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“I witnessed the hit-and-run on Belvidere, you know,” said Mildred from the library. I was shocked to catch her in the Windjammer for lunch.

I perked up. “You actually saw the vehicle hit Mrs. Parker?”

“Well, I was on my break and I stopped in the ladies' room and then looked out the front window to see if it was still raining, and just a few minutes later Mrs. Parker had the collision with the SUV.”

“But you saw the SUV hit her?” I prompted.

“Well, almost.” She smiled graciously.

“But not really.”

“No, but I can swear to Mrs. Parker's character, if the chief needs me to.”

“Right.” I planted myself next to the cash register and vowed not to move for the next hour.

“Hey, Dodie, my take-out order ready?” Edna frequently picked up lunch for the police department.

“Is B—uh, the chief back yet?” I asked casually.

“After the 480, actually it was only a 481 misdemeanor because there was no real damage and we didn't have to call an 11-85, that's a tow truck—he had a 1091A and an 11-86.”

I stared at her blankly.

“That's a stray animal and a defective signal, for you civvies.”

You had to hand it to Edna; she loved her work. “I'll check on your order.”

“Hey, tell Henry he can throw in some of that Thai curry if there's any leftover. Suki goes nuts for that food.”

“Will do.”

“Dodie, you're coming back to rehearsal aren't you? Walter feels bad about screwing up your schedule, and I know if you just talk with him. . . .”

I glanced at Edna. “I'll be there.”

* * *

By two-thirty, things had settled down in the restaurant. No news from the police station; though I was dying to call in, I restrained myself. I'd stand a better chance of getting information from Bill later if I didn't bug him now.

Lola trudged in the door, damp from the steady rain that had been falling since late morning. She removed her stylish, deep purple rain jacket from REI and plopped into a seat opposite me. “I couldn't sleep all night.”

“The show?” I asked.

“The show, Walter, the budget, learning lines . . . maybe this was a huge blunder. Doing Shakespeare at the ELT.”

“You've got lots of time yet. Four more weeks to get it together.”

“I think the Nurse may quit because her granddaughter is giving birth any day now in North Dakota and she wants to visit, and Romeo's having a fit over his costume and Chrystal can't get some of the men to try on their codpieces.” She pursed her lips. “They don't see why they need them.”

We locked eyes and she giggled.
As if.

“You will be there tonight, won't you?”

“Walter's going to have to use my rehearsal schedule.”

“He will,” she said firmly. “He knows he needs you, and I guarantee he'll be as good as gold after last night's eruption.”

“Okay. After all, I've got some skin in the game now.”

Benny poured Lola a cup of coffee, and she smiled gratefully.

I lowered my voice. “I didn't get a chance to tell you last night . . . I gave Bill the back page of the ledger you found in the box office.”

“You did?” Lola said anxiously.

“Don't worry. I ripped it out of the book. Bill will never know where it came from. Walter's financial . . . issues don't have any bearing on the murder. But I did feel like Bill needed to see the initials and date. MR 4/16.”

“I understand,” Lola said.

“Especially since I went digging through the box office drawers last night and found an envelope with the letters MR on the front.”

Lola's mouth dropped open. “No!”

“Yes!”

“What kind of envelope?” she asked.

“Pinkish, kind of a floral design. Scent of roses.”

“The kind that would hold a love letter?”

“Exactly, but the envelope was empty.” My cell phone rang. I checked the caller ID. “Hi, Carol.”

“Uh, Dodie, it's me.”

“Oh, hi, Pauli. I was just thinking about calling you.”

“We're in,” he said ambiguously.

I glanced at the wall clock; it was time for Gillian's break, which meant I had to cover the last table in her section. “In what?” I asked.

The line went quiet. “
In
,” he said with emphasis. “The dead guy's email,” he whispered.

Oh my God
, I thought.

“Pauli, that's . . . amazing,”

Lola looked up and searched my face. I nodded. “Yes, we can work on the website. Can you come down here in the next hour or so?”

