The statements arrived several days later, when I had made enough progress to resent an interruption. I moved a tray off the corner of my desk and began sorting them against the folders Gordon had left. Most gave me something useful to do: check a balance, locate a page, cross an item off my pad. Then I reached one bearing the letters RSCDA.
I said the letters quietly, as though hearing them might supply the meaning. They did not. I looked through the materials I had been given and found nothing that let me account for it. That was the extent of my discovery at first: a statement in my hands and no explanation in the records before me. I put it aside without writing a conclusion on it.
For the next hour I tried to make the question smaller. Perhaps there was another folder. Perhaps I had misunderstood the arrangement of the files. I checked where I had already checked, a habit that usually meant I wanted a different answer rather than expected one. The account remained unfamiliar. Its presence did not become less important because I couldn't explain it.
Gordon would have been the obvious person to ask about his own work. I pictured making the call, apologizing for interrupting his leave, and accepting whatever explanation allowed us both to get on with the day. That last part stopped me. I wanted relief badly enough that I might mistake it for an answer. I wasn't entitled to do that with city records.
I gathered the statement and the related materials I had used to check it, leaving my guesses on a separate sheet. Then I went to see Della Keene, the mayor. Her door was open, but she had a telephone receiver to her ear. I waited where she could see the papers without seeing their contents. When she hung up, she motioned me inside.
“Is this something that needs signing?” she asked.
“No. It's something I can't account for.” I set the papers on her desk. “I requested all the statements for the coverage work. This account wasn't familiar to me, and I can't reconcile it with what I was given.”
She pulled the statement closer. I remained standing until she pointed at the chair. Sitting made the visit feel more formal, though I had no idea what form it ought to take. I explained the order in which I had looked through the records. When I reached the end, I began explaining it again.
“Show me what you know,” Della said. “Not what you think might have happened.”
I placed a finger beside the account identification. “I received this in the statements I requested. I don't recognize it. I looked through these materials for an explanation and didn't find one.”
“Have you asked Gordon?”
“No.” I could hear how abrupt that sounded. “I thought you should see the records first.”
She looked at me, then back at the page. I couldn't tell whether she approved of that decision. She asked where the materials had been kept and what I had done with them, and I answered from memory where I could and checked my notes where I couldn't. Once, I started to say that an entry seemed wrong. I stopped and said instead that I didn't understand it.
“All right,” she said. “Leave these with me.”
I had expected either reassurance or alarm. Being asked to leave the papers felt oddly unfinished. I asked what I should do about the rest of the work, and she told me to continue the ordinary coverage duties and bring her questions I couldn't resolve. She did not tell me that a crime had occurred. I did not ask her to name one.
Later, Della called me back into her office. The papers were no longer spread across her desk. “I've contacted law enforcement about the account,” she said. I asked whether she needed anything further from me. “Not at this moment. If I do, I'll ask.” There was no account of whom she had spoken with or what they intended to do.
Outside her office, someone asked whether I had finished with a routine folder. I had to think before I understood the question. I fetched it, answered what I could, and went back to my chair. The remaining work was just as ordinary as it had been that morning. But the account was no longer a question I could settle by finding the right person in the building.