Chapter 4

Ross Cade's hands went still on the folder.

"What paper?" I said.

"Miss Vance-"

"What paper, Mr. Cade."

He walked back into his office and I followed, and Della followed, and Wade did not, which told me more than anything anybody had said all night. Ross opened the folder he'd been carrying since six o'clock and slid a single page across the desk.

Photocopy. Slightly gray at the edges. Recorded document stamp in the corner from the county clerk's office.

QUITCLAIM DEED. For and in consideration of ten dollars and other good and valuable consideration, the undersigned Ruthie Anne Vance hereby releases, remises and forever quitclaims unto Eula-May Pruitt, her heirs and assigns, all right, title and interest in and to that certain parcel of thirty-eight acres situated in the county of Ridgeline, Commonwealth of Virginia.

Signed by Ruthie Anne Vance. March 14, 1998.

Witnessed by Wade Pruitt.

Notarized by Ross Cade.

I read it four times. My mother's signature was the same one that signed my permission slips for field trips, slanted and quick, the R running into the U.

Under the notary block there was a commission number and a date. March 14, 1998.

Ross Cade was watching my face, and he was not watching it the way a lawyer watches a client.

"What," I said.

He picked up the page and turned it toward the desk lamp. He put one finger on the date next to his own notary stamp and held it there.

"I didn't notarize this," he said.

"You're on it."

"I'm on it. That's my stamp. That's my commission number." His voice had dropped. "But I wasn't in Ridgeline that week, Miss Vance. I was in Richmond at a seminar. I remember the week, because it's the week my brother had his surgery and I drove back early."

He sat down slowly, in the chair behind his own desk, which he had not done once all night.

"I have never seen the original of this. It came back to me in 2010 in a chain-of-title package from the heirs' side, and I looked at it the way you look at a cable bill." He put both hands flat on the desk. "Somebody used my stamp."

Della Ashby was still standing in the doorway. She had one hand on the frame, and she was very pale.

"Della," I said. "Were you at that table."

"I was at the table," she said.

"What did he do."

She opened her mouth and then she closed it and she said, "I've got to see about the flowers," and she left, and her heels went fast down the hall, and I heard the outside door bang.

I sat alone in Ross Cade's office for a minute and took the Polaroid out of my cardigan pocket.

The date in the white border was written in ballpoint, faint and pressed hard enough to dent the paper.

July 1997.

Not March 1998. July 1997.

Eight months. My mother didn't leave Ridgeline in March of 1998 and disappear. She left something in July of 1997, and then she stayed, and then she signed a paper that sent her away.

My phone rang in my pocket.

I didn't recognize the number. I almost didn't answer it.

"This is Hattie."

"Hattie Vance." An old woman's voice, dry as a paper sack, and loud, like she'd been waiting to be heard. "I heard what you did over at the parlor tonight. I'm Birdie Stanhope. I worked the Bluebell counter for eleven years, and Eula-May fired me in 1998, and I've been sitting in this house ever since, waiting on somebody to ask me one question."