Blue Bottle From a Small Pharmacy Prompts a Search for Answers

a black leather purse pressed tight against her side.

She sat in the empty chair next to Dr. Aris’s lawyer, her fingers immediately starting to tap a plastic ballpoint pen against the edge of the wood.

Mrs. Vance held up a photocopied sheet of paper from my envelope.

“This is the certified mail receipt from September seventeenth,” the auditor said.