Raymond had left a photocopy of the city’s general ledger on my desk, right next to a two-dollar lukewarm paper cup of decaf coffee.
I turned on the desk lamp and pulled the ledger closer, comparing the total waste management allocations against the individual district receipts. My childhood district had always run a tight budget, but the numbers on this page did not match the summary sheets from the main council meetings.
An unlisted transfer had been routed through the administrative services fund in late August.
The amount was exactly eighty thousand dollars.
I reached for my dry yellow highlighter, but then I stopped and picked up a red pen instead.
The missing annex was not a mistake by some tired clerk in the basement of City Hall.
I drew a thick red circle around the eighty thousand dollars on the photocopy of the ledger page.
By ten the next morning, a heavy bubble-wrapped mailer sat on my desk, positioned directly next to the circled ledger photocopy.
I sliced the thick plastic tape with my letter opener and slid out a bound green ledger with hand-drawn columns.
