When Hathaway returned from lunch, he was a bit surprised to find Lewis still away from his desk. Was Innocent still working him over? He walked down the hallway in that direction under the pretense of getting some water. But Innocent caught him.

"James, I was wondering if I could have your perspective on this Sons of the Twice Born case. Do you think it was the right decision to not pursue charges against Anne Sadikov?"

She piloted him into her office, closed the door, and sat down behind her desk.

"Well, Ma'am, there wasn't any real evidence that she committed any criminal acts."

"Yes, but to not even take a statement from her? Did you agree with that?"

"Inspector Lewis's instincts about people are generally spot-on. I've learned it's usually fruitless to challenge him on a decision like that."

She studied him, her look narrowing. Pulling information from this pair was like pulling teeth sometimes. "I am noticing, Sergeant, that you aren't answering my question."

He was also avoiding her eyes.

She continued. "So the only evidence Anne Sadikov was involved in this was Tina Daniels's statement that Anne called on her to find a bolthole for Sefton Linn? Why ask her cleaning lady?"

Hathaway was a bit puzzled. "Well, it's in the report, Ma'am. Tina was more than her cleaning lady. She raised Anne from the age of six."

Now it was Innocent's turn to look puzzled. "Where is that? Show me." She held the report across the desk.

He flipped to the second page and scanned the text. Then he frowned, checking the other pages. Finally, he closed his eyes and swallowed hard.

"Sergeant . . . ?"

Quietly: "This is not the report I wrote." He opened his eyes and looked at her sadly. "This is a heavily edited version of the report I wrote. Signed by Inspector Lewis."

Concern shadowed her face. "Do you still have a copy of yours?"

He nodded. "I always keep them."

"I think I'd better see it, then."

When he returned with hard copy of the document and closed the door behind him, it didn't take her long to see the differences. Almost every mention of Anne Sadikov was removed.

"Why would he do this? There's more to it than just this, isn't there?" She stared at Hathaway, unrelenting.

James felt very much as if he were betraying his boss, but it was too late to stonewall now. "There was an anonymous note. He got a note, slipped under his door. All it said was, 'His best friends killed him because of a boast.' We never learned who sent it or why."

"When was this?"

"He got it the night you made him go to that concert."

She rolled her eyes at the memory. "And what did you two speculate about it?"

"Well, we thought it could have referred to the ancient Greek myth about Actaeon. This group seemed to know all those stories."

"Remind me, Sergeant."

"One version of the story is about how Actaeon boasted to the Greek goddess Artemis that he was a better hunter than she. She turned him into a stag and his own hunting dogs tore him up. We thought it meant the sender knew something about Greely's death."

"And you didn't see fit to include that in the long version?" She waved Hathaway's report at him.

"There was no concrete link to the case. It was just an anonymous note."

"What do you think now?"

James looked at her, sadly. He couldn't bring himself to answer.

Innocent stood and came over to him. She put her hand on his arm. "James? If Lewis has done something, well, unprofessional, we won't be doing him any favors by trying to protect him. There's more you're not telling me, isn't there?" She looked at him shrewdly. "Does Lewis have some personal involvement in this case?"

James was reminded that the Chief Superintendent had, after all, been a detective, too. He took a deep breath. "Inspector Lewis reacted badly to Theodore Platt. We learned that Platt had killed the other driver in a head-on collision when he was intoxicated. But Platt got off. This is personal for Lewis, I'm afraid."

"Sergeant, bring me Lewis, when you find him."