Rountree passed five years ago,” he said.

“Who’s calling?”

“Just somebody trying to track down an old family acquaintance, I suppose,” I said.

I hung the receiver back on the wall hook, and the plastic clicked into place.

The paper tax record from Carl’s phone search lay flat on the kitchen table, with the date of the deed transfer printed near the bottom in clear black numbers: four hundred and ten thousand dollars paid to an estate account in Tyler.

By noon I was behind the counter at the gas station, watching the orange register numbers climb as a milk truck driver paid for forty gallons of diesel.