"If it's for a specific detective it'd go directly to his office and he'd log it. You've gotta log it. It's a rule."
"If there was no recipient name on the request?"
"Then it'd come here." She nodded at a large basket holding a card that said Pending. "And whoever wanted it'd have to come down and pick it up. Then he'd log it in. Has to be logged in."
"But it wasn't."
"Has to be. Because otherwise, how do we know where it is?" She pointed to another sign. Log it!
Sachs prowled through the large basket.
"Like, you're not supposed to do that."
"But see my problem?"
A blink. The gum snapped.
"It came here. But you can't find it. So what do I do about that?"
"Submit a request. Somebody'll look for it."
"Is that really going to happen? Because I'm not sure it would." Sachs looked toward the file room. "I'll just take a look, you don't mind."
"Really, you can't."
"Just take a few minutes."
"You can't--"
Sachs walked past her and plunged into the stacks of files. The clerk muttered something Sachs couldn't hear.
All the files were organized by number and color-coded to indicate that they were open or closed or trial pending. Major Cases files had a special border on them. Red. Sachs found the recent files and, going through the numbers one by one, sure enough--the Sarkowski file wasn't there.
She paused, looking up the stacks, hands on her hips.
"Hi," a man's voice said.
She turned and found herself looking at a tall, gray-haired man in a white shirt and navy slacks. He had a military bearing about him and he was smiling. "You're--?"
"Detective Sachs."
"I'm DI Jefferies." A deputy inspector generally ran the precinct. She'd heard the name but knew nothing about him. Except that he was obviously a hard worker, since he was here, still on the job at this late hour.
"What can we do you for, Detective?"
"There was a file delivered here from the One Three One. About two weeks ago. I need it as part of an investigation."
He glanced at the file clerk who'd just dimed her out. She was standing in the hallway. "We don't have it, sir. I told her that."
"Are you sure it was sent here?"
Sachs said, "The log at the transferring house said it was."
"Was it logged?" Jefferies asked the clerk.
"No."
"Well, is it in the pending basket?"