When he came around his desk, he had an inch of filings tucked under one arm and his handkerchief already out.

“Four forty yesterday afternoon,” he said.

“Your uncle’s litigator filed a request for production.

It was in my email before I’d even taken my coat off.”

He set the pile down, took off his wire rims, and cleaned them while I read.

The first page demanded my military leave records going back four years.

The second demanded travel vouchers, flight manifests, hotel receipts, and every document showing where I had physically been on eleven specific dates.

“Eleven dates,” I said.