Mercer.
Water cooperative.
Spring easement.
Various spellings.
No easy answer.
Eli sat back.
For the first time, the safe felt heavy again.
Eight hundred pounds of mystery.
Maybe no legal power at all.
He began sliding the survey into its protective folder.
The paper shifted.
Light from the courthouse window struck the reverse side.
Faint pencil marks appeared.
Eli stopped.
“Wait.”
He held the sheet closer.
Almost erased by time, a notation ran along the back edge.
J. Whitaker duplicate retained.
Below it, an old file reference.
Ellis stared.
“John Whitaker.”
Mrs. Donnelly looked up.
“You know the name?”
“County surveyor.”
“Before my time.”
“My father knew him.”
Ellis stood.
“His son still lives outside town.”
They drove there that afternoon.
Henry Whitaker's property looked like a museum of surveying history.
Old tripods leaned against a shed.
Wooden measuring rods hung from rafters.
Metal cases filled the porch.
Henry himself was in his sixties, tall, narrow, and suspicious of visitors until Ellis mentioned John Whitaker.