by Marie Sexton
“It’s not that I don’t believe you. But how? Did a tree fall on it or something?”
“I think….” I swallowed and looked up at the ominous gray sky, hoping stupidly it would fall. I wouldn’t run around like Chicken Little freaking out about it. I’d happily lie down and let it crush me. “I think somebody did it.”
“You’re saying your car was vandalized?”
Vandalized. Yes. Such a simple, vulgar word. Such a perfect assessment of what had been done. Why hadn’t I thought of that to begin with? “It seems that way.”
“Shit,” she said again. Twice in one phone call. I was impressed. “Have you given anybody a bad grade lately? Have any students you might have pissed off?”
“You think a student did it?”
“Don’t you?”
I considered the possibility. Not every student liked me, of course, and I suspected one of them had been prank calling me, but I didn’t think any of them disliked me enough to do this. Then again, who else did I even know?
“You’ve called the police, right?” Lily asked, interrupting my thoughts.
“Not yet.” In truth, it hadn’t even occurred to me. “I guess I need to call a tow truck too.”
“There’s only one in town. Naomi Jacobsen’s family. They’re good people. I’ll send you the number.”
“Thanks.”
“And I’ll get a sub. Just take the day, Lamar. Sounds like you could use it.”
Maybe I could have, but I knew I’d spend it slumped on my couch, trying to resist the urge to drink or go back to bed. Or both. “I’ll get there eventually, but it might not be until after lunch.”
“Take your time. And Lamar?”
“Yeah?”
“Call the police.”
I did, simply because I wasn’t sure what else to do.
“Nine-one-one dispatch. What’s the nature of your emergency?”
“Oh,” I stumbled. “Um… I’m sorry. It isn’t an emergency. I probably shouldn’t have called this number. I need to talk to the police.”
“Are you calling to report a crime in progress?”
“Not in progress. I need to file a report. My car’s been vandalized.”
“No problem, sir. Let me get a few details, and I’ll send somebody your way.”
Lily texted me the number for the tow truck as I hung up with the emergency dispatcher. I called Jacobsen’s Auto Repair and Body Shop, then sat down to wait.
Ten minutes later, an officer arrived driving an old Jeep Cherokee painted pine green, with the Coda PD logo on the door. I guessed him to be a few years older than me. His shirt, the radio at his shoulder, and the requisite belt full of God knew what seemed to be standard PD issue, but his jeans and cowboy boots certainly weren’t. I’d sort of expected an old, overweight desk jockey, but this guy looked like a superstar right out of a cop TV show. He had a broad chest, flat stomach, and bulging biceps. His dark hair was shorn military style. Stubble darkened his cheeks and jaw. The only thing missing was mirrored shades.
He didn’t bother with the sidewalk, but crossed the grass with long, slow strides. “You Lamar?”
Up close, he was even more striking, and I stood quickly and brushed my hand over my hair, wishing I’d taken a bit more time in front of the mirror that morning. Not that it mattered. This guy radiated “straight” like the sun radiated light.
Assuming the sun still existed. I was beginning to have my doubts.
“I am.”
“I’m Officer Richards.” He shook my hand, but he was already turning toward my car. When he saw it, he dropped my hand and let out a long, low whistle. “Damn. When they said ‘vandalized,’ I assumed somebody’d keyed it.”
“It’s a bit more than that.”
“No shit.” He sounded almost excited. He pulled a smartphone out of his pocket and started taking pictures of the damage, slowly circling the vehicle as he did. “I take it this happened last night?”
“Yeah.”
“You didn’t hear anything?”
“No.” Now that he mentioned it, it did seem remarkable. Then again, I’d had a decent amount of bourbon before bed. “I’m a heavy sleeper.”
After taking pictures from every conceivable angle, he pocketed his phone and pulled a small notebook and pen out of his breast pocket. He glanced around. “You’re in a perfect spot for it, aren’t you? May as well put up a sign, asking to be robbed.”
