He drew a card from his wallet and placed it in front of me.
“If they're uncooperative at the courthouse, wave this. Sometimes the acronym induces a mood swing.”
“Thanks.” I pocketed the card.
McMahon excused himself, leaving Ryan and me and three empty mugs.
“Who do you think tossed your room?”
“I don't know.”
“Why?”
“They were looking for your shower gel.”
“I wouldn't belittle this. How about I poke around, ask a few questions?”
“You know that'd be a journey into pointlessness. These things are never solved.”
“It would let folks know that someone is curious.”
“I'll talk with Crowe.”
I rose to leave and he took my arm.
“Do you want backup at the courthouse?”
“In case of an armed attack by the recorder of deeds?”
He looked away, back at me.
“Would you like company at the courthouse?”
“Aren't you going to the NTSB briefing?”
“McMahon can fill me in. But there's one condition.”
I waited.
“Change your phone.”
“Hi-Ho, Silver,” I said.
The Swain County Administration Building and Courthouse replaced its predecessor in 1982. It is a rectangular concrete building, with a low-angled roof of red galvanized metal, that sits on the bank of the Tuckasegee River. Though lacking the charm of the old domed courthouse at Everett and Main, the structure is bright, clean, and efficient.
The tax office is located on the ground floor, immediately off a tiled octagonal lobby. When Ryan and I entered, four women looked up from computers, two behind a counter directly ahead, two behind a counter to our left.
I explained what we wanted. Woman number three pointed to a door at the back of the room.
“Land Records Department,” she said.
Eight eyes traveled with us across the floor.
“Must be where they archive the classified stuff,” Ryan whispered as I opened the door.
We entered to find another counter, this one guarded by a tall, thin woman with an angular face. It brought to mind my father's old picture of Stan Musial.
“May I help you?”
“We'd like to look at the county tax index map.”
The woman put a hand to her mouth, as though the question startled her.
“The tax map?”
I began to suspect my request was a first. Taking Byron McMahon's card from my pocket, I walked to the counter and handed it to her.
Madam Musial eyeballed the card. “Is this, like, the actual FBI?”
When she looked up, I nodded.
“Byron?”
“It's a family name.” I smiled winningly.
“Do you have a gun?”
“Not here.” Not anywhere, but that would tarnish the image.
“Does this have to do with the airplane crash?”
I leaned close. She smelled of mint and overperfumed shampoo. “What we're looking for could be critical to the investigation.”
Behind me, I heard Ryan's feet shift.
“My name is Dorothy.” She handed back the card. “I'll get it.”
Dorothy went to a map case, pulled out a drawer approximately two inches high, withdrew a large sheet, and spread it on the counter.
Ryan and I bent over the map. Using township boundaries, roads, and other markers, we pinpointed the section containing the courtyard house. Dorothy observed from her side of the divide, vigilant as an Egyptologist displaying a papyrus.
“Now we'd like section map six-two-one, please.”
Dorothy smiled to indicate she was part of the sting, went to another case, and returned with the document.
Earlier in my career as an anthropologist, when I had done some archaeology, I'd spent hours with U.S. Geological Survey maps and knew how to interpret symbols and features. The experience came in handy. Using elevations, creeks, and roads, Ryan and I were able to zero in on the house.
“Section map six twenty-one, parcel four.”
Keeping my finger on the spot, I looked up. Dorothy's face was inches from mine.
“How long will it take to pull up the tax records for this property?”
“About a minute.”
I must have looked surprised.
“Swain County is not a pumpkin patch. We are computerized.”
Dorothy went to a rear corner in her “secure” area and lifted a plastic cover from a monitor and keyboard. Ryan and I waited as she fastidiously folded the plastic, placed it on an overhead shelf, and booted the computer. When the program was up and running she keyed in a number of commands. Seconds passed. Finally, she entered the tax number and the screen filled with information.
“Do you want hard copy?”
“Please.”
She unveiled a Hewlett-Packard bubble-jet printer similar to the first one I'd ever owned. Again we waited while she folded and stored the plastic cover, took one sheet of paper from a drawer, and placed it in the feeder tray.
Finally, she hit a key, the printer whirred, and the paper disappeared then oozed out.
“I hope this helps,” she said, handing it to me.
The printout gave a vague description of the property and its buildings, its assessed value, the owner's name and mailing address, and the address to which the tax bills were being sent.
I passed it to Ryan, feeling deflated.
“‘H&F Investment Group, LLP,’” he read aloud. “The mailing address is a PO box in New York.”
He looked at me.
“Who the hell is the H&F Investment Group?”
I shrugged.
“What's LLP?”
“Limited liability partnership,” I said.
“You could try the deed room.”
We both turned to Dorothy. A touch of pink had sprouted on each cheek.
“You could look up the date that H&F bought the property, and the name of the previous owner.”
“They'd have that?”
She nodded.
We found the register of deeds around the corner from the tax office. The records room was situated behind the obligatory counter, through a set of slatted swinging doors. Shelves lining the walls and filling free-standing cases held deed books spanning hundreds of years. Recent ones were square and red, their numbers stated in plain gold lettering. Older volumes were ornately decorated, like leatherbound volumes of first editions.
It was like a treasure hunt, with each deed sending us backward in time. We learned the following:
The H&F Investment Group was an LLP registered in Delaware. Ownership of tax parcel number four transferred to the partnership in 1949 from one Edward E. Arthur. The description of the property was charming, but a bit loose by modern standards. I read it aloud to Ryan.
“‘The property begins at a Spanish oak on a knob, the corner of state grant 11807, and runs north ninety poles to the Bellingford line, then up the ridge as it meanders with Bellingford's line to a chestnut in the line of the S. Q. Barker tract—’”
“Where did Arthur get it?”
I skipped the rest of the survey and read on.
“Do you want to hear the ‘party of the first part’ bits?”
“No.”
“‘. . . having the same land conveyed by deed from Victor T. Livingstone and wife J. E. Clampett, dated March 26, 1933, and recorded in Deed Book number 52, page 315, Records of Swain County, North Carolina.’”
I went to the shelf and pulled the older volume.
Arthur had obtained the property from one Victor T. Livingstone in 1933. Livingstone must have purchased it from God, since there were no records before that time.
“At least we know how the happy homeowners got in and out.”
The Livingstone and Arthur deeds both described an entrance road.
“Or get in and out.” I was still not convinced the property was abandoned. “While we were there Crowe found a track leading from the house to a logging trail. The turnoff at the trail is obscured by a makeshift gate completely overgrown with kudzu. When she showed me the entrance I couldn't believe it. You could walk or drive past it a million times without ever seeing it.”