“Douglas, where did the other seven thousand dollars go?” His face went from pale to gray. Behind him, the receptionist quietly picked up her purse and slipped into the back room. I took a folded paper from my basket, the sale record that Doris’s nephew at the motor vehicle office had pulled up for me the night before.

“The man from Dubuque paid eleven thousand dollars for my Buick,” I said. “You handed me a check for thirty-eight hundred.” Douglas opened his mouth and closed it again. His hand went to his tie, and it was shaking. “Mom, please, not out here,” he whispered. I kept my thumb on the bell. “Then tell me about the Hendricks account, Douglas, and tell me before I ring it.”