“Take varm clothes, Gina,” Mom says. “Is cold at night.” She’s said the same thing in the same moose-and-squirrel accent since I was twelve and going off to summer camp. 

“Mom,” I say, “it’s May.”

“Sveater veather,” she says, pulls the aforementioned garment out of my dresser, and lays it atop my duffel. 

It’s the bulkiest sweater I own, bright red, and makes me look like a big, fuzzy chili pepper. It also takes up half the duffel, but it was a gift. From Mom. Need I say more?

We have this conversation every time I leave home for more than a day and I always leave with extra sweaters, extra sox, vitamins of all kinds and-

“You have your obereg?”

This literally means “protector” in The Mother’s Tongue and, like the sweater and vitamins, is something Mom will not let me leave home without. Not that she’d admit to being superstitious. But with a PhD in Russian folklore, a fascination with arcana, and a vast collection of materia magica from all over the world, she views packing an amulet as a practical consideration. Better safe than sorry, yada, yada.

I reach into my jeans pocket and retrieve the obereg du jour—the smallest of a set of nesting babushka dolls that have spent some time under the altar at Our Lady of Kazan.

“See? I’m all obereg-ed up.”

“Good,” she says. “Don’t vorget to say goodbye to Edmund.”

I never forget to say goodbye to Dad, who never says word one about sweaters, vitamins, or amulets.  Dad asks: “Did you pack your sidearm?”

I sometimes think people with dysfunctional families have it easy. Okay, not really. My odd but stubbornly functional family is what got me through my teens, my epic washout from the police academy, my broken engagement, and my current meanders.  They don’t seem to mind that at 24 I’m still trying to decide what I want to be when I grow up.

Now, as I speed my Harley northeast on Interstate 80 toward the picture postcard capitol of Northern California, I reflect that I have always and only wanted to be a cop. I still do, notwithstanding I’ve proven I’m not cop material. 

I’ve toyed with the idea of becoming a P.I., but I have reservations. Not because the work is hard and dangerous—no problem, I have an obereg for every occasion—but I mean, honestly, how seriously would you take a detective who’s five-foot-one and weighs ninety pounds in a wet trench coat?

Hence, I am heading upstate for a Gold Country walkabout, thanks to my high school buddy, July Petersen, who insists I come up and check out the California Forestry Department. 

Gina Miyoko, Forest R-r-ranger. Right.

July lives with her parents. This is not because she’s a deadbeat, but because she likes living with them. July’s parents are nearly as odd as my own. Example: she has a brother named ‘March’ and a sister named ‘October.’ One wonders what would have happened if March had been a twin. Or had been born in May or June. 

July is a cop—California Highway Patrol. She is also my hero, and has been since high school when she assumed the fulltime job of protecting our gaggle of social misfits.  We were misfits for reasons of stature: July was too tall and buff; I was too small, as was the lone guy in the group, Lee Preston. We were the Spratts, Mutt ‘n’ Jeff, Abbott and Costello, Laurel and Hardy — you get the picture. 

None of us dated much, including July, notwithstanding she was statuesque and blonde. In the years since, she hadn’t sprouted any significant others, so I am understandably floored when, over lunch, she asks casually: “So, you want to help me plan my wedding?”

“Your what?”

She smiles into her Thai coffee. “Wedding. You know the thing where you stand in front of a minister and trade poetry?”

I’d be standing in front of a Buddhist monk and a Russian Orthodox priest, but whatever. “When?”

“July, of course.”

“Wouldn’t miss it, but I’m not sure how much help I’ll be.  You may recall that I flunked Wedding 101. I didn’t know you were even dating.”

“I wasn’t. I don’t do dating.”

“So, who’s the lucky guy? Do I know him?”

“Yeah, pretty well, as a matter of fact. Lee Preston.”

“Lee? Criminy, July, you’ve known Lee forever.”

She shrugs. “You think of someone as a friend long enough, sometimes you don’t know there’s more there until something happens, and you realize things can change. You know what I mean.”

