Drawing Blood

by Deirdre Verne

  I held up an eye-catching green plaid screw top and mouthed my thanks to the woman. Then I led the crew to the second-level catwalk with its enclosed observation booth towering about two stories above the facility. Jimmy held the door, his hard hat clipped the top of the doorframe. Easily over six-two, Jimmy’s industrial cover-all hung loosely, like it was still on a metal hanger. With his wiry hand on the doorknob, his sleeve had risen halfway up to his forearm. Jimmy smiled until Frank flashed his badge.

  “Okay if my guys walk around?”

  Jimmy pointed to the yellow line running down the middle of the catwalk. “Stay in the marked areas,” he instructed Cheski and Lamendola. He shut the door, effectively cutting the decibels in half. Frank scanned the scene, which seemed suddenly still. He shook his head. “What just happened? Are the pickers on break?” Nothing got by Detective Frank DeRosa.

  Jimmy looked directly at me and raised his eyebrows.

  “Seriously? You think I brought INS with me?” I said.

  Jimmy shrugged and nodded to a worker below, who signaled to his coworkers. Orange-suited pickers repopulated the floor.

  “Where’s Bob?” I asked.

  Jimmy removed his hard hat and offered Frank and myself a chair. He folded his long limbs under the table and leaned in. “I got a call last night from one of our regular truckers with a full load of corrugated cardboard. The loading dock was open, but Bob wasn’t here.” Jimmy looked confused. “Is Bob sick?”

  “What time?” Frank interrupted. “What time did the trucker call?”

  “About five o’clock. Bob’s usually here until around six thirty.”

  “Who else is here at five?”

  “Myself or Bob, depending on the schedule. The pickers and machinists start at seven a.m. and wind down about three.”

  Frank looked out the observation room window again. Eight hours sorting garbage. I knew what Frank was thinking. He’d powered through twice that time on stakeouts, but at least there was a chance for a car chase or a shoot-out. For Frank, picking probably seemed like stabbing a darting guppy with a pin.

  “Picking is tough work,” Jimmy confirmed.

  “How did the trucker reach you?” I asked.

  Jimmy searched inside his jumpsuit, retrieved his phone, and opened his recent calls. “We have an emergency number that rolls over to our cell phones.”

  I leaned in to see Jimmy’s phone. “That’s Bob’s number.” I tapped Jimmy’s phone. “There, at four thirty yesterday. He called you?”

  “Yeah,” Jimmy said. “Bob called me about a half hour before the trucker, but he didn’t leave a message. I thought maybe he wasn’t feeling well, so I drove over, supervised the load, and locked up.” He shrugged. “I figured I’d see Bob today.”

  “How well do you know Bob?” Frank asked.

  “Well, we didn’t talk too much.” Jimmy opened the door, and the roar of recycling garbage enveloped the room. “Not much chance for conversation here,” Jimmy shouted, his lanky frame filling the doorway. “But I know Bob.”

  “He walks home from work?” Frank yelled.

  “Every day.”

  Frank ran his finger along the time line he had created on his iPad and pointed to the gap between Bob’s phone call to Jimmy and the trucker’s arrival. I could see what he was suggesting. It was possible Bob left work and walked home. Enough time, even at Bob’s ambling pace. Any longer, and the trucker or Jimmy would have passed Bob walking away from the recycling center toward his house. I wondered if Bob, given his size, had had a heart attack on his walk, but then again, he would have been spotted lying in the road. Yet neither the trucker or Jimmy, or us for that matter, had seen Bob’s body in the road.

  Frank pointed toward a door that led away from the facility’s entrance. “What if Bob left on foot in another direction?” he yelled.

  I knew the recycling center was strategically placed in the center of a ten-acre wooded area. The trees created a natural sound and smell barrier between the center and the outlying suburban neighborhoods.

  Lots of places to get lost, I thought.

  Frank jotted down some notes about a foot search of the woods when I caught a glimpse of Cheski on the catwalk on all fours.

