Seven Empty Deposit Envelopes Showed What Was Happening At Carters Diner
Carter watched her tail lights disappear down the state route, leaving the parking lot in complete darkness.
The diner’s neon sign flickered above the roof line, its red letters humming softly in the cold air.
Carter locked his truck door and stares at the diner’s neon sign flickering in the dusk.
At ten minutes to eight the next morning, the rain began to pool in the deep ruts of the back gravel lot.
Carter did not wear the faded blue construction cap.
He wore his charcoal three-piece suit, the one he kept in the garment bag behind his Decatur office door, paired with white cuffs and his grandfather’s gold watch.
The leather shoes he wore did not squeak on the wet linoleum when he entered through the back hallway of the diner.
Linda was already waiting in the narrow manager’s office, her wet umbrella standing in a green plastic bucket by the filing cabinet.
Beside her sat a thin man in a grey wool coat named Henderson, who was carefully unlocking a brown leather briefcase with two brass snaps.