I do. Dad had nearly died when I was thirteen. He’d been on the Grass Valley PD then, and a drunk driver had nearly taken him out during a routine traffic stop. I still can’t drive through the intersection of Sutton and Brunswick without sweating.

“Lee got a job offer from a radio station in San Francisco.  As we discussed whether he’d take it, we realized...” She shrugs eloquently.

“So he’s staying at KNCO?”

“Nope. I’m going to the SFPD.” She pauses to give me an oblique glance. “Which your Dad has apparently not mentioned.”

“Dad knows?”

“He helped set up the interviews.”

“I owe him one,” I say, not sure exactly what I owe him.

That evening we dine with July’s parents and Lee, who has grown from a geeky adolescent to a drop dead gorgeous man. All in a compact 5-foot-7-inch frame.

“You’re too tall for him,” I tell July as we police the kitchen after dinner.

“Height-ist pig dog. That’s one step away from sexism. You, of all people, should be sensitive to issues of stature.”

 “I’m just saying,” I object, “that you could’ve let me have him. He’s a titan in my little universe.”

We sit on the Petersen’s deck, playing Gin Rummy by citronella, and watching the breeze toss the treetops below the house. Further down the hill, the security lights of the Petersen’s brickworks spill into the two lane county road that separates it from Wray’s Wrecks. 

The lights at the wrecking yard are dimmer, and I can make out a row of trees on the opposite side of the long, two-story garage. I catch the flash of car headlights from the highway beyond the lot. Good place for a wrecking yard. Easy access for tow trucks, and Highway 49 does a bang-up job of supplying business.

“July says you’re thinking about becoming a private eye,” Lee says as he trounces us at Gin for the third time.

Jan Petersen—short for “January”—makes a tsk-ing sound. “That’s a dangerous job,” says she whose only daughter went into law enforcement right out of high school.

I’m not thinking about becoming anything at the moment, but I rise to the bait. “Not with the proper training.”

Jan shakes her head. “It’s just hard to imagine you skulking around alleys, carrying a gun.”

“Taurus Magnum,” I announce. “Lightweight, compact, and a pretty shade of blue. Recoil’s a bitch, but I take target practice twice a week.”

Lee grins at me across the table. “I’d think you’d have an advantage not looking like a textbook P.I.  Who’d suspect Tinkerbell of casing them?” 

July agrees absently. “Uh, huh... Now what’s gotten into Bob?”

We all follow her gaze. Wray’s Wrecks is ablaze with light.

“Jiminy Christmas,” says July’s Dad (whose name is simply and sensibly “John”), “he’s got every light in the place on.”

“Maybe he’s trying to flag down passing UFO’s,” I offer.

John Petersen chuckles. “Wouldn’t surprise me. Bob Wray is an odd duck. A truly nice man, but odd.”

We watch as a trio of random-sized dogs fans out from the garage that dominates the northeast corner of the long yard.  The place is several acres in size, but doesn’t look like any wrecking yard I’ve ever seen. Not that I’m a junkyard aficionado, but anyone who owns a Harley is more than passingly familiar with them. This one’s peculiar, even at first glance.  There are no dizzyingly vertical piles of car corpses or randomly scattered body parts. Bob Wray’s junkyard is relentlessly horizontal and scrupulously tidy. The wrecks, viewed from the Petersen’s front porch, are laid out in a grid of neat, even rows.

“You suppose he has a Harley carburetor?” I muse.

“Who doesn’t?” Lee asks. “Question is: is it any better than the one you’ve already got?”

“I have four. You can never have too many carburetors.”

The lights at Wray’s Wrecks dim as suddenly as they came on.

“Huh,” says July.

“Gin,” says Lee.

I rub the babushka in my pocket and reflect that perhaps the old Church Fathers are right: card games are demonic.

oOo

Saturday we look up old friends and old haunts. The area has changed radically since I lived here. Grass Valley has sprouted strip malls and department stores while the downtown area has been tourist-ified. Where there were once hardware stores, there are now trendy restaurants, boutiques, and art galleries. 

