I told him what had transpired to date, sidestepping the fact that the file had sat on Darcy's desk for three days before it came to me. I wasn't necessarily protecting her. In business, it's smarter not to bad-mouth the help. I told him I had two rolls of film coming in, that there weren't any estimates yet, but the claim looked routine as far as I could see. I debated mention of my uneasiness, but dis-carded the idea even as I was speaking. I hadn't identified what was bothering me and I felt it was wiser to stick to the facts.

The frown on Mac's face formed about thirty seconds into my recital, but what alarmed me was the silence that fell when I was done. Mac is a man who fires questions. Mac gives pop quizzes. He seldom sits and stares as he was doing in this case.

"You want to tell me what this is about?" I asked.

"Did you see the note attached to the front of this file?"

"What note? There wasn't any note," I said.

He held out a California Fidelity memo form, maybe three inches by five, covered with Jewel's curlicue script. "Kinsey… this one looks like a stinker. Sorry I don't have time to fill you in, but the fire chief's report spells it out. He said to call if he can give you any help. J."

"This wasn't attached to the file when it came to me."

"What about the fire department report? Wasn't that in there?"

"Of course it was. That's the first thing I read."

Mac's expression was aggrieved. He handed me the file, open to the fire-department report. I looked down at the familiar STFD form. The incidental information was just as I remembered. The narrative account I'd never seen before. The fire chief, John Dudley, had summed up his investigation with a no-nonsense statement of sus-pected arson. The newspaper clipping now attached to the file ended with a line to the same effect.

I could feel my face heat, the icy itch of fear beginning to assert itself. I said, "This isn't the report I saw." My voice had dropped into a range I scarcely recognized. He held his hand out and I returned the file.