I gave her Bill Dana. 'My name Jose Jimenez.'

She waved her camera operator closer. 'Look, we know that two men named Elton Richards and Steve Pritzik lived here and we'd like an on-camera statement.' The camera operator held the camera over his head, trying to scan the room.

Don Phillips saw the camera coming through the window and said, 'Jesus Christ!' He pushed in front of me, then leaned out the window and yelled at a uniformed sergeant. 'Clear the area, for Christ's sake. Seal it off from the street back.' The sergeant hustled away, and Phillips looked at me. 'Are you trying to be cute?'

I spread my hands. 'Trying has nothing to do with it.'

The uniforms were pushing the press and gawkers along the walk when a ripple spread up from the street and across the crowd as if someone had amped a jolt of electricity through the air. Heads turned and voices rose, and the TV people surged toward the street. Phillips said, 'Now what?'

Jonathan Green and Elliot Truly and the videographer from Inside News were working their way through the crowd. The videographer's sound tech was trying her best to move people out of their way, but it was hard going until Hernandez and Flutey and a couple of other uniforms lent a hand. Anna Sherman came to the window, then gathered Bidwell and Miller for a whispered conference. When Green and the others pushed their way through the front door past the uniformed sergeant, Phillips said, 'Where in hell do you think you're going?'

Anna Sherman came over and smiled tightly. 'Let them pass, detective.' She offered her hand. 'Hello, Mr Green.'

'Ms Sherman.' Jonathan Green smiled at me. 'Congratulations, son. I think you've made my day.' The videographer bumped into Phillips as he tried to get the shot, and Phillips shoved him away. Hard. The videographer said, 'Hey.'

Anna Sherman said, 'Detective Phillips, this is Jonathan Green. Mr Green represents Theodore Martin.'

Phillips said, 'How about that.'

Jonathan and Truly went to the couch and leaned over the papers without touching them. Phillips said, 'Don't touch anything. We haven't printed them yet.'

Truly was grinning wildly and shaking his head. 'This is wonderful. Would you look at this? This is absolutely fabulous.' He grinned at me and then he grinned at Sherman, only Sherman didn't return it.

Green said, 'Mr Cole, are these the same documents you found when you entered this residence?' He said it loudly so that everyone in the room could hear.

'Yes.'

Green motioned to videographer. 'Would you get a close up of this, please?'

The videographer almost tripped over himself getting there. Bidwell said, 'Who is this dork?'

Truly said, 'They're from Inside News. They're doing a documentary on Jonathan.'

Bidwell said, 'Oh, for God's sake,' and shook his head.

As the videographer panned the evidence, Jonathan looked back at me. 'There are no new documents, and none of the documents you found are now missing?'

'Of course not.'

The videographer panned up to Jonathan, and Jonathan said, 'Mr Cole photographed the documents found in this envelope before the police were summoned. That photographic record constitutes an accurate accounting of exactly what was here before the police took possession of the evidence. We intend to compare those photographs with these to see if the evidence has been tampered with.'

Phillips went red. 'Hey, what the fuck?'

Anna Sherman told him to shut up. She said that if Phillips couldn't control himself he should go outside.

Phillips said, 'I know what he's saying and I don't like it. I run a clean house, goddammit.' He was purple.

Sherman said something to Bidwell and Bidwell led Phillips out.

They had me go through it again, Jonathan Green and Elliot Truly asking questions and the videographer and the sound tech recording me. Anna Sherman listened with her arms crossed, occasionally digging her heel into the floor and rocking her foot, and, like Green and Truly, occasionally asking more questions. Bidwell and Phillips came back, but this time Phillips kept his mouth shut and glowered at us from the corner. When I was done, Jonathan Green looked at Sherman again and said, 'We'll want these documents preserved, and we'll want to examine them as soon as practicable. We'll want the results of your fingerprint analysis, and then, of course, we'll want to do our own.'

Anna Sherman's jaw was tight. 'Of course.'

'Do you have anything more for Mr Cole?'

The criminalist said, 'I asked Cole for permission to take his prints. He said okay.'

Green nodded. 'Please do it now in our presence.' The criminalist broke out his fingerprint kit and had me sit on one of the dinette chairs. He took my prints quickly and professionally, then gave me a Handiwipe to clean off the ink. The videographer recorded every moment. I said, 'Don't you ever run out of tape?'

The sound tech laughed.

Green walked back to the couch, again examined the papers without touching them, then looked back at Sherman. 'You realize what we have here, don't you, Anna?' The patient father.

Anna Sherman did not respond. The pouty daughter.

Jonathan Green smiled. 'If you don't, Ms Sherman, I'm sure the district attorney will. Tell him I'll expect his call soon, if you would.'

Her jaw flexed.

Green said, 'I think we can go, Elliot. Mr Cole's had a long and fruitful day. I expect he wants to go home.'

Phillips coughed loudly from his corner of the room, but the cough soundly suspiciously like, 'Fuck you.'

I followed them out. The street at the end of the walk was jammed with media people and broadcast vans and uniformed cops trying to clear a path. Hernandez and Flutey flanked Jonathan and we crossed under the tape, and the media people surged around us, pushing their cameras and microphones at Jonathan and shouting their questions. There were so many broadcast vans that it looked as if we were in a forest of transmitters, each spindly stack pointing at the same invisible satellite 22.500 miles above in geosynchronous orbit, like so many coyotes crying at the moon. I said, 'This is nuts.'

Truly yelled in my ear so that I could hear him. 'It hasn't even begun.'

The woman with the frosted hair jammed her microphone past Hernandez and shouted, 'Jonathan, can you tell us what was found?'

'I'm sorry. That information should come from the district attorney's office.'

She yelled, 'Is it true that a plan of Teddy Martin's house was found?'

'I'm sorry.' We were working our way toward Jonathan Green's Rolls-Royce.

A short man who himself had been an attorney before becoming a broadcast journalist shouted, 'Jonathan? Is it true that evidence found in the house exculpates Theodore Martin in the murder of his wife?'

Jonathan smiled benignly. 'I've seen the evidence that Mr Cole found, and I'll be in consultation with the district attorney's office sometime in the next few days. Now, if you'll excuse me.'

More questions exploded at us from a dozen directions, and they were all about Mr Cole.

I didn't think Jonathan was going to answer, but he stopped and put his hand on my shoulder and said, 'This is Mr Elvis Cole of the Elvis Cole Detective Agency, and I believe that his discovery is going to be the breakthrough that we need. I can't tell you how proud I am of this young man, and how impressed I am with the caliber of his work.'

I said, 'Gee.'

The microphones shifted toward me as one and the questions came so fast and loud that the words blended into white noise. I was pretty sure that no one heard me say, 'Gee.' I may have said it twice.

Green said, 'All we can say at this time is that we received a tip through our hotline, and Mr Cole followed it to this conclusion.' He squeezed my shoulder again as if I were his son and I'd just made Eagle Scout. 'What we have here is the result of good, solid detective work, and I suspect that when all is said and done Mr Cole will be the hero of this little drama.'