Arthur Pendelton’s navy-blue wool cardigan hung from the third brass coat peg beside the main breaker panel.
The garment was old, threadbare at the elbows, and smelled faintly of wintergreen mints and stale filter coffee. Two horn buttons were missing from the bottom hem, replaced decades ago with silver safety pins. Stitched into the left breast pocket in faded golden-yellow embroidery was the store’s original nineteen-sixty-eight emblem: STARLIGHT MART -- SERVICE FIRST.
Julian Vance snatched the cardigan off the peg with one smooth, swift motion.
“Stockroom Rule S5,” Julian recited, shoving his arms through the scratchy wool sleeves. “Wear the previous clerk’s navy-blue cardigan on Hook 3 to enter Cooler #3 for less than one hundred and eighty seconds.”
The wool was freezing cold against his cotton work shirt, but the moment he buttoned the top horn button, a strange, steady warmth seeped into his collarbone.
Across the stockroom, Dr. Victor Corvo checked the leather seals on his sheepskin autopsy gloves. In his right hand, Corvo carried a heavy brass spud wrench and a twelve-inch steel pry-bar. In his left, he held a freshly sharpened Eberhard Faber Blackwing number-two graphite pencil, its raw cedar smell cutting through the sulfur fumes.
