Chapter 50: Open Account

At four twenty in the morning, Mrs. Leung tried to feed crackers to the police officer guarding the Waverly cellar. "Ma'am, I can't accept food while I'm working." She pushed the packet deeper into his hand. "Then hold them until you are not working." The officer looked at Jo. "Refuse clearly," Jo advised. "We have had some trouble with conditional snacks." Mrs. Leung reclaimed the crackers with a disgusted noise and distributed them among the tenants instead. The cellar door stood open. Evidence markers surrounded the tin deed box, the stolen ledger, and the bins of cemetery soil and bone. Jo had photographed every page before anyone wrote on one. The officers had found the original archive carrier in the black car, with Vivian's transfer schedule and the clinic cabinet tools used to steal the ledger. Ashby Merritt's archive existed now in the court record, the Rent Board file, Jo's…