"They won't stamp it," I said, shifting the van into gear. "Pete, call the clerk of the appellate division in Lansing. Tell Judge Keller’s judicial assistant that Cross Industrial is attempting an unauthorized filing on French Road at eight-thirty. Tell them to keep the verification line open."
"I'm on it," Pete said. "Don't crack that van up on the ramps."
I hit the downtown connector at 8:04 AM. The morning commuter traffic along Jefferson Avenue was crawling through dirty slush, delivery trucks blocking the service alleys and courthouse workers hustling up the granite steps beneath black umbrellas. I didn't bother looking for a commercial parking structure. I swung the utility van over the curb into an alley loading zone behind the municipal building, shut off the shuddering engine, and left the hazard flashers blinking against the yellow brick wall.
I unzipped my coat, transferred my Michigan driver's license, Ramos's stamped incident report, and Judge Keller's certified appellate decree into my leather portfolio, and locked the van doors.
The ground-floor lobby of the Coleman A. Young building was packed with people shaking out wet coats and emptying their pockets into gray plastic bins at the metal detectors. Two armed Wayne County sheriff's deputies manned the magnetometers, their radios squawking with morning docket calls. I put my portfolio flat on the conveyor belt, stepped through the sensor frame, collected my folder, and took the marble stairs two at a time up to the sixth floor rather than waiting for the crowded elevators.
The Register of Deeds office occupied the north rotunda of the sixth floor. Behind a heavy security counter made of brushed steel and bulletproof glass, four recording clerks sat beneath brass placards numbered one through four. A line of title examiners, real estate couriers, and paralegals had already formed along the velvet rope stanchions.
At the front of Window 4 stood Raymond Cross.
He was wearing an expensive camel-hair topcoat over a tailored navy suit, his silver hair neatly combed back, leaning against the counter with the casual, expansive posture of a man who owned the room. Beside him was his attorney, Harlan Vance, a thin man in rimless spectacles clutching an open leather briefcase. And standing between them, his hands resting lightly on the polished steel counter, was the man who had answered to my name on Flight 418.
He had shed the charcoal overcoat. He wore a crisp white dress shirt and a dark wool sweater, looking every inch the respectable small-business owner completing a routine probate transfer. On the counter beside his elbow sat my father’s green metal file box, its keyed brass latch forced open with visible pry marks along the seam. Next to it, pulled straight from the false bottom of my stolen tool chest, was the heavy circular brass embosser of Ross Precision Boring.
"We have all supporting documents pre-notarized, Deputy Green," Harlan Vance was saying to the clerk behind the glass, his voice smooth and practiced. "Due to the urgent tax liabilities pending against the French Road parcel, my client, Mr. David Ross, is executing an emergency statutory conveyance to Cross Industrial Tooling to satisfy the outstanding corporate debts of the estate. The corporate seal is present, the operating agreements from the family safe are attached, and Mr. Ross is prepared to provide his sworn signature under penalty of perjury."
The clerk, a veteran county recording deputy named Marcus Green whose reading glasses hung from a silver chain around his neck, adjusted his spectacles and took the conveyance document.
"The probate court in Lansing was supposed to issue a final decree on this parcel yesterday afternoon," Deputy Green said, tapping his keyboard to check the statewide registry docket. "The state court system hasn't posted the electronic certificate yet."
"There was an administrative delay due to the weather in Lansing," Vance lied without blinking. "Which is precisely why Section 600 of the Revised Judicature Act permits the sole surviving officer to file an affidavit of preservation before nine o'clock. If the transfer isn't recorded by nine, the bank’s lien defaults, the county sheriff schedules an auction, and eighty precision manufacturing jobs are eliminated. Mr. Ross is acting to save the enterprise."
The imposter nodded solemnly. "My father spent forty years building that shop, Deputy Green. I'm not going to let a bureaucratic delay destroy what he left behind. I'm David Ross. I'm prepared to sign right now."
He reached into his breast pocket and drew out my father’s brass drafting pencil, rolling the knurled grip between his fingers.
"Step away from the counter," I said.
My voice didn't echo, but the flat, sharp violence in it cut straight through the low hum of the rotunda. The paralegals in line turned instantly. Harlan Vance froze, his pen hovering an inch above his open briefcase.
Raymond Cross turned slowly, his face hardening as he saw me standing six feet away, my work boots stained with highway salt, my canvas coat damp from the rain, my jaw dark with twenty-four hours of beard stubble. For half a second, his eyes widened with unmistakable shock, but he recovered before the recording clerk could register it. A thin, vicious smirk pulled at the corner of his mouth.