Malcolm Dorsey entered the East Ridge Police Department a little after eight on a Tuesday morning, carrying a flat document envelope in his left hand and a worn leather case in his right.
The envelope was cream-colored, sealed along the flap, and marked with the insignia of the United States Department of Justice.
The leather case had belonged to his father, who had used it for twenty-three years as a traveling insurance adjuster and had repaired its handle twice with his own needle and thread. Neither object looked particularly impressive from a distance. Malcolm had learned long ago that this was often an advantage.
The front lobby smelled of floor polish, overheated coffee, and the damp wool of uniforms brought in from the morning drizzle. A pair of patrol officers stood near the report counter discussing a collision at the highway interchange, while a detective waited beside a vending machine that had apparently run out of everything except pretzels. Fluorescent lights shone on the polished tile, and a television mounted above the seating area played a weather report with the volume turned down. The place was busy in the ordinary way of public buildings: people waiting to explain why something had gone wrong, employees working to keep their explanations moving, and a clock above the hallway door that seemed louder than it ought to have been.
Malcolm paused just inside the entrance to orient himself. He was fifty-two, broad-shouldered, clean-shaven, and dressed in a charcoal coat over a pale blue shirt that had been pressed the night before. A little gray had settled at his temples, and his expression was calm enough that strangers often mistook it for indifference. In his career, he had watched men become suspicious because he walked too quickly and irritated because he walked too slowly. This morning he walked at the pace of a man with nothing to conceal and an appointment that mattered.
Officer Hannah Bell sat behind the reception desk, comparing a handwritten incident number with a record on her computer. She was thirty-one and had spent four years working the front counter after an injury ended her regular patrol assignment. The position did not carry much prestige, but it had given her an encyclopedic understanding of the department's habits. She knew which supervisors returned calls, which officers forgot signatures, and which apparent emergencies were really the same neighborhood dispute reported for the sixth time. When Malcolm approached, she finished the entry in front of her and looked up.
"Good morning, sir. How can I help you?" she asked.
"I need this delivered to Captain Gregory Weller," Malcolm said, placing the sealed envelope squarely on the counter. "The service sheet identifies the recipient and provides a verification contact. I'm here to complete delivery and document receipt."