It was true. The house I rented from my uncle was at the end of a poorly lit, dead-end street, meaning I had only one neighbor. Across the street was an elementary school. There was only a sidewalk and a chain-link fence with a playground on the other side. It was empty at the moment, but in another twenty minutes, we’d have an audience of wide-eyed grade-schoolers.
Officer Richards gestured toward my one neighbor. “I guess they didn’t hear anything either?”
I shrugged. “I have no idea.”
“They probably would have called it in if they had, but I’ll check with them.” He came back to where I stood at the bottom of the stoop. He squinted at me with eyes that were somewhere between gray and green. “You have any idea who did it?”
“No.”
“Are you sure?”
The question surprised me. “Of course.”
“’Cause this type of damage usually comes from something personal. And the fact they did all this without making too much noise makes me think it wasn’t kids playing pranks.”
“I swear to you, I have no idea. I’ve only lived here for four weeks. I don’t even know anybody—”
“Nobody at all?” he asked, one eyebrow raised skeptically.
I sighed. “My aunt and uncle, Fred and Dorothy Johnson. They live up in Glacier Hill. But they’re retired.”
“Any bad blood there?”
“No. Not at all. In fact, they’re the ones who own the house. They’re giving me a hell of a deal on it too. Said their last tenants caused them nothing but trouble, so I think they’re happy to keep it in the family. Anyway, it couldn’t be them. They’re retired RVers. They were in Missouri, last I heard.”
“Any other relatives in the area?”
“My cousin—their daughter—she’s my age, but she lives in Thornton. The only other people I know in Coda are my coworkers.”
“Where do you work?”
“At the middle school.”
“Made any enemies there?”
“I’m sure not all my students adore me, but I can’t think of any who dislike me this much.”
He frowned and shook his head. “I don’t think this is middle schoolers. They’re loud. Somebody would have heard something. Besides, even if you flunk one or two of them, trust me, the worst they’ll do is pee on your car or toilet paper your house. Maybe leave a nice gift of cat shit on the doorstep. This?” He hooked a thumb over his impressive shoulder. “This is somebody who’s seriously pissed at you.”
“I honestly don’t know anybody who’d have reason to be this upset with me.”
Officer Richards’s eyebrows rose a bit higher. “Girlfriend?”
I shook my head.
He hesitated. “Um….” His cheeks began to turn red. “Boyfriend?”
I sighed again and steeled myself mentally for things to get weird, but I was well past the point in my life when I’d bothered to hide my homosexuality. “Not here, no. But there was a guy back in Dallas. Jonas Martin.”
I expected a hint of disapproval or a knowing roll of the eyes. His response surprised me. He almost smiled as he wrote the info down in his pad. “Huh.”
“What? Is that a problem?”
“No, it means I’m getting better.” He made a “keep going” gesture with his pen. “So this Jonas guy. Where’s he work?”
“It can’t be him.”
“Probably not, but it can’t hurt to make a call or two and make sure he is where everyone expects him to be. Where’s he work?”
“Dallas Financial Trust. I don’t know his work number, thou
gh. I only ever called his cell.”
“That’s what the Internet’s for.”
“I thought it was for porn.”
He didn’t quite smile, but I thought he was amused. “That too.” He looked up from the pad where he was making notes. “Dallas Financial Trust. Is that a bank?”
“They do commercial real estate, although that includes lending.”
“Nobody else in the boyfriend department?”
“No.”
“Even just hookups?”
“No.”
“Nobody at all since you moved here?”
I was running out of patience, especially since he was only driving home how fucking lonely I’d been since arriving in Coda. “Listen, Officer. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but this isn’t exactly Boystown. I’m pretty sure I’m the only gay guy in town.”
He crinkled his eyes at me. Was that supposed to be a smile? “You might be surprised. So what about at the school? Nobody there you’ve had issues with?”
I started to say no, but stopped short. Seeing my hesitation, Officer Richards leaned closer. “Yes?”
“The gym teacher. Bob Bolen.”
