He tapped the eraser against his wooden clipboard, the sharp clicks filling the quiet space between the green filing cabinets.
“The deed for the Elm Lane property is in the closed archives,” Walter whispered, his eyes darting toward the frosted glass door behind him. “The county doesn’t like people digging through those folders without a written request from a lawyer.”
“I only need the owner’s name from 2006,” I said, keeping my voice down to match his. “The year the state built the new bypass.”
“That was the year of the county revaluation,” Walter said, his whispers growing even quicker. “A lot of those files were moved to the dead storage room after the spring flood.”
“Are they still down there?” I asked.
“Most of them,” he said, looking at his clipboard as if it held a secret map. “But some of the folders have red tags on them. That means they require mayoral clearance before copying.”
“Thomas’s clearance?” I asked.
Walter did not answer, but his pencil tapped three times in rapid succession against the metal clip.
“The commissioners look at every single transaction,” Walter whispered, his pencil tapping faster against the clipboard. “If they see your name on an old parcel search, they’ll ask me why I’m helping you instead of filing the road maintenance reports.”
“I’m not trying to get you in trouble, Walter,” I said.
“My mother needs her medicine, Margaret,” he said, his voice sinking so low I had to lean forward to hear him over the radiator. “I can’t afford to get suspended over some old piece of dirt that the county is about to tear down anyway.”
He disappeared into the rear stacks, his soft-soled shoes squeaking on the linoleum.
I waited by the counter, my thumb tracing the groove on my ring finger while the radiator in the corner hissed and spat steam.
Walter returned five minutes later carrying a thin gray folder with a rusted metal fastener at the top. He laid it flat on the counter but kept his hand pressed firmly over the label, his knuckles tense.