  As Cheski bent over, his helmet popped off, rocking side to side like a stranded turtle. Cheski ignored the helmet and poked at a crossbar in the catwalk railing. I watched as it gave easily, swinging freely toward the open floor below. Cheski may not have been able to use a meter-reading app correctly, but he was quick to spot the broken railing. I watched as Cheski leaned toward the damaged railing for a closer inspection. He wasn’t as steady as I hoped. I checked Jimmy in the shoulder and bolted toward Cheski, who attempted to rise to a kneeling position.

  “Stop,” I screeched, reaching Cheski just before he lost his balance. I looked down. The garbage below us was piled twenty feet high. I rolled back on my heels and grasped for a hunk of Cheski’s blue collar, forcing us both backward.

  The catwalk swayed as my insides lurched in the opposite direction. I rolled over onto my stomach and gripped my fingers through the metal grating. I fixed my eyes on the garbage below and prayed it would stop moving.

  Then something caught my attention. A lock of polyester red hair no longer than my thumb stood out amongst the garbage. I followed the strands with my eyes a few centimeters and spotted a stripe of sky blue, an eye shadow color favored by young girls in the 1970s.

  Dawn. Dawn was in Bob’s pocket. Bob …

  With one hand free, I stretched down toward the pile, but it was useless. Even at its highest peak, the garbage was four feet below the catwalk. I stood up, pushed the broken railing aside and jumped.

  I lifted my head from the pile and watched as a worker slammed a red button the size of a Frisbee. An emergency siren blew through the premises like a tornado. The relentless motion of the recycling center came to a screeching halt. No crunching, no grinding, no sound.

  It was there, the doll’s head. The one I had given Bob. I tore at the garbage as pieces of plastic and glass sunk and resurfaced like a waterlogged sand castle. New strategy, I thought as I pinched my fingers together like tweezers, reached down, and squeezed.

  “Gotcha.” I held up the doll’s head like I’d won the Tour de France. A worker nearby gasped. Bob’s vintage doll collection was well known.

  Jimmy tossed down a pail on a rope, and I placed the doll’s head in the bucket.

  I watched as the pail flew up to the catwalk.

  Jimmy stuck the doll’s head on the end of a pencil. Even from a distance, I could see his hands shaking. He pointed the instrument down and flipped the red hair over, studying the seam along the nape.

  I knelt back down in the garbage. “What are you waiting for?” I yelled. “Dig.”

  The sound picked up, but this time it was generated by manual labor. Hands, dozens of them, started searching through the refuse. Cheski and Lamendola climbed on to the mound wearing rubberized gloves. Orange-suited pickers, an army of them, attacked a typically monotonous task with newfound fervor. Overhead, a worker maneuvered an excavator truck, skimming its toothed bucket within an inch of the mound as pickers placed fistful after fistful inside.

  “Ouch,” I cried, snatching my hand back to my chest. I watched a speck of blood drip down my shirt, then grabbed a broken wine bottle in my other hand and hurled it into an empty dumpster.

  “Damn it. I’m going to bleed everywhere,” I said as I scrambled off the pile of garbage, making way for workers to continue the search.

  seven

  I hustled after Frank, who hustled after Jimmy, who sprinted toward a plastic-framed container the size of a washing machine. The plastic box was suspended from the ceiling and attached to a conveyer belt on both ends. An industrial-size hose entered from the left side. Jimmy flicked the machine on and air swirled through the box, lifting pieces of g
arbage up like a popcorn maker.

  Jimmy studied the doll’s head and punched numbers into an electronic pad mounted on the back of the machine.

  “What are you doing?” Frank asked.

  “It’s an optical sorter. The machine can identify recyclables based on their composition of the polymers,” Jimmy said. An infrared beam shot across the interior and Jimmy entered a few more numbers. “Dolls from this decade have a particular resin combination that is relatively unique and easy to match. Bob uses the machine for that sometimes.” Jimmy stepped back and watched as electromagnetic flames whipped through the items. A hunk of molten plastic shot out the bottom like a gumball dispenser. “People throw out garbage in batches. It’s possible someone discarded a box full of doll parts and Bob spotted them in the …” Jimmy’s voice cracked as he continued his thought. “I’m not saying Bob would risk his life for one doll part, but a box of parts? Who knows? If Bob fell trying to get the parts off the pile, the machine will pick up the loose pieces. They’re lightweight, more likely to stay on the surface. But if Bob struggled in the pile while he was searching …”

  Frank hadn’t met Big Bob, but I’m sure he realized that, given the man’s nickname, Bob’s size would act as an anchor and draw him farther into the pile. If he had struggled, as Jimmy suggested, it would have been like swimming in quicksand. Doll parts on the surface of the pile might indicate Bob below.