“You’ve had problems with him?”
“Honestly, I don’t think he’d do anything like this. It’s too….” I searched for the right word. “Anonymous. He’d rather I know it was him.”
“But he doesn’t like you?”
“He isn’t exactly a GLBT sympathizer. And the guy I replaced was a friend of his. I think Bob thinks it’s my fault the guy got fired.”
That obviously interested Officer Richards. “And do you know his name? The teacher you replaced?”
“Troy Fowler.”
“Aw,” he said knowingly, scribbling again on his pad. “I’m familiar with Troy.”
“How so?” I had a sinking feeling he was going to say they were poker buddies.
“Let’s say I know him professionally.”
The tow truck from Jacobsen’s Auto Repair and Body Shop pulled up. The driver stepped out and leaned lazily against his cab, scowling at Officer Richards and me, clearly waiting for me to finish filing my report. Officer Richards tucked his notebook back in his pocket, obviously ready to wrap things up.
“I’ll check with your neighbors first,” he said. “See if they saw or heard anything. Then I’ll track down Troy. He’s petty enough to do something like this, but I’m not sure he’s smart enough to have done it quietly. But maybe he’ll surprise me.”
The fact that he apparently intended to investigate surprised me. I’d expected only to file a report. I hadn’t actually thought anything would be done about it. “Are you sure you’ll have time? I mean, with your caseload—”
His laugh was so big and loud and unexpected, I instinctively took a step back. “This isn’t exactly Miami Vice.”
“But I’m sure you’re busy—”
“Look, I’m going to let you in on a little secret. Working nights in Coda, you get a few drunk and disorderlies. Some domestic disputes. Noise violations. But working days? It’s a snoozefest. Last week, the only call I got was from some old man who was pissed because his neighbor’s dog kept shitting on his lawn. The week before that, we had the same old man calling because his other neighbors were watering their grass at the wrong time of the day. And the week before that, old Mrs. Loomis called because her cat got stuck in a storm drain. You know the really sad part?”
“The cat died?”
“The cat lived. The sad part was, we rolled out the entire fucking force to save the thing. The fire department too.”
“Um… that’s awfully humanitarian of you.”
He laughed. “Yeah. That, and we were bored. It was the most exciting call we’d had all summer. This?” He again used his thumb to indicate my battered car. “This is like the pinnacle of my goddamn career, right here.”
I’d lived in big cities all my life, where something as insignificant as a vandalized car wasn’t worth more than two minutes of anybody’s time. It honestly hadn’t occurred to me how different life for a cop in a small town would be. “Well, I guess I’m glad I could help?”
He laughed again and slapped me on the shoulder hard enough to knock me off balance. “Me too, although I’ll feel like an ass if your insurance doesn’t pay.”
“I think they will.”
“Good. Do me a favor?”
“You bet.”
He reached into the other breast pocket—the one not holding his notebook—and produced a business card, which he handed to me. “Call me if anything else happens.”
DOMINIC
THE FUNNY thing about kids is, you never know what you’re going to get. One minute, unexpected nuggets of wisdom are falling from their cherub lips, and the next, they’re cramming peas up their nose. At thirteen, my daughter, Naomi, was past the point of shoving inappropriate objects into her nostrils, but she was still guilty of making some very poor decisions. Case in point, she’d recently come home from a slumber party with both her bushy eyebrows dyed bright blue.
I pondered this dichotomy as we sat at the table together, eating breakfast.
Correction: I was eating breakfast, contemplating the work I had ahead of me at my family’s garage and body shop. She was typing at light speed on her phone, occasionally laughing at whatever her chat buddy had said, completely pretending I didn’t exist. On the bright side, I was getting used to the bright blue dye against her light brown skin.
I was emptying the last of my cereal milk down the drain—and I’m sorry kids are starving in third-world countries, but I’m still not drinking the lukewarm, crumb-filled milk that held my Special K—when she spoke to me for the first time all morning.
“Dad? Can I talk to you?”
