Chapter 8: The pronouncement
The woman with the folder had a name, Diane Marsh, she said, when Sebastian asked, his voice carrying the particular flatness of someone buying time while their mind worked very fast behind their eyes. She was a former auditor with the Pacific Shipping Authority, and the folder she was holding contained, she claimed, documentation of irregularities in the Calloway Group’s import licensing that dated back nearly four years.
The room had not moved.
I became aware, in the strange suspended way you notice small things during large moments, that the white lilies in the altar arrangement were beginning to drop petals. One had fallen on the officiant’s shoe. He hadn’t noticed.
“Ms. Marsh,” Sebastian said, “I respect what you believe you’re holding. But this is no
