“He pushed the big steamships away from the rocks when the fog came in.”

I sat at my desk and opened the quarterly accounting ledger to record the county retainer deposit.

Marcus reached into his breast pocket and took out a yellowed paper certificate printed in faded green ink.

“What’s that?” I asked.

“A ten-thousand-dollar Series EE savings bond issued in 1991,” Marcus said.

“Eleanor hid it in her personal safe deposit box thirty years ago, but the court liquidator released it to me yesterday.”

He set the certificate on my desk blotter and took a silver fountain pen from his vest.