Chapter 2

The courthouse hallway smelled like floor wax and coffee. Six people stood in line at the fines-and-records window, and behind the glass sat a woman in her fifties with glasses on a beaded chain and a cardigan the color of oatmeal.

When Curtis’s turn came he slid the citation and the retirement letter through the slot and said, “I’m not disputing anything. I’m reporting an error.”

The woman read the citation. Then she read the letter. Then she typed.

“Mabry,” she said. “Curtis Mabry.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

She typed again. Her face did something small - a tightening at the mouth that Curtis had seen on doctors.

“Mr. Mabry, this number doesn’t come up.” She looked over her glasses at him. “It says NOT ASSIGNED.”

“That’s what I’d expect,” he said. “It was retired.”

“I see that.” She typed a third time, longer, and then she stopped typing and just looked at the screen.

“Miss Talley,” Curtis said, reading her nameplate. “Is something wrong?”

She turned the monitor toward the glass about an inch - not enough for anyone else in line to see, enough for him. “I ran the number to see how many times it’s been used,” she said. “Forty-seven.”

Curtis didn’t move.

“Since July,” she said. “Forty-seven citations, all filed under 1147. Every one of them paid. Not one of them contested.”

He took his glasses off and polished them on his shirt, because his hands wanted something to do. “Ma’am, that’s my son’s number.”

She went still. “Aaron Mabry.”

“Yes.”

“I know who your son was.” Her voice came down a notch. “Everybody in this building knows who your son was. He was three years ahead of my nephew in school.”

Curtis put the retirement letter flat against the glass, the line about perpetuity showing. Verna Talley read it again and sat back in her chair like she’d been pushed.

“Sir,” she said quietly, “this isn’t a typing error. Somebody’s been filing under that number all year, and somebody’s been paying.”

A shadow crossed the counter. Boots, polished. A voice behind him, warm as a handshake.

“That’s a clerical error you’re holding, Mr. Mabry.”