I immediately imagined Adrian had taken it.
The librarian checked the circulation ledger and discovered it had been sent for conservation after water damage.
She telephoned the restoration room and confirmed that the album was still there.
My imagined conspiracy dissolved in a minute.
Claire gave me a look that required no explanation.
When the album returned, we studied every page.
The photographs showed children receiving certificates beside adults who smiled without seeming to notice how tired some of the children looked.
A handwritten caption identified Elliot under a nickname.
Another identified a girl named Marsha, who later became a nurse in North Carolina.
Naomi sent Marsha a respectful request for contact through a professional association.
She did not assume that being photographed meant Marsha wanted to recount her childhood.
Marsha responded a week later.
She remembered Ruth as the woman who corrected the spelling of the children’s names on certificates.
The detail seemed trivial until she explained that several official records had repeatedly confused the names of siblings.
Ruth had insisted that mistakes in names could become mistakes in legal identity.
I kept that thought with me through the months that followed.
Chapter 24C: A Neighbor Who Had Waited
The woman across the street from my house was named Alma Benton.
She was eighty, wore bright scarves, and kept a small bowl of water outside for birds.
We had exchanged greetings for years without discussing family history.
After Hazel’s newspaper letter appeared, Alma came to my porch with a cake and an unusual admission.
She had witnessed the landscaping crew working near the mailbox on Wednesday.
At the time, she assumed I had hired them.
The workers had spent less than ten minutes at the post.
One held a clipboard while the other used a battery-powered driver.
Alma had written the time in her gardening notebook because she worried their vehicle blocked the mail carrier.
She gave us the date and vehicle description.
I thanked her and passed the information to Ortiz.
Alma asked whether speaking up would require her to attend court.
I told her I could not promise otherwise.
She thought about that for a moment.
“I have never liked courtrooms,” she said.
“But I like people tampering with my neighbors’ property even less.”
Alma later provided a formal statement.
Her notebook helped investigators narrow the timing of the suspected installation.
It did not identify who authorized the work.
For that, they needed a different source.
Alma did not demand that her contribution solve everything.