  “How quickly does the garbage move from this pile to the sorter?” Frank asked Jimmy.

  “The machines don’t run at night. Its noon now and we’ve been at it since about eight a.m. We’ll go through half the pile today,” Jimmy said, and then stopped. “He’s not in the sorter, if that’s what you’re thinking. The sorter is designed to move smaller items.”

  I let my breath out slowly. Small favors for a big man, I thought.

  “But you think Bob might have fallen off the catwalk looking for doll parts?” Frank asked.

  Jimmy shrugged, helpless. “You got another theory?”

  I sucked on my finger to stanch the flow of blood.

  Frank frowned and pulled me to the side. “Don’t say anything,” he whispered. “Understood?”

  I nodded. It was smart of Jimmy to check if the doll was vintage, but I knew Bob wasn’t looking for doll parts; he already had the doll parts I had given him. They were in his pocket when he fell and most likely spilled out after. Bob hadn’t climbed onto or into the pile looking for anything. Yes, he was a crazy collector of junk, a builder of outrageously bizarre art pieces, and a champion of the Freegan lifestyle, but Bob wasn’t nuts enough to tackle a garbage mound to score a tiny doll part. Unlike me, who had just free-fallen into a mound of garbage, Bob was a civil servant who took his job and the safety regulations seriously. If Bob was under this pile, it wasn’t on purpose.

  The problem was that if he was in the pile, he’d been there overnight.

  I was trying to erase that thought from my mind when I noticed the door to the women’s bathroom was open an inch. An orange-suited picker waved to me through the crack. It was Marissa, the same woman who had collected the bag of glass jars for me. She frequented the farmers’ markets around town, and I had bumped into her once or twice at the Salvation Army sifting through the children’s clothing. She must have seen me cut my finger. Maybe she’s got a Band-Aid, I thought as I made my way to the bathroom.

  “Hey, Marissa, thanks for the jars,” I said. “Do you have a Band-Aid for me?”

  “I see Bob yesterday,” Marissa said quietly. Her lips were dry but coated with a fresh skim of lipstick. In fact, her whole face was meticulously made up. The lowered zipper on her orange suit revealed a colorful silk blouse underneath. The contradiction struck me, in a good way. Work was important to Marissa, even if the work was sorting garbage.

  “Okay,” I said. I stepped into the bathroom and closed the door behind us. I instinctively peered under the stalls and then nodded to Marissa.

  “I see Mr. Bob after my shift yesterday.”

  “As you were leaving?”

  “No, I forget my pocketbook. I come back.”

  I sensed a tinge of anxiety from Marissa. “Are you not allowed back after a shift?”

  “Safety regulations.” She wagged her finger. “No one come in after hours.”

  “But you came in, and you saw Bob?”

  “Yes, he talking to a man.” Marissa scrunched her brow. “Mad.”

  I suspected as much. We weren’t digging through garbage for nothing.

  “I leave quick and run down the driveway,” Marissa said. She licked her stained lips. “I see a woman too. She running.”

  A woman? Marissa’s information caught me off-guard. There were trails in the surrounding woods, but it would be an odd choice for a jog considering the recycling center attracted rats. “Was she wearing running clothes?”

  “No, she wear jeans.” Marissa leaned over and gripped her calves. “Tight, here.”

  A phone trilled, echoing off the ceramic walls. I jumped. It was my phone.

  “Katrina’s in labor,” Charlie’s voice burst out. “We’re heading to the hospital.””

  “What?” My reality shifted 180 degrees. “Is there a complication?”

  “Yeah, the complication is I’m the only one home.” Charlie wasn’t pleased. “Kat’s midwife, Vicky, is delivering another baby.”

