My Mother Recognized My Fake Fiance From an Autumn Night Five Years Ago
“With a wrist injury,” I said.
“That is what they said,” Frank said, picking up his coffee mug. “But I saw her at the grocery store that Tuesday, and she was carrying a bag of potatoes with both hands.”
I thanked Frank and left three dollars on the table for his coffee.
The walk to the county archives took twenty minutes through the damp oak leaves that covered the sidewalk. The archives were located in the basement of the old courthouse, a cold, limestone building that always smelled of wet paper and coal dust. As a junior archivist, I had the keys to the dead files in the rear room, where the county records from fifty years ago were kept next to the modern payroll sheets.
I let myself in through the heavy oak door and turned on the single fluorescent tube over the metal shelving.
I found the box marked Sheriff’s Department Payroll, Five Years Ago.
I pulled the ledger for November and laid it on the long wooden table. I flipped through the white pages until I found Deputy Thomas Miller’s name. His monthly salary was three thousand two hundred dollars.
