Today I was sitting on our back porch, hot and reading—what else?—a book on mysteries, when my husband came out and asked if I’d seen our plat of survey.

Plat of survey: the official map of boundary lines of a property that you usually get when you purchase and close on a house.

We bought our house almost ten years ago. This little map, awkwardly sized, has been my nemesis. We kept it flat on a bookshelf for years, but it was always falling, getting roughed up. I had a vague memory of finally asking Greg if I could at least fold it.

Greg looked high and low and then finally gave up and went outside to sit in the hammock. It’s hot out there, too.

I was definitely going to get blamed for it being lost, is what I’m saying.

So I put down my book and thought…what crazy-ass thing did I do with that map? I checked a few places, stacking up evidence against myself.

I would have been trying to keep it flat…

But I’d gotten the OK to fold it…

We needed to keep the thing, but it wasn’t in any of the safe-keeping spots we’d normally put something important…

We bought the house before we were married…

I went to the bookcases, looked at all the books that it could be hiding in, saw the photo album from before we got married, and plucked the plat out of it, folded once and kept pristine and flat.

“I Sherlock Holmed that crap,” I said, showing Greg the plat through the window. To catch a criminal, think like a criminal.