"A man came into his shop and sold him a guitar. A 1964 Fender Jazzmaster. My dad paid him three thousand dollars cash and wrote a receipt and photocopied the man's driver's license, because he always did. Six weeks later a police officer came in with a printout, just like that one, and said the guitar had been stolen in a burglary in Canton. They took it. They charged my father with receiving stolen property. It took eleven months for the State's Attorney to drop it. The guitar went back to the 'owner,' and the man on the driver's license didn't exist, and my father never saw his three thousand dollars or the guitar again." She took a breath. "So when you say I'll get it back, Officer, I'm sorry, but I don't believe you."
The shop was very quiet. Even the clocks seemed to have dropped their voices.
Dombrowski looked at the printout. He looked at the receipt in her hand. Walt watched him and saw a man doing arithmetic he didn't like the answer to, and then deciding the arithmetic wasn't his to do.
"I'm sorry about your father," he said, and it sounded like he meant it. "I am. But I don't make that call. I've got a report, I've got a complainant, I've got the item. I'm required to take it. If it's what Mr. Szabo says it is, the detective will figure that out fast." He held out his hand, palm up. "Please don't make me do this the hard way, ma'am. Nobody wants that."
Nadia looked at Walt.
Walt had been holding his breath without knowing it. He let it out. He thought of Eva saying, Walter, the world isn't against you, it's just busy. He thought that the young woman was about to do something brave and foolish for a stranger, and that he could not let her.
"Give it to him, Nadia," he said gently. "It's all right."
"It's not all right."
"No. But it will be. Give it to him."
She unbuckled the strap. Her fingers were clumsy with it; the leather was new and stiff. Walt reached across and helped her, the way he would have helped his own daughter if he'd had one, and when the watch came free he did not hand it to the officer. He held it.
"Officer Dombrowski," he said. "May I ask you something?"
Dombrowski waited.
"Where will it go?"
"Northern District. Evidence control. It gets logged, it gets bagged, it goes in a locker."
"In a bag with what?"