Mustard yellow: ’71 AMC Javelin. On a Wednesday morning he rang my doorbell and invited me to take a spin. Amy was at work and I had Charlotte. I tried to fend him off. Another time. But Charlotte lit up when she saw him, and I caved. I remembered wrestling her car seat into position.
A few other colors I couldn’t place. Glittery metallic blue, basic black, gray, silver. Bought and sold without fanfare? Or samples he’d tried out.
The last can: neon green. For his baby; his favorite. He’d stop at a light and the guy in the next lane would roll down the window. Cash money. How much?
Declining, always, with a smile. She’s so sweet, think I might hold on to her a little while.
One edge of the green can lid stuck up.
I touched it. It wobbled, imperfectly closed.
Recently used?
Touch-ups, for a big sale?
Rory Vandervelde had the bankroll to make an offer no one could refuse.
I tamped the lid and shut the bin, took the coffee mug and crossed back to the longhouse.
Inside the revolver lay like an anchor on the kitchen table.
Andrea was snoring.
I put the mug next to the gun and tiptoed around, blowing out candles.
I phoned amy from the freeway.
“Hey,” she said. “I thought you’d gone to bed early. I didn’t want to wake you up.”
“Thanks. I—” A smoky gust knocked me halfway into the adjacent lane. “Gah.”
“Are you driving?”
“It’s super-hot in the house, and this is the only way to charge my phone. How was pizza?”
“It was pizza. Can I tell you something funny Charlotte said?”
Grateful for small talk, I said, “Please.”
“She ordered anchovies and the waiter was like, ‘Whoa, anchovies. Are you sure?’ And she goes, ‘I have a sophisticated palate.’”
“She said that?”
“I swear to God. Did you teach her that?”
“Not me. It must’ve been your dad,” I said. “He loves setting these verbal land mines that go off under us.”
“She did use it correctly.”
“Do you think we’re doing enough for her?” I asked.
“What else should we be doing?”
“I don’t know. Sending her to enrichment? Getting her a violin?”
Amy laughed. “She’s three.”
“If I’d started the violin at three I could be a professional musician today.”
“My love. You’re tone-deaf.”
“I’m just saying.”
“Are you volunteering to drive her to and from lessons?”
“I changed my mind,” I said. “No violin.”
“That was easy.”
“Our children will be forever stunted because we’re too lazy to get in the car.”
“I’m a hundred percent fine with that,” she said.
I said, “I miss you so much.”
“I miss you, too. I hate that you’re alone.”
“When do you want to come back?”
“I rescheduled my clients through Wednesday, and Maria said I can have the whole week. Hopefully it doesn’t come to that. The Cal Fire map says nothing’s more than ten percent contained. You’re sure you can’t get away and come here?”
I’d thought about asking my sergeant for a few days off.
That was before a green car in a murdered man’s garage.
Amy said, “Honey? Did I lose you?”
“Sorry,” I said. “I’m here.”
“No pressure. I know you’ve got your hands full.”
“Thanks.” I should tell her everything. No doubt she’d reassure me, gently point out that I was catastrophizing.
No need to drag her into my paranoia.
“What’s on tap for tomorrow?” I asked.
“Sarah and I talked about the beach.”
“Have a great time. Check in when you can.”
“Good night, honey.”
“Good night.”
Our house was murky, as lonesome as if no one had ever lived there. Wind rattled the windows like a mouthful of loose teeth. We’d only been able to afford a fixer-upper. Wobbly front porch railing. Seismic cracking in the bedrooms. Dingy nylon curtains throughout, scarlet tartan faded to pink in patches. Not our forever house. A foothold in the market. I had a promotion in the pipeline. Three to five years, some sweat equity, and we could ratchet up. DIY could be fun. We’d watched online spackling tutorials, followed rosy chronologies on HGTV.
We had yet to take on any project more technical than changing lightbulbs.
We lived with a wall of cardboard.
My damp work clothes hung over the bathroom towel rod. They’d absorbed the smoke and smelled like a musty pipe bowl. I took the paper with the Camaro’s tag and VIN from my pant pocket and went to the kitchen.
I rinsed and dried my dinner plate by candlelight. Through the window my neighbor’s cypress trees writhed in chaotic worship.
I put the candle in the sink and touched the paper to the flame. The paper was damp, too; it steamed and didn’t want to catch. I held it there till it did, till the surface curled and the characters blackened into ash.
Chapter 6
Tuesday. Thirty-five hours in the dark.
I slept poorly and woke up coughing.
I groped on the nightstand for my phone. The battery had dwindled to seven percent.
No missed calls. No texts.
The air quality index had worsened overnight. Maroon splotched the map, as if the northern third of the state had suffered a vicious beating.
I settled against the rank pillow, breathing stale, pungent smoke.
Luke hadn’t told me about their fertility problems. I had no idea if this round of treatment was their first or tenth. I did know that even a single round was expensive and that insurance rarely covered it. Selling the Camaro might lessen their financial strain.
If Rory Vandervelde wanted the car, the deal could’ve closed easy and quick. Andrea had narrowed the delivery window, yes, but it was possible that Luke had brought the car to Vandervelde’s house on Sunday, shaken hands with the new owner, and left him healthy as a horse.
Left and gone where, though?
Where was the Camaro’s key?
Andrea claimed not to know about any sale. That, too, had an explanation: My brother was constantly wheeling and dealing. The paint cans attested to that. Cars were his thing, not hers. She was too preoccupied — or too apathetic — to keep up. Or maybe he was worried she’d try to talk him out of it. She loved him and he loved that car.
The very fact that he loved it so much made it all the more likely he’d sold under duress. Had he wrestled with the decision? Was that why’d he’d texted me the day after brunch?
R u around
Can we talk
Maybe I was reading too much into Andrea’s evasiveness. I’d shown up unannounced, at night. She was high-strung by nature. Add in supersized doses of hormones and she had to be jumping out of her skin.
The embarrassment of having her secrets revealed.
The indignity of having to ask for help. From me, of all people.
She’d never liked me and the feeling was mutual.
She said it herself: She was Luke’s wife. She knew him better than I did, better than I ever had. A twenty-four-hour radio silence would have been inconceivable for Amy and me. But who was I to judge?
Look at where Luke and Andrea lived. How they lived. They thrived on solitude.
You could live that way without kids. BC — Before Charlotte — Amy and I had spent much of our free time together. But not all of it. We’d talked and texted, but not like we did now, the never-ending flow of questions, reminders, photos, videos; the banal urgency of parenthood.