She turned the knob and scrolled through three days of local reports while the machine hummed softly in the little room.

“The state police logged two deer strikes and a stalled grain truck,” Arlene said.

“There’s no accident recorded for Claire Rowan anywhere in November 1990.”

“Are you sure?”

Arlene slid her glasses back down onto her nose and pointed at the glass plate.

“I was county clerk for twenty-two years, Mara,” she said.

“If anybody local died on a county road, it made this paper within forty-eight hours.”

“And the probate registry?”