The next development came through the investigator Ellen had contacted, a former state fraud examiner named Miriam Vale. She didn't resemble the detectives in television shows. She was a short woman with a linen folder, plain glasses, and the habit of asking the same question from several directions until she was satisfied the answer didn't change. She arrived at four and asked to see my original notebook.
I told her about Grip's arrival, the initial diagnostics, Frank's inspection, and the sequence in which the foreign part came out. I showed her the photographs, the signed safety notes, and the paperwork from the previous shops. She asked what I had touched with bare hands, who had been present, and whether anyone else had access to the motorcycle while it was in my custody.
"You're treating me like a suspect," I said before I could stop myself.
"I'm treating your evidence like it has to survive an unfriendly question," she replied. "That's a compliment to its importance, not an accusation against you."
I thought about that while she examined the invoices. She noticed the same thing I had: Valley Iron Works in Sacramento had been the first shop to service the bike before the reported failures began. But she also noticed something I hadn't. A subcontractor authorization number appeared on the earliest invoice, and the name of the subcontractor had been partly obscured by an accounting stamp.
"The invoice doesn't prove anything sinister," she said. "But it gives us a record to request."
Jack leaned forward. "Can you get it?"
"Through proper channels, yes. And if the shop refuses, that becomes useful information too."
It sounded disappointingly ordinary. I had imagined that discovering a hidden part would cause doors to burst open and guilty people to confess. Instead, we were discussing records retention and the wording of a request. The reality reassured me because nobody in the room was confusing urgency with a shortcut.
Miriam also reviewed the text and the anonymous phone call. She asked whether I'd previously received threatening communications or had reason to believe someone local disliked me. I told her about the creditors, the shop, and a supplier who once called me incompetent after I returned a wrong part. She wrote all of it down without judgment. Her notes did not yet blame Carver or Pruitt. They described a person unknown.
Before leaving, she handed me a copy of a contact sheet and told me to call her if anything else occurred. My mother stood near the door and watched Miriam depart with visible approval. When we were alone, she looked at me.
"You look disappointed," she said.
"I thought there would be an answer by now."
"You fixed the motorcycle because you didn't guess," she replied. "Why would the rest of this work differently?"
I had no response. My mother could do that too, take an hour of complicated discussion and reduce it to one sentence I could remember.
That evening, a creditor called about the equipment loan. I answered instead of letting it go to voicemail. The woman on the phone was polite, tired, and clearly reading from an account screen. She asked whether I could make a payment within seven days and warned that the bank's options would narrow if I missed another deadline.