I pointed through the dirty windshield of the cab toward the southeast corner of the tin shed. A wooden loading pallet sat tilted against the corrugated metal, half-covered by a rotted canvas tarp. Sticking out from under the hem of the canvas was the corner of a heavy gray corrugated record carton, its paper binding swollen with moisture from the morning fog, the black stenciled letters clearly visible against the bleached cardboard: COUNTY DRAINAGE COMMISSION—VOLUMES 12 THROUGH 16 (1974–1981).
Grady Vance hadn't even bothered to lock them all inside. He had run out of dry space next to his fiberglass fishing boat, dumped the oldest files behind the rain gutter, and left them for the local trash truck to scoop up with the scrap iron on Monday morning.
Ross looked from the box to the gate, then down at his watch. It was eleven-twelve.
"Mr. Miller," Ross said, his voice dropping into a register that was no longer neutral. "If you touch that chain-link gate with your hands, I will have to cite you for interfering with an ongoing administrative review. But that Peterbilt has an eight-ton steel front bumper, and the county road crew hasn't graded this right-of-way since the last snow."
He turned his back on my truck, walked over to his cruiser, and sat down in the front seat with his door open, his radio spitting low bursts of static into the cold air.
I put both hands on the heavy steering wheel, pulled the range-selector up into low reverse, and looked toward the brass lock on the chain-link gate. My trailer was thirty feet longer than the turn lane, and if Harlan came down the gravel road before the lock gave way, I would be standing in an impound yard with my commercial license revoked and an old man’s land signed away to a gravel company.
I dropped the clutch, swung the long nose of the Peterbilt toward the galvanized pipe of the gatepost, and pressed my foot hard against the diesel throttle.
CHAPTER 3: The Hearing They Locked Down
The steel bumper of my Peterbilt struck the depot gatepost with a heavy, hollow boom that vibrated straight through the cab’s floorboards and shook the mirror brackets. The bottom hinges tore out of the cinder foundation, ripping galvanized link-fabric like wet window screen, and the gate folded inward under the steering axle. I hit the air brakes, cut the ignition, and stepped down onto the running board into the sharp smell of shredded zinc and exhaust.
Behind me, Special Investigator Ross was already out of his sedan, walking fast across the crushed stone with a black leather field binder open in his left hand. He didn't look at the dented bumper or the dangling fence pipe. He walked straight past the front tire to the tilted wooden pallet by the tin shed, knelt on one knee in the limestone mud, and seized the corner of the gray archive carton.
"Keep your hands off the bindings, Mr. Miller," Ross commanded, though his voice stayed low and steady. "Step over here and hold this tarp off the cardboard so the road grit doesn't smudge the ink."
I pulled back the stiff, mildewed canvas. There were four cartons stacked two-and-two on the splintered oak slats, bound together with yellow plastic municipal banding that bore the imprint Mercer County Annex Maintenance. The cardboard was damp along the bottom seam, but the top carton's wax seal was intact. Beneath the stenciled lettering, an official white linen tag fluttered in the draft: Deed of Perpetual Flowage & Aquifer Easement, Bell Family Trust to Mercer County Water Authority, Recorded June 14, 1978.
Ross produced a pocketknife, sliced the plastic band with one upward flick, and lifted the carton lid. Inside lay twelve heavy clothbound ledgers, their spine stitching thick with dried beeswax. He turned to the first ledger, ran a gloved finger down the index tab marked Section IV: Limestone Outcrops & Gravity Springs, and flattened the ledger across his thigh.