The reception area of Caroline Briggs’s office in the brick strip mall smelled of lemon polish and old paper. The chair they gave me was covered in green leather, and the soft cushion sank down so low that my lower back began to throb. “Mr. Hayes, thank you for coming,” Caroline said, opening the door to the inner office. She was a tall woman with her dark hair pulled back in a neat clip. She carried a thick manila folder and set it on the desk, immediately aligning three black pens in a perfect row beside her notepad. “We have some legal steps to cover,” she said, sitting down. “This is the official death certificate.” She slid the paper across the desk. I looked at Eleanor’s name printed in cold black ink, and then at the date of her birth, which was only two years before mine. “The property is currently clear of any active mortgages,” Caroline said, watching my face. “But Eleanor was running the bait shop alone for a long time, and her health was failing.”

“Is the place in bad shape?” I asked.

“I have not been out there myself in three months,” Caroline said, tapping her finger on the folder. “Eleanor was a proud woman. She did not like to ask for help, even when the roof started leaking.”

I looked down at my hands, which were rough and stained with engine oil that would never fully wash out of the skin.

“She left a set of keys here for you,” Caroline said.

She reached into her drawer and pulled out a heavy metal ring. A single brass key hung from it, labeled with a white paper tag that had the words Boathouse Loft written in Eleanor’s tight handwriting.

“There was supposed to be a second set,” Caroline added, frowning slightly. “A master set for the main house and the bait shop. We could not find them in her safety deposit box.”

I took the heavy ring from her hand. The brass was cold, and the cut edges of the key were sharp.

“We will have to find those master keys, Walter,” Caroline said. “Otherwise, you might be locked out of your own front door.”