“Can you unlock it?” I asked.

“Not without a written release order signed by a sitting circuit court judge,” Clara said.

“Or by the original sealing authority who filed it.”

I leaned in to read the small stamped brass tag hanging beside the padlock on vault locker four.

“Who filed the seal?”

“The archive log says Judge Harold Simmons,” Clara said.

I left the municipal building at two o’clock and drove back out to Cedar Lane.

When I pulled my truck up the long gravel driveway, my father’s gray Buick was already parked beside the cedar garden gate.