The scraping I’d heard through Bennett’s shut door when I dropped my suitcase on Wednesday hadn’t been Frank opening the safe to check tax papers.

Frank had dragged the iron safe across the floor to get at the wall cavity behind it, so he could hide the original 1984 abstract in the trim after taking it out of the safe.

He’d needed the original abstract out of sight so nobody could compare its real parcel boundaries with the false legal description he’d filed at the courthouse.

I smoothed the yellowed paper over my knees, reading my mother’s clear handwriting along the boundary margin.