He waved me toward the narrow hallway by the back microfiche cabinets.

“Valerie, why is Lawrence Vance filing paperwork against you in administrative services?” Pete asked.

“What did he file?”

“A formal ethics complaint with the chief clerk at nine fifteen this morning,” Pete said, pulling a yellow file copy out of his coat pocket.

“Six pages.

He claims you used county legal search databases to dig up private information on local real estate companies.”

I took the document from Pete and checked the filing stamp in the upper right margin.