Oddly and comfortingly, it is still the town I remember—a nice place to have grown up, despite the fact that it’s still lacking in...well, color, not to put too fine a point on it.  I’d been one of only five Asian-American kids in high school and the other four were from local Chinese families who’d been here since the Gold Rush. Most own restaurants.

I comment on this to July as we wander Nevada City after lunch.

“Still the whitest county in the state,” she admits, grimacing. “In law enforcement circles we’re still a ‘white enclave.’ That’s changing though. More African American families are moving in, and the Chinese and Maidu, who’ve been here forever, are getting more involved in the community. The Maidu just opened a new cultural center.”

“That’s great.”

“It’s too slow for my partner, though. Mike’s been talking about going back down to the Bay Area, too. Taking his family someplace more diverse.”

“Tell him to come on down. I’m sure my dad could set him up with a job.”

“He should set you up with a job. Why don’t you let him? You really should be a cop, Gina. Aren’t you willing to give the Academy another try?”

“Sure, but I doubt the Academy would give me another try. I was bad at following orders—remember? And unable to lift fully grown men given to a high fat diet.”

“So what’s next?”

“Wray’s Wrecks. I’d still like a carburetor.”

Bob Wray turns out to be a tall, bear-like black man who could be 35 or 60. There is a little gray in his hair and a bald spot in the crown of his head, but his face is ageless except for a tiny set of pleats between his brows. These give him a quizzical expression, as if he’s waiting for the punch line to a long and convoluted joke.

Bob leads us through the wrecking yard to the ‘Motorcycle Department.’ From the triple-bay garage with its large office and storage room, we cross a gravel parking lot to a wide gate in the chain link fence that encloses the vehicular debris. A stand of photinia fronts the yard, forming a thick hedge that completely screens it from the road.

Inside the fence, the impression of extreme orderliness is doubled. Each wreck occupies a spot with enough clearance for someone to comfortably stroll around it. The distance between the cars is exact and unvarying.

The Motorcycle Department is as neat as the rest of the place except for the partially dismantled Electro-Glide that sits on a workbench in front of a neat white stucco cottage with a royal blue roof, door, and window frames.  A guy is working on the bike, removing parts from the Shovelhead engine. Like Bob, he’s wearing royal blue coveralls and a matching baseball cap with the Wray’s Wrecks logo on the front. 

When he turns to face us, I recognize him. He’s Perry Dixon, a high school classmate, a former jock...and our sometimes tormentor. Perry had been a hanger-on, a follower rather than a leader. He never hurled insults, just stood mutely by, grinning, while his buddies heaped on abuse. His job was delivering the parting semi-apologetic smile.

I promise myself I will not hold this against him, but there is a split second in which I wish I’d paid more attention when Mom lectured on the Evil Eye.

I say: “Hi, Perry. Remember me?”

“Tinkerbell, isn’t it?” he asks, and smiles to take the sting out of the nickname, which he bestowed upon me—God bless him. It’s a reference to the fact that my given name—Gina Suzu Miyoko—is Japanese for “silver bell temple.” At least he didn’t shorten it to “Tink”.

“It’s Gina.”

He smiles again; looks at July. “Hey, Jules.”

“Hey, Perry. Got a Harley carb on you?”

“Sure. Didn’t know you had a bike.”

“Bike’s mine,” I say. “Carburetor’s been sniffling. I’m lining up replacements.”

He doesn’t believe me. “You on a Hog?”

“Don’t say, ‘That’s a big bike for such a little girl.’ Last guy did that has tread marks down his back.”

He grins. “Same old Tink—mouth on legs.”

“You gotta be so rude to my paying customers?” Bob asks amiably. “Maybe I should find Miss Miyoko her carburetor.”

“I’ll do it. What model you got—Softtail?” He’s teasing me. 

I refuse to be riled. “’83 Super Glide II.”

“You know they make ‘em with electronic ignition now,” he tells me as he wanders toward the neat little stucco cottage.

