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“At this point, it could be any of the above, though suicide by drowning is rare, as you know No apparent signs of struggle But with so much time in the water, it’s hard to tell He could have fallen in the canal and hit his head or he could have been beaned and dus And no one can say where the body entered the water They eneral idea, based on the esti the exact location is a long shot”

“Youdownstream a while?”

“Froed most of the time Given our warm fall weather, it could have taken from a few days to a week for the body to surface Or so they tell me”

“And the cops are still investigating?”

“That’s the word Now, here’s the good news”

“I could use soood news What is it?”

“When we spoke, youa key at that rat trap Cooper used as a mail drop When I found out where Cooper lived, I snooped and found a fireproof box Guess what? You need a key to open it Maybe the one you found”

I sucked in a deep breath “I take it you found it before the cops got involved”

“The day before Talk about good ti Anyway, I took the box to the office and forced it open It had loads of goodies in it I know you’ll want to see and hear it all I’ll copy everything and send it to you before I turn it over to the cops”

“Hear? Are there recordings?”

“Yep You’ll see A lot of the conversationsto you I suspect Cooper was keeping the inforht and send it to you first thing tomorrow”

I exhaled the breath I’d been holding “Thanks, Alex I appreciate your work on this I can’t wait to see what you found” I gave her e the minute she could “Let me know if you learn anyup

I checked my files and found the copy of Cooper’s calendar He’d entered the cryptic entry “10 pm No 17” for last Thursday, two days before I’d tried to find hiested a , perhaps Cooper’s last

I flipped farther back through the calendar and saw entries for “staff ular intervals, a couple of doctor’s appoints were looking unremarkable until I noticed “6 pm No 44” written on an April d

ay What was up with the numbers? I hoped the ansas so now