Chương 10
Then she asked Sam for access to old rental ledgers.
Sam laughed.
“Paper or electronic?”
“Both.”
“Electronic depends on whether Sheriff Harper took the only hard drive that matters.”
“And paper?”
Sam pointed toward a metal filing cabinet.
“Those he was too modern to notice.”
That earned the first visible smile from Whitaker.
“Good.”
Marcus checked his phone.
“I need to make a call.”
I nodded.
He stepped away toward the road.
My mother watched him.
“He has people waiting for him.”
“Yes.”
“So do you.”
The comment was quiet.
That made it worse.
“I filed for extended leave.”
“That is not the same thing.”
“No.”
She looked toward unit 214.
“You always wanted a life bigger than this place.”
There was no accusation in the words this time.
That made them harder to defend against.
“I wanted a different life.”
“I know.”
“Dad wanted me to go.”
“He did.”
“You did too.”
“I did.”
She rubbed one thumb against the seam of her purse.
“Then every time you left, I hated it.”
I looked at her.
She shrugged with one shoulder.
“Parents are hypocrites.”
“That’s convenient.”
“It’s free.”
I almost smiled.
Then her expression changed.
“Frank did not blame you.”
“I didn’t say he did.”
“You’re doing that thing where you start punishing yourself before anybody else gets the chance.”
“I’m standing in a storage lot.”
“You were doing it while eating crackers.”
That did make me smile, briefly.
She saw it.
“Better.”
Whitaker called me over.
“We found something in the old ledger.”
Sam had opened a thick spiral-bound book on the office counter.
The pages smelled faintly of dust and mildew.
Each line held a unit number, renter name, payment status, and notes.
Unit 214 listed F. Turner.
The payments stopped five years and nine months ago.
“Why wasn’t the unit cleared?” I asked.
Sam turned back two pages.
“Because my uncle marked it prepaid.”
“For how long?”
Sam pointed.
“Ten years.”
My mother blinked.
“Frank paid ten years?”
“Cash.”
“How much?”
“Eight thousand four hundred.”
She sat down.
I understood why.
My father had complained for two months about replacing a seven-hundred-dollar commercial refrigerator gasket.
He would not have paid eight thousand dollars for storage unless he believed he was buying time.
Whitaker ran one finger down the margin without touching the paper.
“There’s another notation.”
Beside the rental entry, in a different pen, someone had written B-17.
I leaned closer.
“That’s not Dad’s handwriting.”
Sam nodded.
“That’s my uncle’s.”
“What was B-17?”
He frowned.
“I don’t know.”
Whitaker asked, “Did your uncle use letter prefixes for anything?”
“Not units.”
“Files?”
“Maybe.”
“Buildings?”
“No.”
He stood and walked toward the back office.
I followed until Whitaker held up a hand.
“Let him look.”
Sam returned carrying a cardboard banker’s box.
The top was labeled OLD CONTRACTS.
He put it on the desk and began sorting folders.
Most were leases, vendor agreements, insurance notices, and tax correspondence.
Then he stopped.
“There.”
He pulled out a folded site plan.
The storage property had been drawn in three sections.
Building A.
Building B.
Building C.
Building B had twenty-four numbered bays.
“B-17,” Marcus said from behind us.
I turned.
He had finished his call.
“Building B, bay seventeen.”
Sam shook his head.
“That building was demolished.”
“When?”
“Three years ago.”
My mother let out a breath.
“Then whatever was there is gone.”
Sam did not answer.
Whitaker noticed.
“What?”
He tapped the site plan.
“Building B wasn’t normal storage.”
“What was it?”
“Climate-controlled archive space.”
“For what?”
“Mostly business records.”
“Demolished where?”
“Not demolished.”
He looked embarrassed.
“My uncle sold the structure.”
I stared at him.
“The whole building?”
“Modular steel frame.”
“Where did it go?”
“County fairgrounds.”
Greene looked up from his phone.
“They bought a used storage building?”
Sam nodded.
“Converted it into records and equipment space behind the livestock pavilion.”
My mother laughed once.
“Of course they did.”
Whitaker asked, “Who controls access?”
Sam looked at her.
“The county.”
That answer sat badly with everyone.
Greene said, “And Sheriff Harper?”
“Has keys to most county facilities.”
Whitaker closed the ledger.
“We’re not going there without authorization.”
I felt my patience thinning.
“We have evidence that Harper just participated in breaking into one location tied to these records.”
“Yes.”
“And now the second location is under county control.”
“Yes.”
“So every minute matters.”
Whitaker looked directly at me.
“I agree.”
“You don’t sound like you do.”
“Because urgency is not permission.”
I held her gaze.
Marcus shifted beside me.
Not warning.
Reminding.
Whitaker continued.
“If I move wrong and Harper’s attorney can characterize this as an unlawful search, I turn your father’s records into a courtroom argument about procedure.”
That stopped me.
Not because I liked it.
Because I knew she was right.
My mother said, “Can you get permission?”
“Yes.”
“How long?”
“I’m working on it.”
“That answer is becoming unpopular.”
“I’ve noticed.”
Greene’s phone rang.
He answered, listened, and held up one finger.
Then he turned toward Whitaker.
“Postal supervisor has no active or historical box under Frank Turner or Turner’s Family Diner.”
“So B-17 is probably the county building.”
“Probably.”
Whitaker looked toward Sam.
“Can you verify your uncle used that notation after the sale?”
Sam returned to the ledger.
He found three other entries.
A-4.
B-6.
B-19.
Each appeared beside storage contracts from the old archive building.
“Looks like he moved selected renter materials to matching bays,” he said.
“Why?”
“Some clients prepaid long term.”
I pointed at B-17.
“So Dad’s material could have been transferred when the building moved.”
“Yes.”
“Could.”
“Yes.”
The word again.
This time I welcomed it.
Could was honest.
Whitaker made three calls.
The first went to a superior.
The second went to a county attorney who did not answer.
The third lasted eight minutes and included long stretches where she said nothing.
May you like
During those eight minutes, my mother found a paper clip on the office floor and bent it straight with one hand.
She did it slowly, concentrating far too hard.