“Electronic ignitions are for sissies,” I call after him, then turn to Bob. “Spiffy operation you’ve got here. I don’t think I’ve ever seen such a tidy junkyard.”

Bob grins. “Why thank you. I pride myself on it. No reason why a place that deals in wrecks has to be a wreck. Orderliness is next to Godliness.”

“Hey, Bob,” says July, “you have some excitement around here last night? We were out on the porch and saw all your lights go on, dogs going nuts...”

Bob wags his head. “Guess you could call it excitement.  Something was messin’ around in the back corner of the lot. ‘Coons, I think. I let the dogs out. That pretty much took care of it.” 

“This ought to do you.” Perry has emerged from the cottage-cum-parts shed, holding a Harley carb that looks as if it’s been steam cleaned.

I buy it, paying less than I expect.

Sunday we spend at the river, then take in a movie with Lee and July’s entire clan. Monday July has to testify in court, so I’m left to my own devices.

I intend to check out the Forestry just so I can say I did, but my carburetor is doing more than just sniffling. It has developed the Harley equivalent of a killer head cold. I congratulate myself on having had the prescience to pick up the carburetor, then realize I have none of the necessary tools to install it. 

I nurse the bike into the parking lot of Wray’s Wrecks where deceleration causes it to lapse into a coma. I’m sorely disappointed in my current obereg, which apparently does not cover Harleys. I’ll have to raise this issue with Mom, who assured me it had “good stuff” when she gave it to me.

Bob pokes his head out of his office with a frown on his face. “That doesn’t sound good,” he says, then recognizes me.  “You’re July’s friend. Gina, right?”

“Yep, and as you can tell, I’ve got a problem. Old Boris here just keeled over on me.”

He comes out into the yard, wiping his hands on a royal blue rag and flashing a smile. “So, what’s ailing Boris?”

“He’s in dire need of bypass surgery and I left my scalpels at home. Got any I can borrow, Doctor Bob?”

“Sure thing. Lemme set you up.”

He does just that, while I haul the listless bike into the well-lit garage, which is every bit as neat as the rest of the place. I smell motor oil and Borax, but little of the cold, gritty aroma most garages have.

As Bob lays out the tools, I ask after the local raccoon population. “You have any more trouble with them the last couple of days?”

He gives me a thoughtful look, the pleats between his brows deepening. “Well now, I’m not sure about it being coons. You think coons could move one of these old wrecks?”

“Move one? As in ‘relocate?’”

“More like disarrange. I like things neat-“

“Gosh, Bob, I hadn’t noticed.”

He favors me with a wry grin. “Like I say: orderliness-“

“Next to Godliness,” I finish. “So someone disarranged some of your cars? Kids playing pranks?”

He scratches around in his close-cropped hair. “Well, I’d think that, but usually pranksters try to see how much they can get away with. Show off stuff. Not subtle. This was real subtle.  Hell, I don’t know if anyone else would even notice.”

“Drove you nuts, didn’t it?” I guess.

He laughs. A big laugh that uses his considerable chest cavity as a sounding board. “Got that right. It didn’t take that long to figure out something was wrong, but figuring out what was wrong nearly gave me a nervous tic.”

“So, what was wrong?”

He looks sheepish. “You’re gonna laugh.”

I cross my heart.

“One car was turned just a bit. You know—didn’t quite line up with the others. Makes me feel kind of silly saying it. Couldn’t have been off by more than six inches.”

“Big job for raccoons. Sounds more like someone is yanking your chain.”

“Yeah? Well, I may just have to do a little detective work to figure it out. You need help with that carb?” He nods toward the Harley.

“Nah, I can handle it.”

“I bet.” 

I’ve worked on the Harley for maybe half an hour when Perry Dixon drops in. He stands in the office doorway, watching from where I suspect he thinks he is invisible.

“I could use a hand with this,” I say after a while.

In the bike’s rearview mirror, I see him jump. “Sure, Tink. What d’you need?”

