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on the computer that far back.”
    Casey felt warm, even in the cool, moldy office.
    “Do you mind if I look?”
    “Chief said help,” the sergeant said, nodding at a beaten and moldy refrigerator, “so you can get a chair and a Diet Coke
     if you like.”
    “How about two chairs?” Casey said, nodding toward Marty.
    “Coming up.”
    With Marty’s help, Casey dug through three of the thick case binders, page by page since the cases weren’t cataloged by name
     but by date. The three men rattled dice, skipped around the board, and bought up properties as if she wasn’t there. The second
     page of the fourth binder held her case.
    “Got it,” she said, loud enough to disturb the game.
    Sergeant Stittle heaved his bulk up from the chair with a squeak of metal and a groan of flesh. He peered over Casey’s shoulder
     and planted a sausage finger next to the index number with a meaningful nod. In his other hand, he fingered a little red plastic
     hotel from the game board.
    “Hmm,” he said.
    “Hmm, what?” Casey said. “You can find it, right?”
    “If it’s still here,” he said, straightening with a heavy sigh.
    “What’s that mean?” Marty asked.
    “Means you’re getting close to the wrinkle in time,” Stittle said.
    “What’s that?” Marty asked.
    “You never heard of
A Wrinkle in Time
?” Stittle asked. “Got no kids? Nah, you’re too young. Missy here knows what I mean.”
    “I have no idea,” Casey said.
    Stittle chortled, jolting his belly so that a tail of his shirt sprang loose from the waist of his pants. “Kids’ book. They
     get a wrinkle in time and, whoosh, what was there one second is gone the next.”
    “I don’t have kids,” Casey said.
    Stittle gave her a disappointed look and said, “We keep evidence as long as we can, but after a while, we gotta make room
     for the new stuff. You can’t believe the shit they make us hang on to these days—pardon the French, but last week they gave
     us a whole damn couch that smelled like cat piss.”
    Casey shook her head. “No, wait. You threw away evidence from a murder case to make room for a couch?”
    Stittle shrugged and headed for the doorway, his fingers fondling the plastic hotel. “We can take a look, but I’m pretty sure
     we threw out the last of the 1989 stuff in March and I’m a good ways into 1990, but that stuff in the back gets kind of jumbled.”
    Casey glanced at Marty and they followed the big sergeant into the gloomy warehouse, their feet scuffing through the dust.
     When they reached the last row, Casey could see that the boxes, brown bags, and thick envelopes at the beginning of the row
     bore crisply printed labels with bar codes. Halfway down the aisle, the various containers had been spilled onto the floor.
     Beyond the clutter, the boxes and envelopes sagged inward, faded and dusty.
    “Yeah,” Stittle said, sorting through several of the spilled boxes and envelopes. “These are all ninety. I don’t see anything
     from eighty-nine, but help yourself. Also, you could check in the Dumpster.”
    “Wait,” Casey said, the numbers on a box across the aisle catching her eye.
    She planted a finger on the date of a box resting eye level. “This says 1988. So does this. All these.”
    Casey poked her finger at the dates on boxes and envelopes all up and down the area across from the mess.
    “Yup,” Stittle said. “That’s eighty-eight, but I thought you said eighty-nine.”
    “I did,” Casey said, trying not to raise her voice, “but why would eighty-nine be gone before eighty-eight? You can’t have
     gotten rid of eighty-nine. You still have eighty-eight.”
    Stittle looked from one side of the aisle to the next, his hands hanging flat along the slabs of fat, the plastic hotel pinched
     between thumb and forefinger. He rubbed his right finger under his left eye and nodded and said, “Yeah, I don’t know.”
    Casey planted a fist on either hip and asked, “Why would you get rid of one year