These generous people referred us to a lawyer friend of the family who had considered buying the house in the 1970s. I spoke to him by phone. The lawyer recalled that the house had a hardware-store For Rent sign in one of the windows for years, including 1975. So it was, indeed, a rental in 1975, making it easier for strangers to come and go unnoticed by the neighbors. The lawyer knew it was 1975 because that was the year he’d returned to live in Detroit and seriously considered buying the house.
