“Any chance you could call Detective Benjamin Storm in Saint Louis?” I appealed. “I’m sure he could clear some of this up for you.”

“Storm,” he muttered as he leafed through the papers in the file folder then stopped at a handwritten page of notes. “Would that by any chance be the same Detective Benjamin Storm who said, and I quote, ‘Jeezus H Christ. Fuck me. Just throw the book at his sorry ass’?”

Obviously, I wasn’t holding the cards I thought I was. I nodded and said in a flat tone, “Yeah. That would be him.”

“Yeah. We found his card in your personal effects.”

“Maybe if you called…”

He cut me off, “Special Agent Constance Mandalay with the FBI Saint Louis field office? Storm said you’d probably toss her name out there too.”

“Sounds as if you two had a pretty in-depth conversation.”

“Yeah, we did. A couple of them, in fact. Nice guy.”

“At the moment I guess that assessment depends on which side of the table you happen to be sitting.”

“I guess I can understand why you’d think that, but actually, Mister Gant, you owe him big.”

“How do you figure?”

“Easy. Besides warning me that you’d probably make a nuisance of yourself-which was dead on the money, obviously-your friend filled me in on everything that’s happened to you and your wife in the past few weeks.”

“Everything?”

“Of relevance,” he replied with a nod.

“Then you should know that I’m doing all this to help her.”

“That’s what Storm says. And, fortunately for you, according to him there really is an underlying truth to your story, just like you said. He did, however, stress to me in no uncertain terms that you are not here in an official capacity with the Major Case Squad…or any other branch of law enforcement for that matter. The way he explained it, you’re here of your own volition, and you’re supposed to be on a quick fact finding trip, nothing more.”