Sitting, sipping her coffee and ordering nothing, Lee waited. Ten minutes passed. Then, twenty. Finally, Lee was about to grab her purse and leave when, a half hour after their scheduled meeting time, Stu made a noisy entrance into the desolate diner.

Rudely squeezing past a waitress, nearly toppling her over with his brown leather messenger bag, Stu slid into the booth across from Lee. His bag, crammed full of crinkled and torn pieces of yellow legal pad, slammed down on the table, nearly knocking over the syrup carousel.

“Lee, Lee, Lee.” He chanted her name in that ridiculous, nasaly voice that she couldn’t stand.

Instead of replying, she fished around in her purse for a cigarette. Without looking up, she prodded him. “Well?” Her tone was edged with annoyance. “What hot lead do you have for me today, Stu?”

He adjusted his glasses, tapped his papers on the table and cleared his throat. “My sources have told me-”

Lee smirked. “Go on.”

“The crime scene was tampered with.”

Her head shot up. “What?!”