Mrs. Callahan, I don't make promises about outcomes, but I promise you I'm going to work this as hard as it can be worked. Walt's documentation is going to be treated with the seriousness it deserves. Ruth looked at her. "That's all Walt would have asked for," she said.
Marsh left through the kitchen. Ruth sat back down. The diner was quite around them. Just the three of them now, the morning light coming through the half-drawn shades at a low angle, the coffee going cold in the cups. Ruth looked at Walt's summary sheet still on the table.
Her hand rested near it without touching it. "He knew someone would find it," she said. Not to Boon particularly, more to the room or to whatever remained of the conversation she'd been having with Walt for 9 years. He left it at the bottom in a folder I had to work through the whole box to reach. He knew I'd find it when I was ready, not when he was gone.
When I was ready, Boon said nothing. Some things didn't need response. 9 years, Ruth said. I wasn't ready for 8 and a half of them. She picked up the summary sheet, folded it along the original creases, the precise ones Walt had made.
He would have liked you, she said to Boon. Walt, he would have said you were a man who did hard things for the right reasons, which was more than he could say for most. Boon looked at the table. I haven't always done the right things. No, Ruth said, but here she left it there, just that one word, and somehow it was enough, the way the most precise things often were.
Patricia Haynes arrived Sunday evening as promised. They met at the garage, the three of them, Boon and Patricia, and the cold Tennessee evening coming in through the bay doors he'd left cracked. She reviewed everything from that morning, asked 12 questions, most of them about the photograph, the chain of custody, what Boone could establish about the context of that 1919 gathering without relying on sources who were no longer available. The photograph goes to Marsh Tuesday. Patricia said, "I'll be present.
We'll do it correctly or we won't do it. " She looked at Boon. I want to meet with Foster tomorrow. I'll arrange it. And Boon, she looked at him with the expression she'd been using for 20 years with clients who were capable of being their own worst problem. If Pierce makes a direct approach, you say nothing except that he should speak to your attorney.
Nothing else. He already came to the garage. Boon said. Patricia was very still. When last week, Wednesday afternoon, and you said I told him I was going to finish fixing the truck I was working on and go home and have dinner with my daughter.
Then I told him he knew where the door was. Patricia looked at him a long moment. That's not nothing. If he makes contact again, that's potentially relevant to an obstruction finding. Good, Boon said.