She pulled the iron gate closed between us, and the heavy latch dropped into its socket with a hard metallic clang.

A sudden gust of wind rushed down the sidewalk, rattling the bare oak branches above the street.

The scrap of garage receipt paper fluttered between my fingers in the autumn rain.

I folded the receipt, tucked it into my coat pocket next to a seventy-five-dollar parking garage slip, and met Arthur Vance at the County Records Office at ten o’clock the following morning.

The basement office smelled of damp concrete and old paper.