“He kept four hundred dollars I needed for rent, for tools my own hands used every day on your project.”

“He did,” Nathaniel said.

“And now it’s written down on state evidence paper.”

He gathered the twelve red-tabbed folders into one neat, square stack in the middle of the oak table.

He picked his heavy leather briefcase up off the floor, set the stack inside, and pressed the heavy leather cover down until both brass latches snapped shut.

The clock on the hearing room wall read four minutes past nine when Arthur Vance’s attorney leaned back in his leather chair.

“This entire claim rests on the unverified word of a former temp worker who left the project site voluntarily,” the attorney said, tapping his brass ballpoint pen against a thick leather folder.