Across the road, chain-link hemmed in a decrepit ranch house. Opposite was an off-brand service station. Everything else was dirt and rocks and weeds.
Why would my brother drive to a remote location in the middle of the night?
To clear his head.
Stopping for gas, bound for someplace yet more remote.
Or he’d done something bad and needed to get rid of a phone.
I rolled into the service station. The lights were off. The pumps were off. There was a shuttered garage and an office with the shades drawn.
I opened the center console. Half its contents reflected the father in me. Diapers, wipes, expired applesauce pouch. The other half belonged to the cop. Gloves, flashlight, Ka-Bar knife. I dug out an old N95, soft from overuse, that had been living in there for probably two or more years. No point tossing it. There would always be another fire.
My phone lit up. Amy Sandek would like FaceTime...
The screen pixelated, grayed, and set tentatively.
“Hey,” Amy said. She squinted. “Are you in your car? Do you want to try me back?”
I switched on the dome light. “It’s okay, I’m not driving.”
“I’ve been calling.”
“Sorry. I lost track of time. Is she asleep yet?”
“I kept her up so you could say good night.”
“Thanks.”
The screen flipped. Charlotte lay on her stomach, scribbling in a Frozen coloring book.
“Hi, lovey,” I said.
“Say hi to Daddy.”
“... hi, Daddy.”
“Hi, lovey. How was your day?”
“... it was fun.”
“What did you do?”
“... lots of things.”
“Honey, please put down the crayon for a second and talk to Daddy.”
Charlotte scooted onto her knees. She was wearing Frozen pjs. A hank of dark hair draped her shoulder. It was my hair, until you got close enough to see the fine golden filaments woven throughout. A gift from her mother. In sunlight they imparted a sheen, less color than light itself, so that my daughter seemed to glow from within.
I said, “What was the most fun part?”
“We went to the beach and there was a man who was naked.”
“No way. Really?”
“Really,” Amy said.
“Like, full frontal?”
“He was playing the bongos,” Amy said.
“I saw his penis,” Charlotte said. “What’s ‘frontal’?”
“It means his penis,” Amy said.
“What the heck kind of beach did you go to?” I asked.
“Tennis Beach,” Charlotte said.
“Never heard of it.”
“Really it’s Venice Beach but cousin Sarah called it Tennis Beach.”
“You should have called it Pennis Beach.”
“What’s that?”
Amy said, “We had pizza for dinner again.”
“Lucky girls,” I said. “Hey, lovey, I heard you like anchovies.”
“No I don’t. Daddy, baby Liam had a poop-mergency.”
“He did, huh? Did you call the poop police?”
“It got on cousin Sarah’s hands.”
“Yuck.”
“Her shirt and pants, too,” Amy said. “It was epic.”
“Daddy, I went potty at the beach.”
“That sounds like fun.”
“I went in the green porkapotty.”
“You did? That’s awesome. Great job. How was that experience for Mommy?”
Amy didn’t answer.
“I’m proud of you, lovey. Did you get cotton candy?”
“No, I got ice cream.”
“That was for dessert,” Amy said. “You got cotton candy at the beach, remember?”
“Lovey, please make sure Mommy brushes your teeth really well.”
“I will.”
“Do you know how much I love you?”
“Yes.”
“How much?”
“So much.”
“More.”
“So so much.”
“Even more.”
“So so so so so so so so much.”
“Close enough. Good night, lovey.”
“Good night, Daddy.”
The screen flipped again. Amy said, “I’m sure you are, but: Are you fixed for food?”
I pressed on my stomach, as though to gauge its contents. I hadn’t eaten since breakfast and I was still wearing my VISITOR sticker. “All set.”
“Jerky again?”
“Dinner of champions.”
She smiled. “Call me before you go to bed.”
“Will do. Love you.”
“You, too.”
The screen went black.
I put on the mask.
My knock at the gas station’s office door went unanswered. The garage had a rolling steel shutter. I pounded on it a few times. Sharp reports echoed down the road.
The station backed up to a scrubby rise screaming with katydids. Along one side were a dumpster and the restroom door, locked with a mechanical keypad. A headless broomstick leaned against the wall. I took it and walked around the station, poking through trash receptacles. Candy wrappers, Mountain Dew bottles, losing lottery tickets.
No phone.
I heaved open the dumpster with a boom. Flies billowed out. I ran the flashlight beam over bags and rags and cans. A phone might work its way down through the cracks. One by one I began removing items from the dumpster and setting them on the ground.
Soon my arms and shirt were smeared in ripe black grime, and I was feeling stupid. The fact that Luke’s phone had last pinged in the area didn’t mean it was still here. He just as well could have chucked it out the window from the road or shut it off while pumping gas. I couldn’t get much dirtier, though, and I was almost finished. I bent to grab another bag.
“Can I help you?”
Twenty yards away a man stood pointing a rifle at me. He was in his late fifties, medium height, with thin wrists and thin calves and a long pleated neck. All middle, his mass concentrated powerfully from shoulders to hips. A shaggy gray comb-over levitated in the wind. The skin of his forearms shone dark with grease. He wore a brown bathrobe, greasy smashed moccasins, and flannel pajama pants. Reading glasses hung on a chain around his neck.
I showed my hands. “Alameda County Sheriff.”
“The hell you say.”
“My badge is in my pocket.”
He said nothing.
“Do you want to see it?”
“I want to know why you’re in my trash.”
I wondered how he could have gotten here so fast. I hadn’t heard him coming, hadn’t heard a car. The station didn’t have security cameras and moreover there was no electricity. Then I spied the ranch house across the road, and I remembered pounding on the office door and the garage, and the crash of the dumpster lid, sounds that carried on a quiet, untrafficked night.
“I’m looking for someone,” I said.
“In my trash?”
“Not my intention to disturb you. I knocked.”
“We’re closed. Take your mask off... Now get out your badge and throw it over here.”
I did.
“You aren’t dressed like a cop.”
“I’m off duty.”
“Who’re you looking for in my trash?”
“My brother. This is the last known location of his phone.”
“Here?”
“Near here. Yesterday, about midnight. You remember if anyone came by?”
“We were closed then, too.” He tossed me the badge. “No power, we can’t dispense.”
“I was hoping the phone might still be around somewhere. Do you mind if I look?”
“I mind you making a mess.”
“I’ll put everything back. Promise.”
He said nothing.
“He hasn’t come home,” I said. “He has a history of drug use and we’re worried sick.”
He sniffed. “I’m going to stand right here.”
“Okay.”
“I was in the Marine Corps. You get it in your head to try anything funny I’m not going to miss.”