Sam sat at her desk reviewing the mountain of information she'd been able to gather about the two missing diviners: birth certificates, one marriage certificate, one divorce record, names, addresses, and employers. She was shocked at how much information was in front of her. She was starting to get to know more about these men than they knew about themselves. That was the point. Donnie had told her that investigation begins and ends at the desk, and now she was starting to see what he meant.

  Sam asked Lisa to compile most of the information about the case, trusting her to be more personable, more friendly to the City Hall staff. Lisa had gone down there, made a few friends, told them her boss was an insurance adjuster looking to make sure that a couple of cases were properly paid out, if at all. By playing the part of a fellow employee she gained their sympathy. The box of chocolates Sam sent along also didn't hurt.

  With this information in hand she went and picked up her new mentor. They made their way towards one David Wilson's ex-wife's workplace. Mr. Wilson had divorced his wife of five years according to court records for irreconcilable differences. His wife had not taken her maiden name back and was named Laura Wilson. She lived in an okay part of town. She worked as a receptionist in a dentist's office and they had no children.

  Mr. Wilson had been missing for at least five days. He had no family in the city and, as a diviner, had no direct employer. There were no public records available of any of his clients. Such is the case with diviners. They were not required to nor desirous of revealing their clientele, most of whom were wealthy members of the city's upper crust who did not want their sorcerous dealings revealed.

  As it was a work day, Donnie told Sam they'd be questioning Laura at the dentist's office where she worked. They arrived at the building. It was a nondescript office building that looked like a depressing place to work. There were no good restaurants for blocks and blocks. There was nothing interesting to see out of a single window. Just gray city blocks as far as the eye could see.

  "Now when we get inside, what I want you to do is shut up, all right?" said Donnie. "I'm gonna need you to shut up. You gotta listen to me ask the questions. I'm only gonna do this one time and you're gonna see how I go about it. Once you see how I go about it then you can go about it.

  "It is similar to the sort of interactions that you would have had as an interrogator; however this is not an interrogation. There is no nemesis. There is a dental receptionist who's at work and probably doesn't want to answer your questions about her ex-husband. I anticipate that in the future you're going to be a lot more comfortable with this role owing to your previous training."

  They made their way inside. There were a few patients in the small waiting room. Donnie walked up to the desk at which Laura sat.

  "Excuse me miss," he began, "Are you Laura Wilson?"

  Donnie flashed her a winning smile. His voice had taken on a warm, velvet tone. His eyes twinkled. If Sam didn't know better she would think he was flirting with the woman.

  Donnie was a good-looking guy. It worked.

  "Why yes, I am," replied Laura Wilson. "Do you have an appointment or are you looking for me?"

  Donnie flashed an even bigger smile this time.

  "My name is Dante Frisk. This is my associate, Samantha Fontaine. We are investigators looking into the potential disappearance of your ex-husband. Do you have a few minutes for us to have a short conversation?"

  "Oh my, you're saying something happened to Dave? Why yes. I was about to take my break and have a cigarette outside. Maybe you could join me out there."

  Donnie and Sam followed Laura outside the building and took a back entrance down a long, plain hallway through a battered service entrance door. Outside was a small bench and a standing ashtray. Laura lit a cigarette and took a deep drag. It made Sam jealous.

  "So what happened to Dave and how can I help?" asked Laura. "I should say I haven't seen him in about eight months since the divorce. We don't really keep in touch."

  "It's no problem Ms. Wilson," began Donnie. "We're not entirely sure that Dave has disappeared but that's what we're investigating, whether or not he's gone of his own accord or if anything has happened. Can you think of anybody who would want to harm your ex-husband? Any old clients that were dissatisfied? Any enemies? Even in passing someone who was annoyed by him?"

  "No one comes to mind. I wasn't very fond of him towards the end but such is the case with marriage. It falls apart. He was so aloof and secretive; that was part of the problem that we had. We never fought so much as I just never felt like I was part of his life. I suppose what I'm trying to say is I wouldn't know because he didn't tell me very much. He did seem to have a good relationship with his clients; he never complained about them."

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  "How long were you two married?"

  Sam wondered at this question because she already knew the answer from the marriage records. She'd shared those details with Donnie. Sometimes in interrogation you would ask questions you already knew the answers to in order to see whether or not the person being questioned would tell the truth.

  "About five years," replied Laura.

  "You said you were divorced about eight months ago, right?"

  "Yes, that's right."

  "When did you last see or hear from your ex-husband?"

  "About eight and a half months ago. I served him the papers and moved back in with my mother for a little while. There was no fight, no struggle; he just signed the papers, delivered them to the courthouse, and that was that."

  "Did you all have any mutual friends or acquaintances that you're still in contact with?"

