Daniel nodded once, quick and clipped.

“Then drive down to the municipal building before lunch.

Talk to Clara Potts in the tax records lobby.

Ask her to pull the physical paper registers for 2012, before everything went digital.”

The basement hallway of the Portsmouth Municipal Building smelled of cold stone, damp paste, and old paper.

Clara Potts stood behind the heavy steel counter in the vault lobby with a heavy brass key ring resting beside her blotter.

She lined up three yellow highlighters side by side on her clean counter mat before looking up at me.