Grandpa Walter had been a state auditor for thirty-two years, and that meant he had spent more than three decades listening to people explain why missing money was not really missing. He had listened to men in expensive watches explain why forged signatures were not really forged. He had watched respectable women in pearl earrings insist that numbers that did not match could still be innocent if you looked at them from the right angle.
He had sat across from business owners, church treasurers, contractors, bookkeepers, cousins, sons-in-law, and neighbors who all believed they could talk long enough to turn the truth into fog. He told me once that guilty people usually talked too much. We had been sitting at his kitchen table in Denver, the old mahogany one my grandmother had loved, while snow gathered on the windowsill and the evening news muttered from the living room.
“Truth is usually plain,” he said, tapping the side of his coffee mug. “Lies come with decorations.”
That afternoon, my husband decorated every lie until the whole apartment seemed to smell rotten. “Walter,” William said, “I have done nothing but help this family.”
I was under the mahogany table with my knees pressed to my chest and one hand clamped over my mouth.
I had not planned to be there. I had come by Grandpa’s apartment early because he had sounded strange on the phone that morning. He was not confused.
He was not frightened. Grandpa Walter was rarely either. But there had been a tightness in his voice, a clipped patience that made me drive across town on my lunch break with my coat still half-buttoned and my purse sliding around the passenger seat.
When I arrived, Grandpa opened the door just wide enough for me to step inside. William’s car was parked downstairs. Before I could ask a question, Grandpa put one finger to his lips and pointed toward the dining table.
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