  "Well no. No I'm afraid not. Dave didn't really have any friends. If he did he never introduced them to me."

  "Did you share any properties, finances, or any obligations after the divorce?"

  "No, the apartment was in Dave's name. I suppose it still is unless he sold it. I took everything I had with me to my mom's house and it was a clean split."

  "You mentioned feeling shut out. What was that like? What do you mean? Lots of locked doors, private conversations? Was he gone a lot?"

  "Yeah that was the major problem we had. He'd be out for long hours. When he came back he wouldn't want to talk about what he did. At first I just assumed it was the nature of his work. He said his clients didn't like him talking about what he was doing even with his wife. The nature of the magic was such that if he did talk about it someone might know so he kept his secrets from me and eventually it just became too much.

  "It's nice when you come home at the end of the day to talk with your husband about what he's done. I just couldn't take it anymore. I didn't work at the time so I would sit alone for hours. There's only so much cooking, cleaning, and knitting you can do."

  "He was gone for long hours. Did he have a separate office space?"

  "Yes. He kept a consulting office downtown. I actually did go there once early in our relationship. It was in a pretty building. He would take clients there and perform his rituals while they waited in a pretty waiting room. After that first visit I never returned."

  "Would you say he kept unusual hours?"

  "Not unusual but he did work late most nights. He never ran off in the middle of the night or anything like that. I don't think there was another woman if that's what you're asking."

  "You mentioned going to his office in the beginning. Did he become more secretive over the course of your marriage or was he always like that?"

  "In the beginning when we were courting, he did seem a little bit more open. He wouldn't talk about his clients but he spent more time with me. Then after the marriage I was just what he came home to. It didn't get much worse and never really got better. It just always was. Even on the weekends he'd be distant."

  "I'm sorry to ask a maybe sensitive question. Was there a specific incident that made you decide the marriage was no longer worth keeping?"

  Divorce was rare. Many jobs wouldn't hire women. Many housewives would stay in terrible marriages because otherwise they'd be broke on the street. The various churches frowned on divorce and largely encouraged women to stay with their husbands, mostly because the gods of those religions said that marriage was a holy act. As a religious ceremony they took a dim view to annulment or divorce. To them a marriage anointed by their god, being annulled or canceled by the state, was an affront akin to blasphemy.

  Divorce was formerly illegal but the Salem Witch suffragists, in the beginning of the American Empire, had seen entire churches burned to the ground with priests tied to the stake and roasted. Ever since then women had strong rights in the American Empire for fear of the Witches returning.

  "One night I had made dinner and baked a whole chicken. The meat came out dry and tough but I still set it out on the table. After awhile I got so hungry I decided I would carve the chicken myself and have my dinner. The meat was so tough and dry I just couldn't even finish a bite.

  "I took a walk down to the grocer and I got another chicken and I roasted that one. This time I took it out sooner; it was nice. By the time I had done all of that Dave still wasn't home.

  "Now that I say it out loud, maybe there was another woman.

  "So that was it. Dry chicken. That was the end of our marriage."

  "Thank you Miss Wilson. I do appreciate your time. You've been extremely helpful."

  "Have I been? I feel like I just kept on saying no."

  "No that's quite all right. You think I could get the address of Mr. Wilson's office? I don't think I have that anywhere in my records."

  "Of course."

  As they walked away from the dentist's office where Laura Wilson worked, Donnie asked Sam, "So what do you think we learned from that?"

  "I reckon we learned about his office. That was news to me."

  "That's right. Not everything is in City Hall. That's the purpose of these interviews, little bits and pieces of information, but that's not everything we learned. What else did you pick up?"

  "Well I'd have probably left him sooner," said Sam.

  "You wouldn't have married him in the first place. Nah, what we picked up was that he was excessively secretive. I've talked to diviners. They don't have to act like that. He was either no good at his job or working with clients that maybe didn't want him to so much as breathe a word of their existence, right?"

  "Maybe. He could also just be a prick. Or maybe she always made dry chicken and he just didn't like her."

  Donnie laughed at that.

  "It's a possibility," Donnie said. "But that's what we're doing. We're getting a picture. We're trying to figure out who this guy was. Did you see how I asked the questions?"

  "Yeah, it is a lot like interrogation. You paid attention to the answers. You had a goal but then when new information came up, you pursued it and didn't keep chasing after your goal blindly."

  "You think you could do that without beating the living shit out of them?"

  "I didn't always beat up the enemy soldiers I was interrogating. Sometimes I’d stab them."

  "I bet," said Donnie. "We had an interesting piece of information come up. I think it's time we go investigate Mr. Wilson's private office.

  "I'll show you how I get into a real rich building."