Samuel Reed Kept an Old Wooden Bat Behind the Pantry Door for Twenty Years

“When the district attorney gets around to the other names, mine will be on his list.

I would rather you heard it from me, standing in this shed, than from some letter with a county seal on it.”

The trunk was where I had left it in 1984, under the feed sacks, the hasp rusted near shut.

I got it open with the flat of my hand.

“Eleven thousand dollars,” I said.

“You can be sore about it if you want.

I would be.”