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of the problems here is that I have a report from two witnesses. They didn’t see a girl fitting that description. Not on the balcony. They saw you. They saw Mr. Laroche. They saw Ms. Blankenship.”
    “She was inside his apartment the whole time.”
    “How convenient.”
    “What about the security cameras?” Burnett asked. “They must have picked her up coming in and out of the building.”
    “We’re looking them over.”
    The interview’s new direction troubled Burnett. “You don’t think I’d make up a story like this, do you?”
    “I don’t know you well enough to answer that,” he said. Another policeman poked his head in the room and mouthed a couple of words. Crenshaw nodded and turned his attention back to Burnett. “The other problem I’m having is that both witnesses claim they saw you and the deceased struggling on the balcony just before he fell.”
    “I was trying to stop him from killing himself. He was despondent about flunking out of school. Look at his records.”
    “Thank you, I will.”
    The guy’s smart-ass attitude didn’t help the situation. It no longer mattered what Crenshaw thought, Burnett decided he would create more space between them. He took a full step back.
    “You and the deceased didn’t have a disagreement of any sort, did you?” Crenshaw asked.
    Burnett despised the way he kept referring to Henri as the deceased. Maybe that was just the way cops did things. Then again, maybe it was another attempt to rattle him. “No.”
    “Not even, say, about this mystery girl?”
    The once cramped room now felt confined. “Do I need a lawyer?”
    “Not unless you’ve committed a crime.” Crenshaw folded his notebook and jammed it into his pocket.
    “You think I’d come here and wait around to see what happened if I’d just tossed him off a balcony?”
    “We’ll be in touch.” He made a beeline for the door. “Don’t try to leave town.”
    “Emma’ll tell you exactly the same thing I did,” Burnett said before Crenshaw left the room. “She was his girlfriend, for Christ’s sake.”
    Crenshaw stopped and turned. “If she hadn’t, you’d be getting comfy in the back of a squad car now.”

CHAPTER 7
    At eight-fifteen the next morning Burnett leaned against the gray wall of his work cubicle. His boss, fifty-five-year-old Adam Westfield, fidgeted beside him. It didn’t matter whether he stood or sat, fidgeting was the man’s natural state. Westfield, nearly bald, was rail-thin, and his off-the-rack pinstripe suit hung from his body like a sheet on a clothesline.
    Rows of identical cubicles extended the full length and width of the cavernous, off-white room. The dozen or so employees who’d arrived stared zombie-like at their computer monitors.
    “Don’t quit,” Westfield said. “I know Henri Laroche was your friend. Take some time off. A week. Two if you like.”
    Burnett frowned at the much shorter man. “I just wasn’t made to sit at a desk and talk people into buying insurance they don’t want.”
    “I know this ain’t your dream job. And none of us try to fool ourselves it’s glamorous work. But it’s steady work, with good pay. Not the kind of thing a wise man walks away from, not in this economy.”
    Several other cubicles were visible from where he stood. Photographs and other personal items cluttered every desk in his field of view. His workstation remained as barren as the day he’d arrived.
    “Where else you gonna find a job where you can schedule your hours around school and work from home half the time?”
    Burnett appreciated both perks.
    “You’ve got a future here, Mike,” Westfield said as his hand cupped Burnett’s elbow. “Three quarters of the people in this room have never seen the inside of a university. But you, you’ve got management potential.”
    “I need a change.”
    Westfield stood on his toes and draped a fatherly arm around Burnett’s shoulder. “Not many people know this, but I’m retiring in six