“How long have you kept this folder in that pillowcase?” I asked.

“Eight months,” she said.

“Ever since the morning he threatened to call the police on me for stealing payroll.”

“He’ll never threaten you again,” I said.

I picked up the cracked phone, put it back into the brown manila folder, and fastened the brass clasp on the flap.

“We’re taking these files to Mark Vance right now,” I said.

At one o’clock that afternoon, I walked into Mark Vance’s independent auditing office behind the strip mall on North Central Expressway.

Mark was sitting behind his oak desk, surrounded by state inspection manuals, blueprint rolls and blue ledger binders.