William Edwards Leaves His Screaming Son on a Friday Afternoon in Hartford
“Sue was a nurse in the Army, wasn’t she? Before she retired?” David asked.
“A lieutenant colonel,” I said. “She spent twenty years in military clinics.”
“State registries keep records of every nurse, even military ones who practice civilian medicine afterward,” David said. “It only takes five minutes to check the public database.”
He picked up his yellow pencil again and wrote a web address on the corner of his paper napkin.
“Just to put your mind at ease,” David added, pushing the napkin toward me. “If her record is clean, you can stop worrying.”
The community college library was quiet when I returned to my office at three o’clock, the afternoon sun casting long, pale shadows across my metal desk. Outside, the autumn wind rustled the dry oak leaves against the brick walls of the building.
I sat in my squeaking swivel chair and stared at the screen of my desktop computer.
The napkin from the cafeteria sat next to my keyboard, the blue ink of the web address slightly blurred where my thumb had pressed against it.
