He walked toward the heavy glass doors to the street while I turned down the basement stairwell.

The land records archive was at the end of a long fluorescent hallway behind the furnace room.

Tall steel shelves held canvas-bound ledgers going back to the late eighteen hundreds.

An older clerk named Mr.

Henderson sat at a folding metal desk by the back window, eating an apple with a small pocketknife.

“I’m looking for parcel fourteen,” I said, setting my notepad on his counter.

“Section twelve, along the creek.”