The time for handling things quietly inside the family was over.

I reached over and picked up the rusty master key.

The brass felt heavy and cold in my palm.

I walked across the thin carpet to the little plastic bin under the wooden desk.

I uncurled my fingers.

I let the rusty master key fall into the motel trash can.

At zero eight hundred the following morning I sat at a polished mahogany table in the base legal office.

Agent Robert Hayes had the chair on my left and was sorting three stacks of printed financial records.