A White Mercedes Pulled Up to Gate Six on a Tuesday Afternoon Without a Permit

Through the window, past the dumpster and the chain-link fence, a black sedan idled in the slot marked INSPECTOR GENERAL with two cardboard file boxes balanced on its trunk lid.

Both boxes had a year inked on the end in black marker.

1996.

I folded the promotion document in half and put it in my jacket pocket without signing it.

Harmon could keep his pen.

The stairwell smelled like wet brick and old paper.

Vance was already inside the archive room with her black leather binder open on the reading desk.

“Sergeant Conroy. Shut the door.”