Two weeks after the incident, Walsh called to ask for another interview. Sarah drove to the regional office with the folder of Martin's receipts and her own notes. The reception area was ordinary, with faded chairs, a vending machine that swallowed somebody's dollar, and a plastic plant leaning toward a window. Sarah found the ordinariness reassuring after days of headlines describing the federal investigation like a war movie.
Walsh brought a forensic accountant named Priya Sen into the room. Priya wore a plain gray jacket and carried a laptop crowded with colored tabs. She thanked Sarah for bringing the original records, then explained how they would be copied and returned with proper documentation. Nobody promised that the receipts would prove a crime, and Sarah found the caution comforting rather than disappointing.
They asked her about Sierra Transit Services and the vehicles that had visited the Junction over several years. She recognized one driver from an old repair invoice and remembered that he had requested urgent work at an unusual hour. She could not remember his last name or the contents of his truck. Priya wrote down both the recollection and its limitations.
"Does that help?" Sarah asked.
"It's a piece of a much larger picture," Priya answered. "We're checking business records, payment histories, and independent sources. A repair receipt can establish that a vehicle was here on a particular date. It can't tell us what was inside without other evidence."
Sarah nodded. She had spent her working life correcting people who thought a warning light told them everything about a broken engine. The comparison was familiar, and it made her trust the investigation more.
Priya showed her nothing from the confidential parts of the case. Instead she asked whether Martin had ever expressed concern about particular customers and whether Sarah had any notes from conversations he had recorded. Sarah remembered him complaining about people who paid cash in large bills but wanted receipts issued under company names. She had dismissed it as the ordinary suspiciousness of a man who had worked too long in roadside business.
"He kept every receipt," she said. "Even the ones customers didn't want."
Priya smiled. "Then your father did us a favor without knowing it."
The words made Sarah unexpectedly emotional. She looked toward the window until the tightness in her throat eased. Martin had spent his life doing small things correctly in a place where very few people were watching. He would never know his records had become useful to strangers trying to understand a larger wrong.
At the end of the interview, Walsh asked whether she had received further threats. Sarah told him about an anonymous postcard delivered to the diner, with a photograph of the old Route 66 sign and a short message suggesting she should sell before the next summer. She had saved the envelope and given both items to the sheriff's office without touching them more than necessary. Walsh noted the report and said investigators would compare it with other evidence.
"I'm beginning to dislike mail," Sarah said.