The bolt slid back before the morning bread.
Captain Hoff pulled the door wide and stepped aside. He did not come in. He looked at Calen once, then at the folder on the table, then at a crack in the plaster above Calen’s head.
“I told the girl about the clerk,” said Hoff. “Dusk. He copies every page.”
“I know the order.”
“Then know it,” said Hoff, and he pushed the door shut.
The bolt went home on the outside. Calen stood in the small room with the board’s slip in his hand.
The room smelled of lamp oil and damp paper. The only window had been nailed half shut by someone who did not want it opened.
He had signed the slip at the gate the evening before. His name had looked small on the line, the way names always looked in other people’s ink.
