The freezer bag inside was dry.
Marjorie’s mother’s ring was still there.
So was the letter.
I left the ring.
I took the letter.
I told myself I’d read it later.
Samuel Ortiz worked out of a converted dentist’s office in Grandview with a receptionist who was also his wife.
He was sixty, bald, with reading glasses pushed up on his forehead and the stillness of a man who had spent thirty years waiting for numbers to confess.
He spread my documents across a conference table that still had a drain in the floor beneath it.
He didn’t say anything for forty minutes.
Then he said, “Who’s Meridian Supply Partners?”
“The vendor. The one the money went to. The prosecution said I set it up.”
“The setup form has your signature.”
“It’s not my signature.”
“I believe you. That’s not why I asked.”
He turned the form around.
“Look at the date field. June 14th. Now look at the form itself. Bottom corner. Revision code.”
