I have them here, sir, in this second envelope. Who? I want the jury instructed, however, that this conversation is only a conversation, Gloster said. Devine sat back against his seat. He figured she was appearing more routinely because he was on the train and would be watching her. Devine wasnt sure how he felt about that. He was investigating Cowl and she was Cowls girl. That was going to get really complicated really fast. I do, but finish your breakfast and digest it for a while first. Well, weknow he was at the contractors at four and weknow he was at his office at five, and weknow the driving time between the two is about twenty-five minutes. He couldnt have gotten into very much mischief in that time. Of course, when you come right down to it, Perry, we dont have the type of evidence that would give him an alibi. I didnt. But Showalter killed him and I promised my stepfather that Id prove it someday. My own father was a miserable drunk. He used to pound on my mother two or three times a month. He hit her so hard one time that she permanently lost hearing in one ear and later on he beat her again sobadly that she now has a limp. We finally ran away one night — to a small town in Colorado — and he was never able to find us. Then my mom met a policeman, Don Sheridan, and married him. He was the finest man — finest person besides my mother — Ive ever met. My real father was a surgeon so we never had the creature comforts he’d given us, but from the time I was eleven I considered Don my real father. Frankly, I learned as much as I know from my nephew, George S. Adler. He started to confide in me, then changed his mind. I knew enough to know there had been such a letter. I wanted to find out more about it. I asked Dorothy if she had heard anything about it. She hadnt. I hoped my question would inspire her to make inquiries of Pete Cadiz. You look very fit, she said, running her gaze over him so slowly and provocatively that he felt like he was naked. Mason looked up to see two men, broad-shouldered, wary in their bearing, yet aggressively important, enter the restaurant. Does the defence wish to make an opening statement now or later? Judge Sedgwick asked. Theres a stack of stuff on your desk. Some of the others on the board of directors. What do you think is up there? They could be Iraqis or Afghans, Taliban or Al-Qaeda or ISIS. It had gotten hard to tell the difference, actually. Those desert guys were all tall, and bone and muscle and lethal and muttering shit in a language he had come to learn but never mastered. Their eyes were all the same. Crazy, fanatical, but also cagey, smart. You got plopped in a flag-draped coffin for underestimating those sons of bitches. He didnt have to wait long..