JULIAN

The legal pad had seven names on it by Friday morning.

Not all seven were relevant. Two were the specific and exploratory additions of a man working through the outer edges of a possibility before locating its center, names that belonged to people who had the theoretical access and the theoretical standing but who, on examination, lacked the specific and particular combination of motive and proximity that the Thursday morning phone calls required. I crossed them out. Not with the frustrated single line of a man eliminating the wrong answer. With the specific and deliberate double line of a man who had tested a hypothesis and found it insufficient...