“Do I get a comfy chair too?”

“You’ll get a knock upside your head, any more smart talk.”

Darla laughed. “Yes, behave yourself, Mr. Markhat.” She grabbed my elbow. “I just can’t take him anywhere.”

Burris chuckled and led us down a dark, narrow hallway that stank of mothballs. “Now, Miss, what kind of payroll records ’ere ye after? We’ve got everything more or less separated by theatre. You got yer northern divisions in Barracks One. Yer western divisions in Two and Three. Yer eastern in Four, and yer southern in Five.”

“We want the western ones, then. The Sixth, specifically, isn’t that right, hon?”

I nodded an affirmative. If Burris was mesmerized by Darla’s presence into being helpful I wasn’t going to break the spell by speaking.

“Well now. The Sixth. Big one, the Sixth. We ain’t got all them filed yet.” Old Burris risked a half-turn toward Darla and grinned at her. “But don’t you worry none, Miss. We’ll find what yer lookin’ for. Yes, we will.”

Turned out Master Sergeant Burris was a poor prophet.

Not that I blame him much. When we finally traversed the many halls and passed through the numerous rooms that lay between the front door and Barracks Two, we were greeted by crates stacked upon crates stacked upon crates, sixteen crates high in places, in heaps and mounds that stretched as far as the eye could see.

“Oh.” That was all Darla said. But she covered her heart with her right hand, a sure sign of distress.

A pigeon fluttered and another cooed, somewhere amid the crates.

I rolled up my sleeves. Burris set about finding chairs and lighting lamps. Darla lowered her hand and walked up to the first open crate she saw and started reading.

I slipped up behind her and put my hand on her shoulder. “It’s not as bad as it looks,” I said. “The crates with the actual ledgers will be marked in red. The ones with troop rosters will say rosters. The rest we can ignore.”

“That narrows it down to only a few thousand.”

“And you wonder why I yawn so frequently.”

She managed a smile. “This is actually part of an expense account.”

“Then we don’t need it. Over there. That one. Let’s start there.”

I pointed to a red crate, sitting alone at the edge of a teetering stack of ten. The lid was already pried off. We made our way to it, each grabbed a side, and hauled it over to the rickety old table Burris managed to push away from the wall.

I grabbed a fistful of papers. Darla did the same. Dust flew.

“This ought to be our best date ever.”

“Shush. Darling. Where are the dates?”

“Upper left corner. They write them all backwards.” I shrugged at her raised eyebrow. “It’s the Army. Don’t ask.”

She laughed, settled into her chair, and we plowed into our first red crate.

By mid-morning, I had sorted through two entire crates. Aside from disturbing a family of mice and raising a substantial cloud of dust, my efforts were for naught as far as finding any connection between Lethway and Fields.

Darla, on the other hand, was so engrossed she’d stopped speaking. She had covered the table and built another table out of empty crates and then she’d started just stacking papers on the floor while she darted between them, staring and muttering. Her notebook was filled with page after page of scribbles. They were in some accountant’s shorthand, so my peek at them told me nothing.

When Darla gets immersed in numbers, she might as well be out West. I handed her heaps of papers when she appeared to run low and Burris kept her supplied with coffee and freshly-sharpened pencils.

Noon came and went. Burris sent his clerk out for sandwiches. Darla ate hers on the move. I emptied another pair of crates before I found my first glimmer of a clue-a disbursement entry made out to one H. Fields, who bore the rank of private first class, and who was listed as officer’s cook.

Another half-hour of searching matched that ledger with another, and that one with yet another, and with that I was able to establish that Tamar’s father had indeed served as a cook in the eighth regiment of the Kingery Division of the second battalion of the Sixth Army of the West.

“Hurrah,” I said, leaning back in my chair and stretching. “I just confirmed what we already knew. Mr. Fields was a cook in the Sixth. I’d promote myself, if I weren’t already the boss.”

Burris snorted. He had an armload of papers and was waiting patiently for Darla to notice and take them from him.

Darla took the papers and smiled at Burris.

“Is there anything else you’ll be wantin’, Miss?”

“Another pot of coffee would be lovely,” said Darla. I swear she even batted her eyes.

She needn’t have done so. Burris was already shuffling off toward the kitchen, promising not only coffee but biscuits and honey as well.

“You’re going to give the old boy a stroke.” I rose and caught her from behind in a hug. “Now then. Care to tell me what it is that’s got you so excited?”

I nuzzled her neck. It’s a nice neck for nuzzling.

She laughed and settled back against me.

“I’m about to make you a very happy man,” she said.

“You do that here and we’ll have to haul old Burris out in a box.”

She turned in my embrace and draped her arms around my neck.

“Your Mr. Fields not just a cook in the eighth regiment of the Kingery Division of the second battalion of the Sixth Army of the West. He was a private cook, for an officer.” She rubbed the tip of her nose against mine. “Care to guess the name of that officer?”

“You don’t say.”

“I don’t. The records do. They knew each other well, my bleary-eyed intended. Didn’t you say they both denied ever meeting the other?”

“I did. They did.”

“Then you were right. Everybody lies.”

“You don’t.”

She smiled and kissed me.

A door down the hall slammed. We separated.

“There’s more.” Darla nodded toward the maze of papers she’d spread across the floor. “Someone was cooking the books. Nothing balances. Supplies were being bought and paid for, but weren’t being delivered. Dead soldiers were being paid after being buried. Someone in the Sixth was robbing the Kingdom blind.”

“Any idea who?”

She sighed. “Not yet. Maybe not ever. So much is missing. But they weren’t even trying, Markhat. Was no one reading anything?”

“I doubt it. The War wasn’t going well. And then it ended, the Kingdom collapsed and…” I shrugged. “Well, they put old Burris on the case. How much are we talking, just guessing?”

“Tens of thousands. Hundreds, perhaps.”

“Enough to set yourself up in style after the War.”

“Weren’t the Lethways already rich?”

“That’s a post-War house they’re in.”

“The Fields too.”

“Could just be coincidence. But why lie about serving together?”

Darla glared at the mountain of papers. “I’ll need more time. Lots more time.”

I chuckled and took her hand. “You’ve got a business to run, young woman. We’ll stick around until Burris locks the doors. But I don’t want to catch you hanging around here tomorrow. I think the Master Sergeant has designs on your person.”

She giggled. “I do like older men.”

Burris emerged down the hall, bearing a platter of biscuits and coffee.

“Well, don’t let me stand in the way of true love.”

She rushed down the hall to help Burris with the platter. I watched her go, then turned back to yet another box of forgotten scribbles and useless ciphers.

Damned if Darla and I didn’t spend the entire day and a good part of the evening in the Barracks.

When we finally emerged, dusty and bleary-eyed, we had established that Lethway and Fields were lying about their service together. And Darla was convinced that the Sixth was used as a private bankroll by someone high in the chain of command.