Webster Daily's Arc

Chapter 9 of 13

Webster spread the sketchbook across his desk and opened Sherrie's ledger beside it. He matched the dates line by line. The son's name appeared in her goods column, not her payroll. Sherrie hadn't logged him as a worker on the hill. She'd logged him as a thief. He drove back into town with the ledger on the seat. The rusted records building sat on the corner, its clock stopped, its sign still bright. Webster walked in. A clerk looked up and looked down again. He found the wall of intake binders and pulled the year the son went missing. The page was there. The son's name on a partial inventory list, half the entries scrubbed out, the rest rewritten in a steadier hand. Clipped to the back was a small worker badge with a red stamp across the face. Someone had drawn a line through the role and written one word above it. Thief. The badge had been issued the week before he died. Webster slid the page into his coat. The clerk watched him go and said nothing. Outside, he stood on the steps and understood the shape of it. Sherrie hadn't only decided the son couldn't leave the hill. She'd decided what he would be remembered as. Webster had the proof now. He also had a name on a list, in a building that knew his face.