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checked on recent sales around the state, but that had produced no viable suspects. There was no sign of forced entry and none of the neigh- bors had heard anything. No appliances had been stolen and not much was missing. Fontaine had favored wearing an expensive watch, and a gold ring evidencing his membership in a mathe- matical society. Those were gone, as was any cash he'd had in his wallet. The evidence suggested he'd been composing a letter to his oldest sister on the evening of his murder. The computer in his upstairs study was still on when the police arrived. A police tech- nician had examined it, as well as the computer in Fontaine's office, but found nothing remarkable. Those efforts became sig- nificant when the feds entered the case because they had yielded no evidence of any correspondence with Carolyn Chang or Don- ald Underwood. Gilbert and his colleagues had interviewed dozens of people. I studied the notes of each interview, but nothing jumped out at me. Nobody knew why anyone would want Fontaine dead. He had been a likable man with a good sense of humor. Bottom line, the killer was still out there. I bought ten dollars in dimes from the county treasurer, then photocopied every document in Gil- bert's file. While at the courthouse, I decided to see if Fontaine's estate had gone through probate. The probate court was on the second floor, and the clerk of the probate court was a blue-hair named Edna who'd probably been working there thirty years. She was gossiping with a much younger civil servantress when I approached. "Good morning," I said. "Td like to see a probate file on a man named Paul Fontaine. He died last year." "Are you an attorney?" she asked. It was a public record and I had a right to see it, but practicing law had taught me that court