“I believe you.”
Removing the deepest items from the dumpster required that I lean over so far my feet left the ground. The floor and interior walls were unspeakably foul.
No phone.
I came up for air. “Has there been a collection since Sunday?”
“No. You going to clean up or what?”
I refilled the dumpster and shut the lid. “The bathroom? Has it been cleaned out?”
“I told you, we’ve been closed ever since they shut the lights off.”
Then he said, “First you said yesterday, then you said Sunday.”
“Twelve oh four a.m. Monday. What most people call Sunday night.”
He sniffed again. “One second.”
From his bathrobe pocket he took a cellphone. He dialed and put it to his ear.
“I need you cross the street. Yes, now. Get some clothes on, then.”
He put the phone away. “First night I had my son wait up. In case anyone saw this blackout and got clever and decided to rip the place off. You can ask him.”
“I appreciate it. I’m Clay, by the way.”
“I know, I saw your badge. Tom.”
“I appreciate it, Tom.”
He nodded.
“What did you do in the Marine Corps?” I asked.
A one-sided smile. “Motor pool.”
A young man shuffled up from the direction of the ranch house. Late teens to early twenties, medium height, robust through the torso like his maker. The clothes he’d gotten on were black mesh shorts, a San Jose Sharks jersey, and black Adidas slides. Meaty shoulders sagged with fatigue.
Tom said, “Tommy, this gentleman is looking for his brother.”
Tommy regarded me as though I had asked him to recite the Iliad in the original.
I said, “He might’ve come through Sunday night, Monday morning, around midnight. You were here?”
“All freakin night,” Tommy mumbled.
“People take advantage,” Tom said.
“I don’t see you doing it.”
“Mind your tone.”
“Did you see anyone, Tommy?” I asked.
“A few people stopped wanting gas.”
“Did you talk to any of them?”
“I told them, sorry, no gas.”
“Do you remember what they looked like?”
“Not really.”
“Hang on, I can show you a picture.”
I went through hundreds of photos of Charlotte to find one of my brother: a group shot, Edison family brunch. The very first, if memory served. Fresh-squeezed OJ and mini-muffins. Luke was corkscrewed, trying to fold himself into the frame. A tall-guy problem. It made for a poor likeness. His nostrils looked big as Oreos and his face was foreshortened.
I zoomed in on him and held the phone out to Tommy.
“Maybe. I don’t know.”
“Let me find a better one,” I said, scrolling. “Try this: See if you can estimate how many people stopped that night. Are we talking two? Five? Ten?”
Tommy mugged helplessly.
“You heard the man,” Tom said.
“I don’t know,” Tommy said.
“What about their cars?” I asked. “That might help you remember who was driving them.”
He got a faraway look and his lips started quivering, as if he were about to channel the dead. “I think there was a, like a Civic, or something like that.”
“Okay. Good. Now see if you can remember the driver.”
“... a guy. Not the guy from the picture.”
“You’re sure about that.”
“Yeah, this guy was Asian.”
“Good. See? You remember more than you think.”
Tommy glanced happily at his father, who remained stoic.
“What’s the next car you remember?” I asked.
“... a sedan. A nice one. A BMW. It was a guy and a woman. The guy was like, ‘Turn on the pump,’ and I said I couldn’t. He sorta lost his shit. ‘What’s wrong with you, you’re supposed to be a gas station, how can a gas station have no gas.’”
“Can you describe his appearance? Was he white, Black, Asian?”
“White.”
“Tall? Short?”
“Maybe more tall than short.”
“How tall? Like me?”
“I don’t know.”
“How old was he? Compared with you, me, or your dad.”
“You’re closest, I guess.”
“So around forty.”
“I guess.”
“Did he look like me?”
“I just wanted him to leave,” Tommy said.
“I know it’s hard. Concentrate and try to see him. Does anything about him stick out?”
“Like what?”
“Anything. Facial hair. Was he wearing something distinctive, or maybe he had a scar or tattoo. His clothes were messed up, or had blood on them, like he’d been in a fight.”
“Nothing like that.”
“What about the woman? Can you describe her?”
“She stayed in the car. I didn’t see her too good. I mean, it was dark, all I had was the flashlight. I didn’t want to, like, shine it in her face.”
“Do you remember what time it was when they pulled up?”
“I mean, I was tired.”
“Who was driving, him or her?”
“She was, I think.”
Luke was forty-one. The right age for a midlife crisis.
How stressful had things gotten between him and Andrea?
Stressful enough that he couldn’t handle it with a cup of chamomile and valerian root tea?
Enough to run off with another woman?
For most guys, a midlife crisis meant buying a car, not selling one.
Maybe he needed quick cash for his new adventure.
Dealing the Camaro to Vandervelde.
Texting his sidepiece. Pick me up bae
She was driving the BMW. Her car.
Baby I’m sorry
Did it make sense for him to apologize to his wife in advance?
Maybe the BMW had belonged to Rory Vandervelde. Straight trade for the Camaro.
“You said it was a nice BMW,” I asked. “Do you remember the model?”
“Nuh. It was black, or — actually, gray, maybe. I mean, it’s a nice car.”
Tom made an impatient noise, at his son or at me or both of us.
As we talked I’d been hunting for a clearer photo of Luke. I stopped at one taken the night he and I went to CrossFit. A moment of fragile camaraderie, both of us bedraggled, me putting on an exaggerated frown and giving thumbs-down, Luke doing the opposite.
I showed it to Tommy. “Is that him?”
He stared for a ten-count. “There was a guy with a beard sort of like that.”
“The guy in the BMW?”
“No, a different guy. He was driving a truck.”
“The guy from this photo was driving a truck?”
“No, I don’t... I don’t think it’s the same guy. I mean, maybe. But — like, the beard, it reminded me.”
“You’re sure it’s not the same guy in the photo?”
“This guy was kinda younger.”
“How much younger?”
Tommy thought. “More like me.”
Luke had lived hard and it showed. I doubted anyone would cut twenty years off his age.
“Can you describe him? Aside from the beard.”
“He was white.”
“What about him, did he look anything like me?”
“You don’t have a beard.”
“The shape of his face,” I said. “Take your time.”
“I mean, he was pretty big.”
“Big as in tall, or big as in big?”
“Both, I guess.”
“Do you remember what he was wearing?”
“I don’t know, man. He was just some guy.”
“What about the truck? Did you get a make and model?”
“I think it was... white? Okay. Okay. It had one of those things on the bed... ” Tommy chopped his hand to describe a horizontal plane. “Like a top.”
“A tonneau cover,” Tom said.