the bottom I wrapped in a blanket. I placed both in the Mustang’s trunk.
Roberta protested. “Those were Agnes’s. I’d like to refinish them, find some new drawer pulls.”
“I’ll get them back to you,” I promised. “I want to take the papers to a forensics lab in Chicago, to see if they can bring more of the letter or the bank book back to life.”
Roberta frowned unhappily, but Frank put an arm around her. “Bobbie, that chest of drawers would have rotted away if this Chicago detective hadn’t spent a day in the pit. As for you, Detective, you look like the bad side of a dead cow. If you’re planning to drive back to Chicago tonight, you need to think that through a few more times. What you ought to do is find a motel, get a shower. In fact, you ever go to a high school football game?”
“I played basketball; my cousin played hockey,” I said.
“Tell you what: you check into the motel other side of town and come watch my boy play against Hansville.”
When I shut my eyes to think it over, the world started spinning; if I looked even close to how I felt, bad side of a dead cow was a generous description.
Roberta pulled a T-shirt advertising the Palfry Panthers from her bag. “You borrow that. You can wash it in Chicago and mail it back to me.”
I took it meekly and followed them into town. Frank honked and pointed at the high school stadium, then to the road leading to the motel. When I’d checked in and showered away the worst of the stench, I longed to lie down and pass out, but Frank and Roberta had more than extended themselves for me today: I needed to drag my weary bones to the football stadium to watch young Warren.
In the end, I was glad I’d gone. The September air cooled as the sun went down. The crowd was loud but friendly. When I made my way through it to Frank and Roberta, I found I was part of the entertainment.
In a town suffering from a disastrous harvest, a Chicago detective who had found not just Ricky Schlafly—good riddance, was the general sentiment—but a version of buried treasure was better than a TV crime show. At halftime, while Frank stood in line for pizza, fifteen or twenty friends of the Wengers came by for a firsthand account of digging through the meth pit. Roberta was happy to add the embellishments of the missing gold drawer pulls.
I stayed long enough after the game for an introduction to their son, Warren. I had dutifully cheered him during the game: he was a middle linebacker who made an interception and caused a fumble. Even though Hansville won on a late field goal, he was a cheerful junior version of his father, checking in with the family before heading out for burgers with his buddies.
Back at the motel, I stayed awake long enough to send an e-mail to the Cheviot labs, the private forensic lab I use. I wanted to drop the drawer and the fragment of letter off when I got to the city tomorrow; their Sunday skeleton crew could book them in and keep them safe.