I rubbed my left wrist where my watch used to sit, feeling the empty skin.
“He was on duty that night, Emily,” I said, though my voice sounded thin even to myself. “Some things are better left under the snow, Emily.”
She did not answer, but her finger stayed on the image of the police cruiser.
The next morning brought a cold, gray light that barely reached the kitchen.
When I went to get the morning paper, I stopped in the small entryway and looked down at the floorboards.
A single, heavy boot print of wet brown clay sat directly beneath the brass mail slot, pointing toward the interior of the house.
The brass flap of the slot was slightly ajar, hanging open just enough for a draft to whistle through the gap.
On the small wooden table nearby, my old keychain with the scratched silver fob sat undisturbed, exactly where I had left it.
Someone had stood on our porch in the dark, peering through the narrow opening into our hallway.
I wiped the mud away with an old rag, but the damp shape of the heel remained visible on the old pine boards.
At eleven, I walked down to the post office to pay the twelve hundred dollar property tax bill and buy a sheet of stamps.
Helen Brooks, who had retired from her desk at the courthouse clerk’s office, was standing by the counter sorting through her pension mail.
As I reached for my change, she adjusted her glasses by the bridge, sliding them up her nose with a quick, nervous motion.
“Arthur,” she whispered, her voice dropping so low the postmaster could not hear us over the sound of the sorting crates. “They are clearing out the old files from the courthouse basement this week.”
She leaned closer, her breath warm against my cheek.
