Chapter 5 - LAURAMy wife Laura Mercer had been thirty-eight when she died.
Official cause:
Single-vehicle accident on County Road Nine.
Rain.
Poor visibility.
Loss of control.
Her SUV crossed the center line and struck a culvert.
She died at the scene.
At least that was what the report said.
I arrived twelve minutes later.
Not as sheriff.
As husband.
I had not investigated the crash.
Could not.
State police handled it.
I buried Laura three days later.
Then learned how to braid Emma’s hair badly.
How to pack school lunches.
How to remember ballet shoes and cardiology appointments simultaneously.
Laura had worked as a compliance analyst for Cedar County Health and Family Services.
I knew she complained about paperwork.
Budgets.
Contracts.
Nothing more.
Or perhaps she had tried to tell me more.
A month before her death, she said:
“Something is wrong with the Harrington contracts.”
I was standing at the refrigerator reading a homicide report.
I answered:
“Tell procurement.”
She said:
“I did.”
I never asked what happened.
Another night:
“If I give you something and tell you not to take it to the sheriff’s office, will you listen?”
I laughed.
“Depends if it’s illegal.”
She did not laugh.
Then Emma woke crying upstairs.
The conversation ended.
I never returned to it.
May you like
Until a five-year-old girl in a hospital bed whispered:
Blue folder.
Related Stories