“Sure, Snowflake. What’s up?”
“We have a new English teacher this year. His name’s Mr. Franklin. And he seems like a nice guy, you know? I really like him. But over the first couple of weeks, I kept thinking he was familiar. Like maybe I knew him, except I knew I didn’t?”
She posed it as a question, so I said, “Uh-huh” to keep her going as I took the seat across from her.
“Well, yesterday he came into fourth period, and he was all wet, like he’d been out in the rain. And I almost think maybe he’d been crying. And he sat down at his desk. And I realized why he seemed so familiar.”
“Why?”
“Because he acts exactly like Mom does when she has her bad times.”
Elena had struggled with severe depression on and off since our senior year of high school. Although she’d been fine for the last three years, Naomi had seen enough of her mother’s “bad times” to make her hyperaware of the signs. “You’re saying your teacher’s depressed?”
“I think so, yeah. And it feels like I should be able to do something, but… I can’t, can I?”
“Well, you can be friendly. You can ask if he’s okay. Let him know you’re worried. But you know how it is. All the good intentions and cheery speeches in the world may not be enough. Sometimes it takes medication. Sometimes it takes a change in routine. Sometimes it just takes time.” I spread my hands. “Sometimes nothing helps at all.”
She frowned and tapped her phone against the table. “It sucks.”
“Yeah, it does.”
I glanced at the clock. I hated to cut things short when she was not only talking, but talking about something more critical than the latest plot twist in her favorite TV show, but we both had places to be.
“You want me to give you a ride to school on my way to work?”
“No. I’ll walk.”
“Okay. You going to your mom’s after?”
“Not today. She’s working dinner shifts right now, so there’s no point. But maybe over the weekend.”
“Whatever you want to do.”
“I gotta go. Abby’s waiting for me.”
She stood up and swung her backpack over her shoulder. She was halfway out the door when I spoke again. “I love you, Snowflake.
Even when your eyebrows are blue.”
She rolled her eyes at me. “Jeez, Dad. Grow up.” She was gone in a swish of long black hair. The door slammed shut behind her.
“No, thanks, kid,” I said to the empty house. “You’re doing that fast enough for both of us.”
FIFTEEN MINUTES later, I arrived at Jacobsen’s Auto Repair and Body Shop. My father had opened it forty years earlier, making it the longest-running garage in Coda, and my brother, Dimitri, and I had spent most of our lives here, smelling oil and gasoline and rubber. It wouldn’t officially be ours until my father retired—an eventuality that never seemed to materialize—but we already did most of the work. Dimitri stayed on top of the money. I did the bodywork. We both worked as mechanics too, along with a handful of cousins. My cousin Frank, who was nearly ten years older than me, stood behind the front counter when I entered, looking something up on the ancient computer.
“What’ve we got, Frank?” I asked as I entered.
“Looks like a slow day so far.”
“You know you’ll jinx us, talking like that.”
He laughed and rapped his knuckles against the countertop, even though it was Formica rather than wood. Things may have been slow at the moment, but that didn’t mean we’d breeze through the entire day. I knew how simple mornings often turned into frantic afternoons.
Sure enough, our “slow day” turned into anything but. Flat tires and bodywork ate up my morning, then came the lunch crowd—the customers who thought they’d bring their car in for work over their lunch break and then acted surprised when we couldn’t service all of Coda in an hour. It was after two when I finally ducked out for a quick sandwich at the sub shop down the street.
The chaos had abated by the time I returned. I found the back of the shop nearly deserted. Clearly, they’d all followed my lead and taken a late lunch break. A single car sat over the well in the floor. A faint trickle of liquid reached my ears.
“Who’s in the pit?” I called as I approached.
“It’s me.” Lenny’s voice echoed across the concrete floor.
I sighed. Dad, Dimitri, and I managed to run the garage most of the time, but I had about thirty cousins, and it seemed every one of them ended up working for us at some point. Some, like Frank and Julio, worked their asses off.