“Aside from not calling me ‘Tink’, I’d like you to start her up while I play with the mixture.”

He does as asked and watches me fiddle with the fuel-to-air ratio until like what I hear. 

“You do that well,” he tells me as I put the tools away.  “Ever think of becoming a mechanic? Pays well.”

“Perry, I can play with engines, but I don’t like playing with engines. I admit to a certain sense of satisfaction at having just replaced that carburetor almost all by myself, but it doesn’t blow my skirt up.”

He leans on the bike and gives me a disconcertingly direct look. “What does blow your skirt up?.”

“Police work.” I am stunned at how immediately that pops out of my mouth, and how completely without irony. 

He shakes his head. “You and July. You got any idea how weird that is, Tink? Two beautiful women who want to bust guys’ asses for a living.”

Wow, a compliment. “I didn’t say anything about busting asses. My Dad was a cop, and my uncle is a cop, and my two best friends are cops. I’m surrounded by cops. Makes me feel... coppish.”

He gives me a long, wry look. “Ever consider therapy?”

“Hah.”

“So why aren’t you a cop?”

“A sad twist of fate and genes. I’m vertically challenged and I can’t follow orders. This did not escape the notice of my instructors at the Law Enforcement Academy. I washed out.” 

“Ouch,” says Perry.

That about sums it up. I change the subject. “So what do you think of the recent nighttime ruckus? Bob’s coons or pranksters or whatever. Got any theories?”

Perry shakes his head and pulls a face. “Coons. That’s a good one.” His eyes flick up to meet mine, laughter in them.  “The Coon’s coons?”

“What?” I say, deadpan.

“You know—coons. It’s another word for-“

“I know what it’s another word for.”

Perry reads my face, then pulls his eyes away, straightens, and says: “Look, Gina, Bob’s imagining things. I don’t think we’ve got coons or pranksters.”

“The dogs think you’ve got something.”

I roll the bike outside where Bob is huddled with a customer over the engine of 1938 Buick Special. Bob is clearly captivated, so I just wave goodbye and head up the hill, trying not to dwell on my disturbing conversation with Perry.

oOo

The lights go on in the junkyard again that evening. We watch from the Petersen’s front deck as dogs fly every-which-way and Bob emerges with a flashlight and trots off into the lot to be lost behind the tall screen of photinia. I recount my earlier conversation with him. 

“So now you’ve got him all hot to do some sleuthing, huh, Nancy Drew?” says July.

“I think got pretty hot on his own. He wants to know who’s playing with his cars.”

“Perry?” Lee suggests.

“Why Perry?” I ask, too sharply.

Lee blinks. “Well, like you said: it’s probably someone who knows Bob and is yanking his chain.”

I shrug. “Yeah, and there’s also every chance Perry moved the car accidentally.” Right. And maybe there really are coons in the junkyard making the dogs all hinky, and maybe one thing doesn’t have diddly to do with the other.

oOo

I drop by the yard again the next morning to ask Bob if he found anything. He isn’t there, but Perry is, dismantling a Honda Accord.

“I guess Bob’s still sleeping off last night’s activities, huh?” I say.

Perry frowns. “What do you mean?”

“Something set the dogs off again around midnight. Had Bob out stalking the lot.”

Perry shoots me a glance, then looks back to his work. “Guess I won’t worry that he hasn’t shown up for work, then. Bob’s never this late.”

“You’d worry? Really?”

He looks up and meets my eyes. “Yeah, I’d worry. Bob’s a good guy.”

“For a ‘coon?’”

He has the scruples to blush. “Bob’s a good guy.”

“Yeah, he is. I’ll come by later. See what he found.”

oOo

A day trip to Tahoe later, on a rainy but balmy Thursday afternoon, July and I drop by Wray’s Wrecks before driving down to Sacramento for a prenuptial hunt for household goods.

Perry’s alone in the small office. He looks like a man who hasn’t slept for a week, which is odd considering I saw him only two days ago. The purple smudges under his eyes clash badly with his sallow skin, and he’s sporting a retro Miami Vice look.

