Henderson said, stepping back toward the stairs.

“He paid double the market value just to empty the building by the end of the month.”

“I understand,” I said.

I closed the door and laid the eviction notice on the kitchen counter next to Toby’s morning medicine bottle.

Two hours later, I took the elevator up to the third floor of the county courthouse to collect the last of my reference books from my old desk.

Pete, the senior docket clerk who had worked the front counter for twenty years, stepped out of the staff break room when he saw me coming down the corridor.