Samuel Reed Kept an Old Wooden Bat Behind the Pantry Door for Twenty Years

“A mortgage cannot be recorded without an acknowledgment,” he said.

“This one was recorded anyway.

Somebody at that counter took it.”

“Who?”

“The stamp does not say.

It says the county and the hour.

Nine forty in the morning.” He tapped the purple rectangle.

“It does not say whose hand took the filing fee.”