"And the number is three hundred twelve?" Tanaka asked.
"Yes, Your Honor," Audrey said. "One of the files is mine."
"Then three hundred eleven other households may receive information they were not given when those forms were signed."
The agreement did not establish that every person was entitled to restitution. It did establish that the county would no longer be the only party deciding whether a prior waiver deserved examination. The judge approved the stipulated terms subject to the required written order, reminding both sides that the court was accepting an agreement, not declaring that every unresolved allegation had been proved.
Afterward, Harvey sat at the dining table and grinned at Audrey across his coffee. "Three hundred twelve letters."
"Three hundred eleven others," she said. "And one for a woman who already spent more time reading the files than anyone was supposed to."
"Your mama would've sent every letter with a piece of pound cake."
"She would've made sure the address was right first."
The state announced an audit of Rusk's department later that week. The sheriff had not been charged, and Audrey refused to treat that fact as proof of either his innocence on every issue or his guilt without the necessary evidence. The audit would examine expenditures, seized assets, supervision, and how county officials decided which property owners received a hearing. The wall of Seizure of the Week photographs disappeared from the North Station one evening, leaving pale rectangles where the frames had hung.
Asked why the photographs were gone, Rusk told a reporter the building needed paint. The answer was so small that Harvey nearly laughed when he heard it. Audrey merely wrote it down alongside the date, the same way she had documented far more serious claims. A record did not have to be dramatic to be worth keeping.
Then Rosalind Eckert called. The judicial council had finished its review. It would issue its decision, but Eckert would not announce the result by telephone. She asked Audrey to come to chambers the next morning and suggested, with a warmth unusual for her, that she wear something she liked.
Audrey placed both repaired earrings on the dining table. She looked at the slight ripple in the left one and wondered whether the council's decision would return her to the bench or finish an abbreviated judicial career. She had accepted the possibility that a public accusation could cost her work even after the underlying criminal allegation fell apart. What she had not accepted was that her mother's scholarship should disappear while every official involved insisted the paperwork had spoken.
The next morning, Eckert stood as Audrey entered. That had never happened before. The chief judge gestured toward a chair and slid a signed document across the desk.