Spam overflowed the phone’s inbox. The most recent email from Luke was weeks old, a forwarded invitation to the Bay Area Therapeutics Labor Day cookout. Vegan and gluten-free options available.
When he and Andrea communicated electronically, texting was their medium of choice.
I scrolled up the thread. They sounded like any happily married couple, covering practical matters (pick up chicken feed; home by seven), sharing photos and jokes, proffering affection.
Also a few squabbles. Luke had canceled a doctor’s appointment, arousing Andrea’s ire.
Call them and reschedule TODAY
Nothing suggested real trouble.
Nothing explained his final message.
Baby I’m sorry
The timing gnawed at me.
Sunday, five fifty-four p.m. Soon after the power went out.
Right around the time of Rory Vandervelde’s death.
What did Luke have to be sorry about?
I texted him from Andrea’s phone.
Can you call me please
The wind chimes clanked and banged.
Are you there I wrote.
Please call when you get this
Call your brother too
If Luke and Andrea shared a plan, his phone ought to show up in her device-finding app.
It didn’t.
I debated whether to take the Galaxy with me. Andrea clearly didn’t want it around; in that sense I’d be doing her a favor.
But I’d told her I would put it back. She might wake up to the fact that her husband wasn’t home, panic, and rush to her car to check. I zipped the phone in the pouch, tucked the pouch in the Leaf’s glove box, and crossed the grass toward the car shelter.
It was sorely out of place, a ludicrous contradiction to their carbon-neutral lifestyle. Oil cans littered the concrete pad. The surrounding soil was stained with coolant and paint overspray. Luke had stockpiled enough gasoline to supply a Parisian riot.
That was my brother. Meek and macho. Thoughtful and careless. Generous without warning and staggeringly self-involved.
The shelter’s tarp walls had been drawn back and secured to the posts with bungee cords, like a crude canopy bed. A chain saw with bark-crusted teeth hung from a hook. Grubby rags; a mechanic’s creeper; extension cords and buckets and jacks. Everything looked well used. By comparison, the repair station in Vandervelde’s garage was the Sistine Chapel.
No spare key on a nail.
A mug sat atop the tool chest. I sniffed coffee, stale and cold.
I went through drawers. No keys there, either.
Bins held paint cans, mementos of cars come and gone.
Cherry red: ’73 Dodge Challenger, the first car he bought after his release. He wasn’t allowed to drive yet. The DMV had deemed him a negligent operator and suspended his license indefinitely. He was working at Walmart and living with my parents rent-free. They’d hired a lawyer to help him get his license back. Presumably they gave him money for the Challenger, too. He picked it up in wretched shape, on the cheap. Whenever I stopped by I’d hear him hammering away in their garage.
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.