A paragraph had been circled in red ink.
The paragraph referred to a proposed contract for emergency equipment distribution during major winter storms.
The bidder was a company called Northern Relief Logistics.
I did not recognize the name.
Below the circled paragraph, someone had written a single sentence.
Ask who owns the company.
I showed the page to Rachel after dinner.
She asked whether I thought Martin Sloane had sent it.
I said I had no reason to believe that.
She asked whether it might be another attempt to drag me into Trish’s affairs.
I said that seemed more likely than a random mistake.
Rachel suggested we contact Denise and let her decide whether the page mattered.
I photographed the envelope and the contents before putting them in a folder.
Denise answered the following morning.
She sounded surprised when I mentioned Northern Relief Logistics.
She said the county had issued a request for proposals to improve the distribution of emergency supplies.
The procurement process was being handled by a separate office.
She had not been involved in evaluating bids.
I asked whether she knew who owned the company.
She said she did not.
Then she asked why I wanted to know.
I explained the envelope and the visit from Martin Sloane.
Denise was silent for a moment.
She asked me to forward a copy to the county procurement officer rather than investigate it myself.
I agreed immediately.
I had no interest in becoming an amateur detective simply because a stranger had decided to mail me a mystery.
Two days later, the procurement officer confirmed receipt and said the matter would be reviewed through ordinary channels.
I thought that would be the end of it.
Then Gerald called me from his shop.
He said a representative of Northern Relief Logistics had asked whether Pike Equipment and Supply would supply generators under a new county contract.
Gerald had declined because the proposed terms required him to reserve equipment without a guaranteed purchase order.
He said he could not promise scarce machines to a middleman while local customers waited at his counter.
I asked why he was telling me.
He said the representative had mentioned my name.
According to Gerald, the man claimed that I had endorsed the company’s emergency distribution plan.
I told Gerald that I had never heard of the company until the anonymous letter arrived.
Gerald said that was what he had suspected.
Then he asked whether I remembered the way Trish had claimed a store understood an arrangement that had never existed.
I told him I remembered it perfectly.
