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Nevada. Honourably Discharged at age twenty-three, returned to Boston area, hired by US Postal Service as maintenance trainee, no prior convictions, no faulty work records.
    â€œWhat’s ‘Special Detail’ mean on an army record?” McGuire asked.
    Innes shrugged.
    â€œAnybody request Amos’s military record?”
    â€œOver a week ago.” Innes turned from the window and sat in the chair opposite McGuire. “It still hadn’t arrived by Friday, so I put in another request. Can’t expect much from the military. They take their time, you know that.”
    The phone rang at McGuire’s elbow and he reached for it, aware as he answered that Innes had made a motion to pick it up as well.
    It was Kennedy, the FBI man. “What’re you up to over there, McGuire?” he asked.
    McGuire said it was a routine homicide investigation, nothing special.
    â€œThe hell it is.” Kennedy lowered his voice. “I requested information on this Amos character, using the file number you gave me. I got the ‘Not Accessible’ prompt you mentioned so I used my security code. That got me into a special file marked ‘Restricted, National Security.’ Since when is a postal inspector a security risk, McGuire?”
    Fat Eddie looked from McGuire to Innes and back to McGuire again. The two men stood in front of his desk, McGuire closer and almost threatening, Innes a few steps behind. Fat Eddie’s eyes seemed wider behind his glasses and the tip of his pen was beating his desk at a frantic tempo.
    â€œI don’t understand your problem, McGuire,” the homicide captain said calmly. “All you have to do is arrive in Palm Springs tomorrow, handle the necessary paperwork and return with the suspect. I haven’t assigned you as an investigating officer. So aspects of the victim’s life are simply not a factor here.”
    â€œThey are when Washington builds a stone wall around the victim,” McGuire replied. “If this Amos guy was such a wheel, why isn’t this an FBI case? Or Secret Service? Why are they leaving us to chase our tails while they hold back information? And why doesn’t the local post office know anything about Amos and his reasons for dropping in on Crawford? Ralph called and they said they’d never heard of him.”
    Vance shook his head and tossed his pen on the desk. “Obviously Crawford was working deep cover out of Washington,” Vance said, leaning back in his chair, his hands behind his head. “When things are nailed down for the trial, we’ll get the information we need. Like I said, I don’t understand the problem. You and Innes just go down and bring him back. Then we can talk about you joining the investigation team or working on something else. Until then, I don’t see what’s upsetting you.”
    â€œSomebody is jerking us around, Eddie,” McGuire said. “And I don’t like it.”
    Vance leaned forward again, shaking his head from side to side. “McGuire, McGuire, McGuire,” he repeated sadly. “You were gone so long, I forgot your most indisputable quality.” He smiled tightly. “You just don’t like much of anything, do you?”
    McGuire tilted back in his chair, staring at the tips of his black loafers planted on the edge of Ralph Innes’s battered metal desk. What am I, an errand boy? Sent across the country to pick up suspects, drop them off for others to handle? What next, fetching coffee and doughnuts? The hell . . .
    His eyes were focused somewhere beyond the stained office walls and he thought again of his tendency to gravitate toward extremes, a realization that had seeped into his soul over years of hostility and love, both given and taken. He had no middle ground. He knew how to run, how to charge, how to kick out against all the unfairness and tragedies sent tumbling across his path by fate, by life, by however you described it.