“You look like crap,” I observe. “Bob around?”

He drops his gaze to the desktop. “No. I haven’t seen him since I left work Monday. I’m worried, Tink.” He comes to his feet as if an angst bomb has just gone off nearby. “Bob doesn’t do stuff like this. He doesn’t just take off.”

I’m suddenly a bit angsty myself, but I try not to echo Perry’s fidgeting. “Maybe he took some time off and forgot to tell you.”

“Bob schedules everything.” He gestures at the calendar on the wall behind the desk. Model-Ts, not model T&A. “If it’s not on that calendar, it isn’t scheduled. That’s the first place I looked when he didn’t show up Tuesday. He had two rebuilds. He wasn’t here to do them. I even went by his house. All locked up.  And his car’s still here, parked behind the garage. I didn’t notice it until I went out to feed the dogs yesterday morning.”

“Have you reported him missing?” July asks. I half expect her to pull a casebook out of her pocket. 

“No. It’s too soon, isn’t it? Someone has to be missing for awhile before the police give a rip.”

“Seventy-two hours,” says July, “but given Bob’s reputation as a solid citizen, you could make a case for speeding things up. You really think something’s wrong?”

Perry swallows convulsively, a haunted look in his eyes.  “Yeah, I’m pretty sure, Jules. This isn’t like Bob. Besides, he left his car.”

“You’ve searched the lot?” I ask.

Perry nods. “Walked it from one end to the other. Checked the outbuildings, too. Bob’s not a young guy and he loves big, sloppy burgers...”

“I’m calling this in.” July reaches for the phone. So much for our hunting/gathering expedition.

“What about the dogs?” I ask Perry.

“The dogs?”

“Were they out in the yard or penned when you came in Tuesday morning?”

His eyes seem to read the air in front of him. “Uh, in.  They were in. Their pen’s out behind the garage.”

“So either Bob put them back in or...”

Perry’s eyes widen. “Or what?”

“Let’s take a look,” I suggest. 

July glances over at me from the phone and nods, her brow furrowing at whatever she’s hearing on the other end. “Don’t touch,” she mouths, as if I have to be reminded.

Perry leads the way through the almost-rain to the covered dog pen on the south-facing corner of the building. The inmates seem happy to see us, jumping against the chain link enclosure and emitting hopeful doggy whines. There are a large Shepherd/Collie mix, a smaller gray and black mutt, and a Golden Lab to cover the middle ground between the two. The pen has a pin-and-cradle latch with a combination lock. 

I prod the lock with a fingernail, noticing subliminally that I can hear the sound of traffic on the highway behind us. The dogs congregate, vying for my attention. The Lab is limping. I drop to my haunches and pat the fence with the flat of my hand. 

“Come here, girl,” I coo.

She minces over, showing an open, trench-like wound about four inches long on her left hip.

“Evie’s a klutz,” Perry says. “She’s bigger than she thinks and she tries to follow Max everywhere.” He indicates the small mutt, who’s nosing the knee of my jeans through the wire. ”Never learns.”

I get up, wipe my hands on my jeans, and glance toward the highway. A screen of pines and manzanita blocks my view, but the foliage isn’t my primary interest—a gleaming royal blue Volvo PV-544 sits against the curtain of greenery. I make it to be a ’64 or ’65. Classic. 

I go over and press my nose to each window—figuratively speaking. The upholstery looks factory new. I take off my knit cap, cover my hand with it and open the door.

“I’ve already searched it,” Perry says from behind me.

I ignore him and peek under the floor mats, in the glove box, and under the seats for anything out of the ordinary. I find nothing. I’ve gone around to the trunk and am gazing into its empty interior when July joins us. She looks like a Valkyrie—blood fever rising in her pale eyes. 

“They filed a report,” she says. “They won’t declare him missing until tomorrow morning.”

“Aren’t they going to send someone out to look around?”

“Nope.”

I close the trunk. “Well, we’re here. You’re a cop. And I was almost a cop.”

