Chapter 1

The envelope was in the mailbox with the electric bill, and Curtis Mabry opened it standing in his driveway with his canvas coat still zipped to his chin.

He read it twice before he understood it, and a third time because the last line was the one that made no sense.

RIDGEVIEW COUNTY SHERIFF’S OFFICE - UNIFORM CITATION. Date of violation: today. Time: 5:50 a.m. Location: Old Ferris Pike at Tuller Road. Vehicle: blue four-door sedan. Violation: failure to stop at posted sign. Issuing officer: badge 1147.

Curtis had clocked in at Ridgeview Cemetery at 4:10 that morning. He had signed the sheet in the office with the pen chained to the counter, and he had spent the next three hours with a spade and a backhoe, opening a grave for a man from Ferris Bend who had died in his sleep at ninety-one. At 5:50 he had been standing in six inches of turned clay, watching his own breath.

He had never owned a blue sedan. He drove a 1987 green pickup with a dent in the tailgate and a magnet on the door that read CEMETERY - COUNTY VEHICLE, PLEASE PASS SLOWLY.

And Old Ferris Pike was on the far side of the county. Thirty-one years of driving to that cemetery, and he could not remember turning onto it once.

His eyes went back to the bottom of the page and stayed there.

1147.

He said it out loud in the driveway, quietly, the way he said most things. “One-one-four-seven.”

The cold got into his hands. He walked up the porch steps, let himself in, and crossed the front room without taking off his coat. On the shelf beside the window, where it had sat for three years, was a small glass display frame. Inside the frame was a badge, silver and worn smooth at the edges, engraved with a number that had belonged to his son.

Curtis set the citation on the end table. He set the frame beside it. He put on his reading glasses and leaned down until the paper and the badge were six inches apart.

1147. 1147.

He stood there a long while with both hands flat on the table. The house was quiet the way it had been quiet since Ruth died, and quieter since Aaron.

Then he went to the desk and took out the letter he had read a hundred times - heavy cream paper, folded in thirds, the county seal at the top and the sheriff’s signature at the bottom. He unfolded it and read the line aloud, because his voice was the only thing in the room.

“Badge 1147 is retired in perpetuity.”

He looked at the citation again.

“Then who signed this?”

He folded the letter into his coat pocket, put the citation with it, and went out to the truck. The courthouse closed at four-thirty. He had thirty-five minutes.