Pauli snorted. “The website. Sweet.” I heard a rustling on the line. “Hey, Mom, I'm going to the Windjammer, okay? To work on the . . .
website
.” I could hear the quotation marks and imminent laugh gurgling up from his throat.

“See you soon.” I clicked off, my heart pounding, my palms sweaty.

“It's wonderful to see Pauli engaged in these computer projects. He is such a smart guy,” Lola said.

She had no idea.

P
auli entered the Windjammer at four o'clock and slipped into the booth next to me. Benny brought him a Coke.

“How did you do it?” I asked sotto voce. “How did you find his password?”

Pauli looked like the proverbial cat that had munched on the canary, and I didn't blame him.

“I just tried to think like he did.”

“What a good idea.” I paused. “What does that mean?”

“Well, like, remember when you said he read thrillers and then like he spent all of his time at the theater? And then like I said I was working on this program to take like different clues from people's lives, you know, and search through lots of combinations?”

“Digital forensics, right?” I said and ruffled the hair on the top of his head. He blushed.

“Yeah. Anyway, I took the names of those books you gave me like Cindy Collins, and she writes these murder mysteries. . . .” He paused as though to absorb the irony of Jerome's reading habits juxtaposed with his death. “And then I asked at the theater what plays he was in.”

“You did? What a cool idea.”

“He was the detective in
The Mousetrap
.”

“Right.”

“We did that at school three years ago. It's like kind of boring,” he said.

“I know what you mean. I've seen better plots in a cemetery.”

Pauli guffawed. “Yeah, and anyway you said he just got the email address like in the last few months so I figured he probably used something recent since we didn't get a hit on like his birth date or the usual stuff or whatever.”

“Wow, I'm impressed.”

“Yeah, and I worked them through the algorithm . . . and finally I got it.”

“The password. So don't keep me in suspense. What is it?”

Pauli picked up a napkin off the table and wrote it out:
JAdetec-tive
.

How elegant: his initials and his alter ego.

“Pauli, you are really something.”

He shrugged and proceeded to punch in the password.

I could feel the little hairs standing at attention on the back of my neck as we sat in my booth and watched Jerome's email materialize on the screen. Still, it was too soon to take a victory lap.

Since Jerome hadn't logged on for over a couple of weeks there was a lot of junk mail. Pauli began to scroll methodically through the inbox from the last few days. We worked our way back to the day he died and then started to search in earnest bypassing advertisements and offers. Jerome apparently didn't believe in cleaning out his inbox.

Then I started to see a pattern.

“Pauli, I'm going to need to study these.” I carefully folded the napkin with Jerome's password on it and stuffed it in my pocket. I didn't want to take the time to read separate emails in front of Pauli; I wasn't sure what I would find out. But I was equally unsure what to say to him now. “Pauli, about all of this . . .”

He held up his hand. “The first rule of digital forensics is confidentiality,” he said gravely.

“Right. So mum's the word until I can sort it out?”

“Sweet.” He shut down his laptop.

“What's the second rule?”

“Like, never give up or whatever,” Pauli said, grinning.

* * *

After the dinner hour at the Windjammer, my plan had been to sort things out at the theater and then hurry home to read through Jerome's email. I prepared myself to do battle with Walter over the rehearsal schedule, but I needn't have bothered. There was already a battle going on. Walter and Romeo stood toe-to-toe on the stage while Lola sat in the first row, nervously twisting a lock of blond hair, and Juliet, perched atop a ten-foot ladder, texted nonchalantly.

Penny approached me, jerking her head in the direction of the stage.

“What's going on?”

“Walter is about to strangle Romeo.”

Walter gesticulated broadly, then climbed up and down the ladder to demonstrate how easily one could master the steps. Romeo was having none of it. His every gesture said, “No way.”

“Angoraphobia,” said Penny confidently.

“Fear of rabbits?” I asked innocently.

“Heights.”

“But traditionally it's Juliet who's on the balcony. Not Romeo,” I said.

