He read the names. He read them the way he'd read the cue marks, at first seeing nothing and then seeing everything. Harold Fenske, 1928, who had a hardware store now with his name on it on Second Street, run by his grandson. Marguerite Olin, 1944, Mrs. Olin, who had been Danny's third-grade teacher. Robert Delacroix, 1952, who was a dentist. Father Gerald Ochs, 1949, the priest at St. Anne's, where Danny's mother emptied bedpans. Gene Pruitt, 1964—Officer Pruitt, who had taken his wife to Thunderball. Marjorie Haas, 1971, which was Marjorie Bell now, the mayor. Ruth Ann Szabo, 1972, the county attorney. Thomas Kreider, 1968, editor of the Merritt Ledger. Darlene Pickett, 1966, and Danny stopped, because Darlene Pickett was Darlene Strand, Kenny's mother, who worked at the bank and had never once said a word about it.
And on a page from 1984, in purple felt-tip pen, Guadalupe Herrera, with a little flower drawn over the i.
"Lupe's in here," Danny said.
"Concessions count," Ansel said, without turning around. "Cora's rule. Anybody who works the floor. Lupe made her year last October."
"She's a trustee? She doesn't know?"
"Nobody ever reads the fine print, Danny."
He kept going. He went backward, through the sixties, the handwriting changing under his fingers, and it was on a page headed 1959–1960 that he found it. It wasn't a signature. It was an entry in Cora's own hand, the same slanting, impatient script as the first page, in a line of its own.
Royce A. Hadley. Hired Aug. 29, 1959. Released Aug. 6, 1960. Did not complete his year.
And underneath, smaller, as if she had come back later to add it:
Laid hands on a guest of this house. Told me he would show me who runs this place.
Danny read it three times. The picture rumbled below them through the floor. On the screen, the clock tower was waiting for the lightning.