The foreclosure notice was crisp.
Modern.
Threatening.
The old receipt was worn, almost fragile.
Jonah stared at Samuel’s signature.
“Your father hated that pen.”
Evelyn’s eyes snapped to him.
“What?”
“The brass-nibbed one.”
“He said it scratched.”
Evelyn sat slowly.
She remembered the pen.
Samuel had thrown it across the room once after blotting an invoice.
Only somebody who knew him would remember something so pointless.
“Who were you to him?”
Jonah took a long breath.
“Years ago, I worked at Bitter Creek Territorial.”
“You were a banker?”
“A clerk.”
Evelyn looked at his coat.
“You don’t look like a clerk.”
“I haven’t been one for a long time.”
“Why?”
“Silas Crowell.”
She waited.
Jonah glanced toward the coffee.
Evelyn noticed.
“You can have some.”
“Thank you.”
“You are still talking.”
He accepted the cup with his left hand.
“When your father first borrowed against Hart Ranch, Crowell wasn’t branch manager. He was assistant cashier. The manager was a man named Thomas Burke.”
“I remember Mr. Burke.”
“He retired.”
“Crowell took over.”
“Yes.”
Jonah took a drink.
“I handled payment books.”
“Deposits.”
“Mortgage ledgers.”
“Not glamorous.”
“Numbers rarely are until somebody changes them.”
Evelyn’s fingers closed around her cup.
Jonah continued.
“Your father came in eleven weeks before he died carrying a draft from a cattle buyer in Helena.”
“How much?”
“Thirty-two hundred sixty-eight dollars.”
The exactness unsettled her.
“That was enough to pay mortgage?”
“Final balance was thirty-one hundred fourteen and change.”
“He paid everything?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Jonah looked surprised.
“Because he owed it.”
“You know what I mean.”
She leaned forward.
“He never told me.”
Jonah considered.
“Maybe he meant to.”
“Samuel Hart did not postpone good news.”
“That’s true.”
The casual certainty that he knew her father still bothered her.
“So what happened?”
Jonah set cup down.
“Crowell received payment.”
“I posted it into daily cash ledger.”
“Burke signed satisfaction receipt.”
“Your father insisted on duplicate.”
Jonah tapped paper.
“I witnessed.”
“Then what?”
“The mortgage satisfaction was supposed to be recorded with county.”
“It wasn’t.”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Burke suffered a stroke three days later.”
“He left bank.”
“Crowell became acting manager.”
“And the release vanished.”
Evelyn stared.
“That could be negligence.”
“It could.”
“But you do not believe that.”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because the money vanished too.”
Silence.
Outside, a horse struck the stall door.
Evelyn barely heard.
“What do you mean?”
“The final payment never reached the mortgage account.”
“Where did it go?”
Jonah’s voice lowered.
“A holding account controlled by Crowell.”
“What for?”
“Land acquisitions.”
Evelyn frowned.
Jonah looked toward the window.
“Do you know what Northern Continental Railroad is planning?”