Payments to people inside the sheriff’s office. Permits approved by Mayor Brooks in exchange for a percentage of each transaction. Your father had begun documenting everything.”

He slid the folder toward me. Inside were photocopies comparing official property records with contracts that didn’t match — signatures altered, dates changed, payment records that no longer lined up with the filings.

Beneath the paperwork rested a small black digital recorder, the kind once sold beside batteries and disposable cameras, its plastic casing scratched from years of use.

“Your father recorded a meeting,” Harold said quietly. “The last meeting he attended before he died.”

I stared at it.

“I kept it in a safe-deposit box for six years. I was waiting for someone from your family to come looking. Someone brave enough — or angry enough.”