A
Bajoran woman, Vaatrik Pallra, hires Quark to retrieve a
strongbox from her late husband's shop on
Deep Space Nine. Quark opens it to find a list of Bajoran names. A stranger, Trazko, sneaks up, shoots Quark and steals the list. As
Dr. Bashir tries to revive Quark, Quark's brother
Rom tells
Odo about the list of names, and that the box was hidden in the shop during the Occupation. In a
flashback, five years earlier, Odo is solicited by the station's Cardassian commander
Gul Dukat to investigate a murder. Odo interrogates Vaatrik Pallra, the deceased's widow. She claims her husband had been having an affair with Kira Nerys. When he interviews Kira, she says that there was no intimate relationship between her and Vaatrik, and that she was interviewing for a job at Quark's bar at the time of the murder. In the present, Rom tells Odo that one name on the list resembled "Ches'so". Odo interviews Pallra, who claims ignorance of the list of names and the name "Ches'so". She also refuses to divulge the identity of the individual who loaned the money to pay her past-due electricity bill. Kira identifies "Ches'so": a philanthropist named "Ches'sarro", who has just died in suspicious circumstances. Five years earlier, Quark admits that Kira bribed him to provide a false alibi. When Odo confronts her about it, Kira reveals that she was committing a
terrorist attack on the station. Odo tells Dukat that Kira is not the culprit in the murder. In the present, Odo deduces that the names on the list are Bajorans who collaborated with the Cardassians during the occupation, whom Pallra has been
blackmailing. Trazko attempts again to kill Quark; Rom saves Quark's life by screaming, gaining the attention of security officers. Brought to DS9, Pallra denies knowing Trazko, but Odo has confirmed that she recently transferred a large sum of money into his bank account. When she declares her innocence in the murder of her husband, Odo replies, "I know." Odo has realized that it is Kira who killed Vaatrik five years earlier. He tells Kira that he began to suspect her when she was able to identify Ches'saro so quickly. When he deduced that the list consisted of Bajoran collaborators, Odo realized that Vaatrik was a collaborator too, and now understands that Dukat chose him to investigate so as to keep distance from his collaborators. Kira, a member of the resistance, killed Vaatrik in self-defence when he caught her trying to steal the list of names. She never told Odo because she was afraid it would affect their friendship. Kira asks him if he will be able to trust her again, and he is unable to answer. ==Reception==