The officer frowned. "With nothing. It gets its own bag."
"A plastic bag."
"Yes, sir."
Walt nodded slowly. He reached under the counter and came up with a small square box, cardboard covered in black paper, the kind he gave to customers when they picked up repairs. He folded the chamois around the watch, two neat turns, and laid it in the box, and set the lid on, and only then held it out across the counter.
"Put it in the bag in the box," he said. "Please. The crystal is acrylic. It scratches. And don't let anyone wind it. If somebody winds it the wrong way, by the crown when it's pulled out, they'll strip the setting wheel and I'll have to cut a new one, and I'm seventy-four and my eyes are not what they were when I cut the first one."
Dombrowski looked at the box in the old man's hand for what felt like a long time. Then he took it. He took it carefully, with both hands, and Walt noticed that, and filed it away.
"I'll write you a property receipt," the officer said.
He wrote it standing at the counter, on a form he took from a clipboard in his back pocket. He wrote the date and the time and the address and one wristwatch, steel, tan engraved dial, brown leather band, in black box, and he signed it and had Walt sign it, and tore off the pink copy. While he wrote, the woman with the stroller outside had been joined by two teenagers and a man holding a bakery bag, and across the street Bernice Hollis had come to the door of the hardware store with a broom in one hand and an expression on her face like a weather front.
"A detective from Property Crimes will be in touch," Dombrowski said. "Probably early next week. Sir, I have to tell you that depending on what they find, there could be a charge. Receiving. I'm not saying there will be. I'm saying it's possible. If you've got a lawyer, you might want to give them a call."
"I've never needed a lawyer," Walt said.
"I hope you still don't." Dombrowski tucked the clipboard back in his pocket. He looked at Nadia, who had sat down on the customer stool by the counter and put her face in her hands. "Ma'am, keep that receipt. Keep the check stub. Make copies."
"I know how to keep records," she said through her fingers. "I work for the Circuit Court."
He hesitated, as though he were going to say something else. Then he nodded once, to Walt, a short real nod, and went out through the door, and the bell made its cracked note behind him.
* * *
Ray Dombrowski sat in the patrol car outside the shop with the black box on the passenger seat and did not start the engine.