“He thinks he outsmarted Beatrice.”

“We’re going to let him sit right in that chair and hang himself with his own words.”

Mr.

Miller tapped his silver pen on the table.

“I’ll have a bank courier deliver the official summons tomorrow morning.”

That afternoon, the smell of damp wool coats hung heavy in Arthur’s strip mall waiting room.

I sat across from his cluttered wooden desk while he typed slowly on an ancient mechanical keyboard.

The rusted butter cookie tin sat open on his green leather blotter.