Chapter 9

Nobody told her no, so she read it.

“Citation number forty-four-sixteen. Badge field reads one-one-four-seven.” Verna Talley held the printout in both hands. “Records search on badge 1147, current quarter: forty-seven citations filed. Forty-seven paid. Zero contested. Badge status: not assigned.”

The lobby was silent in a way Curtis had only heard once before, at a graveside, when the honor guard folded the flag.

“Turn the plaque over, Deputy,” Verna said.

Corley didn’t move. So she leaned across the display table, took the plaque by the edge, and turned it face-up herself.

47 TRAFFIC STOPS - OFFICER OF THE YEAR.

“Forty-seven in the system,” she said. “Forty-seven on the plaque.”

The woman in the gray coat by the coffee urn had come forward. She opened her folder and began writing.

“Clerical error,” Corley said.

“The number came off an old roster,” he said.

Then he looked at Sheriff Ashby, and Ashby looked at the floor for a second and then walked over and took the plaque out of his deputy’s hands.

“The department will handle this internally,” Ashby said.

“It’s already in the state system, Sheriff,” the woman in gray said, without looking up. “I’ll take a copy of that printout, ma’am.”

They walked Corley out past the coffee urn and the sheet cake. His wife stood up in the third row, gathered her coat and both children, and went out a side door without looking at anyone. A reporter’s pen moved. Two deputies studied the memorial board like it was a test.

At the doorway Corley stopped and turned his head.

“You think I picked that number by accident?” he said to Curtis. “Anybody complains about a dead man, the complaint dies with him.”

Deputy Renner took his arm and moved him along.

The room emptied slowly. Curtis stood at the display table and picked up the glass frame, and Renner came back and held out his hands for it, so he could hand it to Curtis properly, across the table, the way it should be done. The young man could not look at him.

Then a hand settled on Curtis’s shoulder.

“My office,” Sheriff Ashby said.

The office door closed. Ashby sat down behind the desk, pulled a small brass key off his ring, and unlocked the bottom drawer. He opened it and turned the whole drawer toward the light.

Complaint letters. Sealed, stacked on their edges, one behind the next. Every envelope postmarked. Every one stamped RECEIVED in red.

Curtis counted the top edge of the stack without meaning to.

Forty-six.

“You’re not the first person who noticed,” Ashby said. “You’re just the first one who came inside.”