  “Call Dr. Grovit,” I said. Dr. Grovit was pushing eighty, but he’d been my family doctor since the beginning of time. Even in semi-retirement, Dr. Grovit always seemed happy to help the Prentice clan, which now included my uninsured housemates. “Tell Katrina to hold tight.”

  I hung up and searched Marissa’s face. This woman was scared. I took Marissa by the elbow and opened the bathroom door. “It’s all good. I need you to tell Detective DeRosa what you told me.”

  “I no tell,” Marissa said.

  Be nice. Be calm, I thought. I loosened my grip on Marissa and ran through some options in my head. I couldn’t shake the image of the bulging mountain of garbage. The thought caused my brain to hopscotch back to Katrina’s impending delivery.

  “Tell Detective DeRosa you came back for your phone, but then you found it in your bag. Tell him you never entered the plant.” I forced a smile. “Can you do that? For Bob?

  “I do that.”

  We walked, arms linked like young girls, toward the catwalk. Frank had cordoned off the damaged section.

  “Frank,” I said, “this is Marissa. She thought she left her phone here yesterday.”

  “When I come back,” Marissa said, tag teaming my lie, “I still standing outside, and I see Mr. Bob.”

  I took a half step back, literally handing Marissa off to Frank. “My sketchbook is in the car.”

  I ran at full stride back to the parking lot. Memory is fleeting. The faster I got back to Marissa, the better the sketches would be. She mentioned two unidentified people: an angry man and a running woman. I felt the details slipping away as the seconds passed. I dug into my pants’ pockets for my keys when a man’s voice cried out, followed by shouting in Spanish. Another alarm blared, but it wasn’t the signal for danger I’d heard earlier when I dove into the garbage. This was faster, more frenetic, with an urgency that felt like a punching bag. Ignoring the alarm, I continued to my car.

  My phone rang again.

  Charlie, I don’t have time for a baby, I thought. Please figure this out yourself. The phone continued to trill while the alarm blared. Dismissing both sounds, I focused my attention on retrieving the sketchbook. I pulled it from the side pocket of the car door and jogged back into the warehouse just as four straining men pulled a body from the heap.

  Oh Bob.

  I kept my distance, but still, I could see the damage the garbage had inflicted. Bob’s clothes were torn and his exposed flesh, like my finger, was covered in sharp nicks. I noticed one part
icularly deep gash in his neck before turning away.

  The alarm died as suddenly as it had started. In the new silence, I stepped quietly to the side and dialed Charlie back as I walked a circuitous route around the pile to find Marissa and Frank.

  “Hey,” I said, wearily, hoping Charlie had made a proactive decision concerning Katrina.

  “We’re almost there,” Charlie said, referring to the hospital. “Grovit will see Katrina in his office.”

  I sighed in relief. Even if Katrina was truly in labor, it wasn’t as if I was delivering the baby. She’d be in good hands with Dr. Grovit, and my hands would be more useful transferring Marissa’s visuals to lead on paper.

  I heard an approaching ambulance, but from the look of Bob, a hearse seemed more appropriate.

  “Gimme an hour,” I said to Charlie. I was a fast sketch, and I sensed, given Marissa’s attention to detail, that her information would come quickly. “I’ll check in with Dr. Grovit when I get to the hospital,” I said and then hung up.

  eight

  Dr. Grovit’s office at Huntington Hospital was jam-packed with medical journals. Stacks of files, stuffed with papers so ancient they appeared yellowed at the edges, littered surfaces. This was a world where the term “carbon copy” still had meaning and the faint smell of bluish inky mimeographed paper refused to dissipate. It looked nothing like my father’s office, which would have served as an ideal location for an Anal Retentives Anonymous meeting. I sunk back into Dr. Grovit’s nubby couch. My sketchbook, half filled with pictures of my maybe-baby and now sprinkled with Marissa’s recollections of Bob’s conversation with an unknown man, lay on my lap.

  “I’m sorry about your friend Bob,” Dr. Grovit said. He came out from his desk and handed me a box of tissues. “Tragic, actually.” Dr. Grovit shook. He’d been around a long time, but I assumed being crushed to death by garbage was a first even for him.