He took money from Michael Reeves, pushed the drowning finding, released a statement about “no indication of foul play” before the divers had finished, and told me in my own living room, with his hat in his hands, that sometimes lakes don’t give people back.

He served eighteen months. He lives twelve miles from me, in the same county he was elected in twice, and he shops at the Kroger on Route 61 because it is the only Kroger.

I saw him in the produce aisle on a Thursday in May.

He was holding a bag of onions. He is seventy-one now and has gotten small, and he saw me over the peppers and his whole body changed.

I had imagined that moment for eight years. I had scripts. Some of them were very good.

He put the onions down — not in the bin, on the shelf edge, badly, so they were going to fall — and he said, “Mrs. Hayes.”