He reached into his leather wallet and counted five hundred-dollar bills and one fifty onto the coffee table.

“Your mother took good care of this set, Clara,” he said.

“Yes,” I said.

“She really did.”

I held the front door for him as he carried the wooden storage chest out to his car and put it in the trunk.

At four o’clock Vance met me on the wide stone steps of the Oakhaven County Courthouse.

The clerk’s office on the first floor smelled of radiator dust, wet coats and floor wax.

Martha, the head teller from Oakhaven Savings Bank, who also worked part-time as a county records clerk, sat behind the glass counter.