The Purple Patch - Missouri Valley College

guy falling down my stairs and breaking his neck,” Roberts
replied.
Jensen cleared his throat, looked at Roberts with
that twinkle in the eye that drunken people have, grinned
at him and said, “No, dude, I got it, I’m quite sure a flight
of stairs isn’t gonna do me in.”
“I had Prentiss do section one, I just wanna finish
up section two,” said Dave. “Section two is a helluva lot
smaller than section one, we should be done down here in
no time.” Neatly arranged down the descending stair leading
to the basement were 8x10 framed photographs. On
the one side were various pictures of Dave and June Roberts.
Their wedding, vacation pictures from Niagara Falls,
and candid posed shots of just June herself. Along the
other wall were pictures of Dave and June together with
Burt Stockton, mainly consisting of their trip to the Grand
Canyon. Jensen had seen those dozens of times, but this
time he deliberately ignored them.
The file vault was set twelve feet from the bottom
step, recessed into the left wall of the basement, not unlike
a safety deposit box vault found in a bank, only much
smaller. File section one occupied the left side of the vault,
while section three took up the right side. Section two was
straight ahead, fifteen feet from the door. Roberts punched
in the access code, and the huge steel door swung open.
The overhead fluorescent lights automatically illuminated,
and Jensen followed Roberts inside. While Roberts opened
a file cabinet in section one, Jensen went straight to number
two.
Flipping through files, acting as if he was annoyed
by something, Roberts briefly stopped what he was doing
and said,
“Oh damn . . . that’s right . . . I didn’t bring the
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