The Voice on Tape
I played the cassette a third time on the kitchen table, with the volume as low as it would go and the curtains drawn. Static, then a cough, then the …
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The Cedar Ridge Man
The man was named Vernon Tackett, and he was ninety one years old, and he lived in a nursing home called Cedar Ridge at the edge of Enid, in a …
The Cedar Ridge Man Read MoreThe Co op Money
The note said the money was buried in the old windbreak at the north end of our section, beneath the third cottonwood from the gate, four feet down, wrapped in …
The Co op Money Read MoreThe Last Patch
We opened the final patch on the coat of Sal Rinaldi on a Sunday afternoon, in the sunroom of the care home in Whitesboro, with a nurse standing quietly by …
The Last Patch Read MoreThe Last Envelope
The note inside the envelope was in the careful capitals my father used for ledgers. It was addressed to a woman named Colleen Dunmore, with a street in Parkersburg, West …
The Last Envelope Read MoreUnder the Pie Case
The diner on Sixth Avenue had changed hands four times since 2003, but the pie case was the same one. I knew it the moment I walked in on Monday …
Under the Pie Case Read MoreForty One Bulletins
I took the folder to the kitchen table and spread the bulletins in rows, oldest on the left, a long river of yellowed paper stretching from 1983 to this very …
Forty One Bulletins Read MoreThirty Seven Years
The old man on the phone was named Walter Hrabak, and he lived in a retirement home in Dunmore with a window that looked out on a parking lot. I …
Thirty Seven Years Read MoreThe Trestle Boy
The boy on the trestle with my uncle Roy and my father in the summer of 1967 was named Wendell Combs, and by the time I found him he was …
The Trestle Boy Read MoreThe Second Chair
I drove to the shop at six the next morning with the key in my fist and my husband in the passenger seat, because I did not trust myself to …
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