“That’s why he wants my four-foot strip,” I said.

“He has to show a clean expanded easement to lock in a bridge loan before the deadline.”

Nora gave a single nod, her voice exact and calm.

“He tried to steal the land because he’s drowning,” she said.

“He forged the township map because he was out of time,” I said.

I took the certified copy of the 1984 township deed and put it in the first blue folder.

Behind it I slipped a copy of the township land commissioner’s letter from three months earlier.