“This production is not traditional.” Penny took off her glasses and cleaned them on her sweater. “Walter has this vision that he wants the scene to look like
West Side Story
. You know, in the movie where Richard Beymer tries to reach Natalie Wood on the fire escape and he hangs on to the railing, and their fingertips just about touch.”

“And bad-boy Romeo won't climb a ladder,” I said.

“Yeah. Plus Walter's saving money by doing the balcony scene on the cheap.”

“On the ladder? You mean it's not just for rehearsal? I thought JC was building the balcony?”

“He was until Walter found out what it would cost,” Penny said.

“Good thing Juliet isn't afraid of heights.”

“Penny! Where is my prompt book?” Walter was now beside himself.

Penny ran onstage and thrust the binder at Walter. “Maybe we can just do the balcony scene the . . . traditional way?” She turned and looked at me.

Walter looked like he could chew nails and still come back for a helping of chain link fence. “Penny, my production is not traditional! I have a vision. They fall in love. On a balcony. He climbs up to meet her, they kiss. It's the most important scene in the play!”

“Why can't we just meet in a garden like in
Downton Abbey
?” Romeo asked. “I mean who meets on a balcony? How real is that?”

The possibility for stupid was growing by the second. Walter looked out at Lola and exhaled audibly. The man was aging before my eyes.

“Walter,” Lola said softly, “why don't we rehearse it for now with Juliet up there and Romeo ... here.” She pointed to the place where Romeo had defiantly plunked his body, the bottom rung of the ladder.
The way the scene was usually played
, I thought.

Walter nodded and Romeo began his
What light through yonder window breaks
? bit.

The ladder teetered slightly and Juliet gasped. Penny placed herself—Atlas-like—under the ladder, one arm on each leg. Romeo droned on, indifferent to the meter, Juliet's beauty, or his predicament as a Montague in a Capulet compound. Walter had to remind Romeo to look at Juliet.

So much for Walter's vision.

“This isn't going to work,” Walter fumed. “I want you to be able to touch.” He scrutinized the petulant Romeo and decided not to push the issue. “I'll stand in for Romeo.”

Romeo was suddenly alert. “What do I do?”

Walter smiled sarcastically. “You speak and I will play the lover on the balcony. A little like Cyrano,” he said.

“Like who?” Romeo asked.

“Never mind.” Walter scrambled up the ladder, pretty nimbly for someone his age, until he was face-to-face with the youthful Juliet.

Romeo threw down his script. “How am I supposed to act with you up there?”

“I want you to be the one on the ladder, but since you are afraid of—”

“I'm not afraid of heights. I just don't think Romeo has to be on a ladder.”

“A balcony,” said Penny.

“Whatever. I'm not rehearsing.” He crossed his arms insolently.

Lola crept onto the stage and called up to Walter. “Why don't we take a break and let's just read the scene on the ground and pretend that it's a balcony. That way, Romeo and Juliet—”

“You want to take five?” Penny asked Walter.

“No. I don't want to take five.” Walter was furious. “I want to rehearse the scene.”

In frustration, he slammed the prompt book on the top rung of the ladder, startling Juliet, who reached for the cell phone that had popped out of her jacket pocket. Her foot slipped, and she started to slide down the ladder's top steps. Lola jumped up, I ran to the stage, and Penny came out from under the A-frame of the ladder just as Juliet bounced down the next few rungs, her foot connecting with an unprepared Romeo.

* * *

It was ten o'clock by the time Walter had decided to stay off the ladder for the rest of the evening. I informed him firmly, but respectfully, that either he worked with my schedule or I was off the theater “payroll.” Lola backed me up.

I guided my Metro out of its parking space and flipped on the wipers. A mist covered the windshield, colored by the orangeish glow of streetlamps. It was an eerie sensation, driving through Etonville during a spring rain that had scooted folks off the streets. It felt like a ghost town.

