The Encore of Us novel · Chapter 6 of 24

Chapter 6: Violation

My supervising officer had a gray cubicle, a plant that was dying, and a stack of folders with my name on the top one.

She was a heavyset woman in her fifties who ate almonds out of a paper cup while she read me my own file.

"Section nine," she said.

"No contact, direct or indirect, with any member of the victim's family. You were told this on the day you walked out."

"Yes."

"The complaint says you appeared in front of eleven hundred people at the Brandvold Hall and addressed the victim's son."

"Yes."

She looked up. "You're not going to argue?"

"No."

"That's new." She chewed an almond. "People usually argue."

"I'd have done it again," I said. "I'd do it tomorrow. I'm not going to tell you I wouldn't."

She set the cup down.

"The recommendation on my desk," she said, "is thirty days in county, pending a violation hearing."

My stomach turned over.

I thought of Tove's dialysis days.

Monday, Wednesday, Friday.

Rhea fighting the clock with a billing job and a six-year-old and no one to take the third shift in the chair.

"Can I ask for one thing?"

"You can ask."

"Let me go back to the hospital first. Just to say goodbye to her. Twenty minutes."

She looked at me for a long moment.

"Miss Nordahl, I don't have the authority to."

"Then I don't have anything else to ask."

Behind me, the door of the cubicle swung open.

"I think you do," Anders said.

He had a folder under his arm, hollow-eyed with exhaustion.

In the hall behind him, through the glass wall of the front office, I saw a camel coat and a silver twist of hair.

Ingrid was sitting in the waiting area with her ankles crossed, the complainant on the case.

She had come to watch me go.

"Mr. Brandvold," the officer said. "This is a private meeting."

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