She also told me that repeated mail interference should be reported to the postal inspectors.

I made both reports that afternoon.

I did not open Evelyn’s envelope because it was addressed to someone else, even with the unusual care-of line.

Instead, I searched the public property records for my address.

The house had belonged to Evelyn Mercer from 1999 until 2017, when ownership transferred to a trust.

In 2023, the trust had defaulted on a loan, and the bank eventually sold the property to me.

The online register supplied little else, but it listed the trustee as Daniel Mercer.

That evening, I found an old newspaper clipping in a local historical archive.

The photograph showed a much younger Marjorie Kessler standing beside a woman with dark hair and serious eyes.

They were smiling beneath a banner reading BRIAR GLEN COMMUNITY SAFETY WEEK.

The caption identified the dark-haired woman as Evelyn Mercer, volunteer records coordinator.

The year was 2004.

A smaller paragraph described a neighborhood emergency fund established after a winter storm damaged several homes.

Marjorie had chaired the fund, and Evelyn had managed its correspondence.

I looked from the photograph to the cream envelope on my counter.

The lighthouse logo belonged to a Maine maritime museum, not a government agency.

I could not imagine why that museum had written to a woman who had lived in my house twenty years earlier.

Then I noticed one more detail in the clipping.

The safety fund had closed after accusations of missing records, but the article said nobody had been charged.

I heard Sophie come through the back door and closed the page.

She noticed my expression and asked whether something was wrong.

I told her that a neighbor had behaved badly and that I was handling it.

She considered this answer with the solemn suspicion only a twelve-year-old could manage.

“Is it the lady who counts how long my friends park their bikes?”

I admitted that it was.

Sophie sighed and asked whether we could move again.

I put my arm around her shoulders and told her no neighbor would chase us out of our home.

I hoped I had not just made a promise I could not keep.

Chapter 3: A Missing Piece of the Route

Andre Salinas arrived early the next morning with a handcart full of parcels.

I met him at the sidewalk and asked about the cream envelope.

He listened without interrupting and examined the photograph I had taken.

“That lighthouse mark is a private organization’s return logo,” he explained.