actually get the wand. No sense having it lay around and pick up moisture before I need it.'
The salesman's smile turned stiff. 'Of course.' In one smooth motion he snapped the case closed and tucked it away.
I winced, withering inside. 'How much for the fern seed?' I asked, knowing his earlier offer had been made only because I was buying a wand.
'Five-fifty.'
I had that—I thought. Head bowed, I dug about in my bag. I had known wands were expensive, but not that expensive. Money in hand, I glanced up to find Glenn eyeing a rack of stuffed rats. As the salesman rang up my purchase, Glenn leaned close and, still staring at the rats, whispered, 'What are those used for?'
'I have no idea.' I got my receipt and jammed everything in my bag. Trying to find a shred of dignity, I headed for the door, Glenn trailing behind. The bells jingled as we reached the pavement. Again in the sun, I took a cleansing breath. I wasn't going to spend nine hundred bucks to possibly get my five-hundred-dollar fee.
Glenn surprised me by opening the car door for me, and as I settled in the seat, he leaned against the frame of the open window. 'I'll be right back,' he said, and strode inside. He was out in a moment with a small white bag. I watched him cross in front of the car—wondering. Timing himself between the traffic, he opened the door and slid in behind the wheel.
'Well?' I asked as he set the package between us. 'What did you get?'
Glenn started the car and pulled out into traffic. 'A stuffed rat.'
'Oh,' I said, surprised. What the devil was he going to do with it? Even I didn't know what it was for. I was dying to ask all the way to the FIB building but managed to keep my mouth shut even as we slipped into the cold shade of their underground parking.
Glenn had a reserved spot, and my heels echoed as I found the pavement. With the pained slowness I remembered from my dad, Glenn slowly unkinked himself as he got out and tugged the sleeves of his jacket down. He reached back in for his rat and gestured to the stairs.
Still silent, I followed him into the concrete stairway. We only had to go up one flight, and he held the door for me as we went in the back door. He took his shades off as we entered, and I pushed my hair out of my eyes and under my cap. The air conditioner was on, and I looked over the small entryway thinking it was worlds away from the busy front lobby.
Glenn plucked a visitor pass from behind a cluttered desk, signing me in and giving the man on the phone a nod. I clipped it on my lapel as I followed him to the open-aired offices.
'Hi, Rose,' Glenn said as he came to Edden's secretary. 'Is Captain Edden available?'
Ignoring me, the older woman put a finger on the paper she was typing from and nodded. 'He's in a meeting. Want me to tell him you're here?'
Glenn took my elbow and started hustling me past her. 'When he gets out. No rush. Ms. Morgan and I will be here for the next few hours.'
'Yes sir,' she said, going back to her typing.
'My office is over there,' Glenn said, pointing to the bank of offices with walls and a door that lined the cubicle-divided space. The few officers at their desks looked up from their paperwork as Glenn almost pushed me forward. I was getting the distinct impression that he didn't want anyone to know I was there.
'Nice,' I said sarcastically as he ushered me into his office. The off-white room was almost barren, the dirt obvious in the corners. A new computer screen sat on a nearly empty desk. It had old speakers. A nasty chair sat behind it, and I wondered if there was a decent chair in the entire building. The desk was laminated white, but the grime embedded into it from past use made it almost gray. There was nothing in the wire trash can beside it.
'Watch the phone lines,' Glenn said as he swept past me and dropped his bag-o-rat on the file cabinet. His jacket came off and he meticulously hung it on a wooden hanger which then went on a hat tree. Looking over the ugly room, I wondered what his apartment was like.
The twin phone lines from the jack behind the long table ran across the open floor to his desk. It had to be an OSHA violation having them strung like that, but if he didn't care if someone pulled his phone off the desk by tripping on it, then why should I?
'Why don't you put your desk over there?' I asked, looking at the paper-cluttered table in the logical spot for a desk.
Standing hunched over his keyboard, he looked up. 'My back would be to the door, and I wouldn't be able to see the main floor.'
'Oh.'
There were no knickknacks of any kind—nothing of a personal nature at all—the single shelf holding only folders leaking papers. It didn't look as if he had been here long. Light rectangular shadows showed where pictures had once hung. The only thing on the walls besides his detective certificate was a dusty bulletin board with hundreds of sticky notes thumbtacked to it, hanging right over that long table. They were faded and curling, with cryptic messages only Glenn could probably decipher.
'What are these?' I asked as he checked to see that the blinds on his window overlooking the open floor were closed.
'Notes from an old case I'm working on.' He had a preoccupied tone in his voice as he edged back to his keyboard and typed in a string of letters. 'Why don't you sit down?'
I stood in the middle of his office, staring at him. 'Where?' I finally asked.
He looked up, reddening as he realized he was standing over the only chair. 'I'll be right back.' He moved around his desk, coming to an awkward halt before me until I got out of his way. His gait was stilted as he edged past me and strode out.
Thinking his office was the most inhospitable slice of FIB bureaucracy I had seen yet, I took off my hat and coat, hanging them on the nail sticking out from the back of his door. Bored, I wandered to his desk. A welcome screen with a blinking prompt waited.
A rattle preceded Glenn as he pushed a rolling swivel chair into his office. Giving me an apologetic look, he set it next to his. I dropped my bag on his barren desk and sat beside him, leaning forward to see. I watched him type in three passwords: dolphin, tulip, and Monica. Old girlfriend? I wondered. They showed up on the screen as asterisks, but he was a two-fingered typist and it wasn't hard to follow.
'Okay,' he said, pulling to him a notepad with a list of names and ID numbers. I glanced at the first and looked back at the screen. With a painful slowness, he furrowed his brow and started to type them in. Tap. Pause. Tap, tap.
'Oh, just give me that,' I said, pulling the keyboard close. Keys chattering happily, I typed in the first, then grabbed the mouse and clicked the All button, making the only limit to the retrieval being those entries made in the last twelve months.
A query came on the screen, and I hesitated. 'Which printer?' I asked.
Glenn said nothing, and I turned to see him leaning back in his chair with his arms crossed before him. 'I bet you take the remote away from your boyfriend, too,' he said, pulling the keyboard back in front of him and reclaiming the mouse.
'Well it's my TV,' I said hotly, then added, 'Sorry.' Actually, it was Ivy's. Mine was lost in the big salt dip. Which was just as well since it would have looked like a toy next to Ivy's.
Glenn made a small noise at the back of his throat. He slowly typed the next name in, checking it against the list before moving to the next. I impatiently waited. My eyes went to the crumpled bag on the file cabinet. An inane desire to take the rat out filled me. This must be why he had said we'd be here for hours. It'd be faster to cut the letters out and paste them in a note.
'That's not the same printer,' I said, seeing he had switched them.
'I didn't know you wanted to look at everything,' he said, his voice preoccupied as he picked letters off the keyboard. 'I'm sending the rest to the basement's printer.' Slowly he typed in the last string of numbers and hit Enter. 'I don't want to hear about tying this floor's printer up,' he added.
I fought to hide a smirk.