“I’m Highway Patrol, Gina. I have no jurisdiction-“

“Highways have cars; right now we’re surrounded by cars and we’re—gosh—a whole fifteen yards from a highway.”

“Gina...” 

“You’re right. Let’s go shopping.”

July casts a look down the length of the garage toward the gated junkyard. “I’m not in the mood.”

I turn to Perry. “Where did Bob think someone was messing with his cars?”

“Uh, somewhere along the back fence.”

“Did you check back there?”

“I told you: I walked the whole lot. I didn’t see squat.”

I head across the back of the garage toward the yard, July matching step with me. Perry brings up the rear.

The office phone bleats, the sharp sound rolling across the wrecking yard from exterior speakers. Perry hesitates, then goes back to the office, leaving us to slosh our way to the far corner of the lot. 

Banners of gauzy mist trail through the sentry pines. Highway 49 is louder here: engine noise and the hiss of radials on rain-slicked tarmac. Through gaps in the foliage, I see cars flash by as if taunting the derelicts in Bob’s lot. In various stages of decay, they are lined up in precise columns east to west, rows north to south, going nowhere. 

I’m convinced that if I measure the distance between wrecks, I’ll discover it is uniform. Except, I notice, for a silvery green Chrysler LeBaron, three from the end on the row nearest the highway. This one’s about ten inches from true.

“That must be the one Bob was upset about,” I say as we approach it.

July walks around the car, glancing from it to its nearest neighbor. “I guess I see what you mean. It’s angled a little.  Bob found that disturbing?”

I nod, making a circuit of the car. It’s in pretty good shape as wrecks go; it still has wheels and the rear ones have fully inflated tires on them. “I guess I can understand how someone that organized could be weirded out by this. Everybody straightens pictures now and again.”

“No they don’t.”

I pause near the rear of the car. “Bob said it was about six inches off. This looks like more than that.”

“The ground is pretty torn up, too.” July looks down at the muddy turf under our feet. “Raccoons didn’t do this.”

The car appears to have been rolled a few times—possibly the cause of its demise. Which does not explain a peculiar wound in the driver’s side rear quarter panel. We squat to give it a closer look.

“Someone’s used this for target practice,” July observes.

“Along with Bob’s dogs?”

She frowns at me through the mist.

“There’s a wound on the Lab’s left hip. It looked like a bullet track to me.”

“I don’t want to jump to conclusions, but“

“Someone’s messing around in Bob’s lot; Bob goes to investigate and goes missing. Meanwhile, a dog and a car turn up with bullet holes in them. What jump?”

The mist is closing in hard now, our world dwindling to a circle of lumpy mounds ringed by sentinel trees. The place looks like a graveyard.

We watch each other think, then July’s eyes stray to the rear of the LeBaron.

“Yeah,” I say, “I think we should.”

We move together to the rear bumper and stand looking at the trunk. My throat is suddenly too tight to swallow. I don’t want to open it, especially when I realize the rain is masking an unpleasant odor. I reach into my pocket and give my flaky babushka a quick rub, then reach for the latch, but July stops me.

“Let me, Gina. I’m off duty but I’m still a cop.”

The lock is jammed, inevitably, and it takes both of us to pry it open. When at last it pops, the smell is staggering. Soggy light trickles into the dark trunk—enough light to make the size and shape of the contents recognizable—a human body in royal blue coveralls. 

My throat closes up altogether at this point, making it hard to breathe. My eyes sting. I turn them up into the rain.

July says softly: “Damn.”

“Are you carrying a weapon?” I ask.

She shakes her head, pulls out her cell phone, dials 911. When the dispatcher comes on, July launches into a terse description of the situation. I step into the aisle and watch for Perry, who is perhaps this very moment on his way to parts unknown or lurking somewhere in this automotive cemetery.

In mere moments, I hear sirens, though I can’t tell from which direction.

“There’s a unit up on South Auburn and another one just down the hill on 49,” July says, from behind me. “You don’t think Perry did this?”

