"My wallet. My keys. A pocket knife."
"In your shirt."
Ancil put his hand flat over the shirt pocket, as if over a wound. He had not meant to. He took it away.
"It's a notebook," he said.
"Can I see it?"
"It's hers," Ancil said. "It's her—" and then he could not think of the word, because there was not a word for it, for the green cardboard book he had written in every four hours for eleven weeks with a carpenter's pencil in a cold house, and he stood there with his mouth a little open and nothing coming out.
And because he could not think of the word, and because the sheriff was holding out his hand, and because he was sixty-four years old and had never in his life refused a lawman anything and did not know how it was done, he unbuttoned the flap of the pocket and took out the notebook and put it in Nolan Caudill's hand.
Nolan opened it with his thumb. The cardboard cover was soft at the corners and dark with handling. Inside, the pages were ruled in pale blue, and every line was full, in a small, careful, slanting hand, gray pencil pressed hard.
10:05. Pain 6. Hydromorph 2 mg x1. Ate 1/2 egg.