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that point. Almost to herself, she mumbled, “I hope you split up with her on friendly terms.”
    â€œI know I’ve been accused of lacking diplomatic skill, but I’m smart enough to know that you never want to make an enemy of anyone on that side of the police tape.”
    â€œThank goodness for that,” she declared, then watched in bewilderment while he pulled folders out of the stack and started a different pile. “What are you doing?”
    â€œBefore I contact her, I need to make sure I have the facts straight in my mind.”
    â€œBut, RJ, you aren’t on active duty,” Doris protested. “You can’t take original documents out of here until you’re officially back on the force.”
    â€œI know that.” He picked up the new stack and carried the folders to the copy machine. “I’m only asking you to let me have this stuff overnight.”
    â€œI shouldn’t.”
    â€œClap, clap.” Bannon pretended to applaud. “I admire your character. How did we get this far?”
    â€œI really shouldn’t.” She held out a hand. “Give me that stuff back.”
    â€œToo late. It all started with a fateful step,” he intoned. “I saw your name on the door to the basement. And down I went. And there was the Montgomery file.”
    â€œRJ—”
    â€œI have to stop opening doors,” he said conversationally. “I keep catching bullets.”
    â€œThat was two years ago.”
    â€œTrue.” He arranged the old snapshots carefully on the glass, face down. “I could do these in black and white, but I’ll lose a lot of detail. I’m thinking you could scan the visuals and send me jpegs. Or burn ’em on a CD.”
    She folded her arms across her chest. “All traceable to my computer. No.”
    â€œThen let me have them.” He gathered up the photos with one hand like it was a done deal. “Just temporarily.”
    Doris hesitated, not saying yes or no.
    â€œYou can always send them into storage later. Just say you forgot or something.”
    â€œWhat if Hoebel checks up on me?”
    Bannon shook his head. “He won’t. The man is all memos and no action. And Jolene isn’t going to come down those stairs in sky-high heels.”
    â€œYou noticed.”
    â€œYears of training.”
    With a surrendering lift of her hands, Doris went back to her computer and Bannon took what he thought he would need, as well as the photographs. He got everything into a single big envelope, reasoning that he had entered the building with an envelope and wouldn’t attract any notice leaving with another.
    â€œSee you,” he called to Doris as he went back up the stairs.
    At the top of the stairs, he looked around. There were more empty cubicles than not. The entering cops on the night shift were talking to each other, their backs to him, or staring into monitor screens. He was happy to be ignored as he eyeballed the huge whiteboard where current cases were listed on a grid, their status to the right. Two at the top had been solved. Ten unsolved. Doris was right about the lack of manpower. Most had been on the board for a few weeks.
    Needing to breathe and collect his thoughts, he took a roundabout way home that wound through the country. No sunset. The evening sky was shrouded by clouds. Cold air came his way from the quiet, leafless woods that surrounded him. He went over a low bridge, not stopping to look at the river below. But he did wonder if Ann Montgomery’s abductor had brought her down it somehow. What he remembered of the police maps in the file showed the same river upstream, not far from the family mansion.
    It began to drizzle as he drove on. Bannon pondered the convoluted facts of the old Montgomery case without reaching any conclusions that made sense to him. After a while, he turned off the country road and headed back into town, feeling kind of blue. He