At home, I made a cup of strong coffee to accompany a slightly stale jelly donut I had in the fridge and huddled with my laptop at the kitchen table to run through Jerome's emails. I went methodically through his inbox, beginning with the day before he died, April 15, and worked my way back several months. What had caught my eye earlier, and what I had not mentioned to Pauli, was a series of four emails from a business called Forensic Document Services stretching from late February up through the beginning of April. Who or what was Forensic Document Services?

I opened each email, all from a Marshall Wendover. The first one was obviously in response to Jerome's query about some “valuable, historical” item, never actually described, that he needed authenticated. The language in each email was cryptic, as though neither Jerome nor Marshall wanted to say too much over the Internet. Both appeared to be covering their tracks. The “item” was just referred to as the “document,” and Wendover, after apparently determining that Jerome had something that he thought was worth the company's time, stated that the retainer for their services was approximately a thousand dollars.

I Googled Forensic Document Services and Marshall Wendover to find a website, an address, a phone number. But there was no link to a company by that exact name headed by a Marshall Wendover. I found a Forensic Services, a Document Services, even a Forensic Document
s
Service. After half an hour, I gave up searching for Jerome's correspondent and checked out the other websites. There were a number of companies around the country that offered a range of forensic applications, including photographic and microscopic analyses of a document's paper, ink, handwriting, erasures, and impressions. Ostensibly, this information would answer questions regarding the originality, authorship, and provenance of the item. Some heavy-duty investigation. There was no listing of fee structures for this work.

I spent another hour searching for other questionable emails, but aside from advertisements and promotions, and announcements from the ELT, there was little else of interest. Nothing from an MR. I yawned and stretched.

I closed the lid of my laptop and trundled off to bed. I didn't need Cindy Collins tonight; I had my own mystery to solve.

* * *

I dreamed I was living inside the old Chutes and Ladders game I had played with my brother on rainy shore days, falling down ladders, bumping off of one A-frame after another, and having to begin the climb back to the top again. I woke in a cold sweat. I closed my eyes and tried to re-enter sleep, but it was impossible. The only solution was coffee and the paper. Yesterday's leaden gloom had been blown away by overnight gusts. The sky was a cloudless, deep blue and the sun warm on my shoulders as I opened the front door, got a lungful of clean, crisp air, and retrieved my
New York Times
.

My cell clanged. The caller ID wasn't familiar. “Hello?” I said cautiously.

“I hope this isn't too early?”

So this was what Bill sounded like in the morning, slightly hoarse, slightly sexy. I glanced at the wall clock above the sink: eight-thirty.

“No, I've been awake for hours.” Sad but true.

He cleared his throat. “I thought you might want an update on the SUV incident.”

You bet
, I thought. “Would you like me to stop by the station?”

“How about Coffee Heaven in an hour? I have to go by the Unitarian church first to deliver their May Festival permit.”

“Right. The May Festival. Henry's doing the catering.” I paused. “Are you sure you can talk in public?”

“We'll sit in a back booth. Anyway, whatever I have to say is probably already around town. See you in a few.”

He clicked off and I stared at my phone. What was I doing entertaining thoughts about Bill? Sure, he was a terrific-looking guy with a body to die for. And he seemed on top of things. He was unattached, as per the Snippets crowd, and he apparently was able to get my engine revved. Still, what did I know about him, other than the Philly connection and NFL experience? Maybe I needed to do a little investigation of Etonville's chief of police.

* * *

I was into the Arts section of the
NYT
and my second caramel macchiato, this one a decaf, when Bill slid his compact frame onto the bench across from me.

“Sorry I'm late.”

“Problems with the May Festival?”

“Reverend Taylor wants to close Amber Street in front of the church all day, and the permit is only for four hours. He is being difficult.”

I nodded. “Small-town life.”

He smiled. “Don't get me wrong. I love it here. I just need to get used to the place.” Jocelyn set his coffee on the table and he took a swallow from the steaming cup.

“So the hit-and-run?”

“More like a bump and run. Mrs. Parker thought she had put the car in drive but really put it in reverse. She banged into the SUV, not the other way around.”