The Toolbox Key
Deputy Holloway lowered himself onto my porch step with a grunt, stretched out his bad leg, and took off his hat. “Roy and I played cards every second Thursday for …
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The Dock Pit
I set my bar down real slow because the beam of my light fell on rows of dull metal cash boxes, stacked three high, with a layer of dust over …
The Dock Pit Read MoreThe Pit Chamber
I set my sledge down real slow because the light showed me a steel case standing upright in the chamber, the kind a surveyor might use, gunmetal gray with a …
The Pit Chamber Read MoreThe Hidden Wall
I set my pry bar down real slow because the first thing my light found in the dark behind that wall was a steel door, painted the same cream color …
The Hidden Wall Read MoreThe Terrazzo Secret
I set my grinder down real slow because the flashlight showed me a copper cylinder lying in the cavity, about the length of my forearm, turned green at the seams …
The Terrazzo Secret Read MoreThe Shower Pan Box
I set my hammer down real slow because the first thing the beam of my flashlight touched was a steel box about the size of a bread loaf, painted dull …
The Shower Pan Box Read MoreThe Birthday Toast
The sixtieth birthday party of my mother in law was held in the back room of an Italian restaurant in El Paso, with fifty guests, a three tier cake, and …
The Birthday Toast Read MoreThe Gray Sedan
On Sunday afternoon my brother Jonas rang the bell of the mother of my husband, with a bottle of German riesling in one hand and a bouquet of yellow tulips …
The Gray Sedan Read MoreThe Locked Door
When his mother came back from the cafeteria with a tray of orange juice and a smile that said she had won the night, she found the door of my …
The Locked Door Read MoreThe Talent Agency
The casting director was a brisk woman in her forties named Mrs. Okafor, and she had been looking at the paperwork on her clipboard for nearly a minute before she …
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