“Perry wouldn’t have any reason to sneak around the yard at night; he has access any time. Even if he were doing something underhanded in the wee hours, he’d know what nights Bob was working late and avoid them. And Perry wouldn’t excite the dogs. Besides which, his reaction to Bob’s disappearance seemed genuine.”

I pride myself on being a good judge of character, with one glaring exception. And that gives me pause. As anxious as Perry seems, he obviously doesn’t want us poking around the lot, and I suspect he lied about finding the dogs penned on Tuesday morning. I have to assume that whoever shot the Lab also shot Bob. You wouldn’t expect a murderer to escort the mutts safely home before making a getaway. 

“Gina? July?”

We both jump at the sound of Perry’s voice. I bend and pick up a fistsized rock.

“Here!” I shout.

He looms out of the mist a moment later, fading from ghostly to solid in four or five steps. “Find anything?”

His eyes go from my face to the open trunk of the LeBaron. Is that fear in them or something else?  He moves toward the rear of the car. July circles him; I pull back and let him pass by me.  I don’t want to see Bob’s body again, or smell it, so I keep my eyes on Perry’s face as he rounds the rear of the car and peers into the trunk. 

His face looks as if the mist has soaked through the pores of his skin and leached out every bit of color. “Oh...Oh, God.” He steps back and gulps several short, sharp breaths.

Over his shoulder I see that July has armed herself with a rock and is within striking distance.

“He’s dead,” I say.

Perry shakes his head. “No, he can’t be. Oh, God, this can’t happen.” 

He squats suddenly and I scuttle back several steps. July cocks her arm. But Perry is doubled over, hands on head, shaking uncontrollably. Either he is innocent or he’s one hell of an actor.

The sirens are congregating in the parking lot. Flashing lights paint the mist above the roof of the garage a fitful red.

July drops her rock. “Let’s talk to the police.”

oOo

The Sheriff’s guys spend hours in the lot, combing through the wreck and the surrounding area. Bob’s body is photographed and dusted, then taken away in an ambulance. July and I answer questions and watch the flow of detectives. 

Their questions are easy to answer unless I give them meaning. I try not to. I pretend I’m in a crime scene training exercise, and that the accuracy of my account means no more than a good grade. Underneath my false calm, I twitch like I’m tied to an anthill. I’ve known Bob Wray a handful of days, but still feel an urgent need to know who could have killed that big, sweet man—and why.

But for now, I answer questions, not ask them.

When the detectives are done with the office, leaving fingerprinting dust everywhere, July and I tidy up. Perry is still out on the lot, guiding an exhaustive search. Meanwhile, officers have gone to his apartment. They apparently find nothing; they don’t arrest him. He tells the cops he doesn’t own a gun. They test him for residue anyway and apparently find nothing. His fingerprints everywhere are no surprise.

In the course of straightening Bob’s desk I discover how truly order-obsessed he was. On the flip side of his deskmat/ calendar is a hand-drawn grid laminated in thick, clear plastic. In each square of the grid, is a notation in dry erase marker. The first three cells of the grid read: BLHOAC86, RDTOCO92, and TN/RDBUSP44.

“What are these?”

July peers over my shoulder. “Not vehicle ID numbers. Wrong format.”

“Oh, wait, I get it. I’ll bet this is how Bob keeps track of cars. If the grid represents the lot, then BLHOAC86 might be Blue Honda Accord -- 1986. And this one, I think is a Red 1982 Toyota Corolla.”

I follow up on my suspicion. While July dusts, I go to the chain link fence and peer through into the wrecking yard. The car nearest me in the row along the fence is a silver blue Accord. I can’t make out the model of the car on the far side of it, because it looks like a concertina. But it’s definitely a Toyota, and what’s left of its paint is bright red. I take Bob’s word that it was once a Corolla.

”What happened, Bob?” I murmur, pressing my forehead to the cold wet metal. What happened back there that was worth your life? Did you catch Perry stealing? Did you have an argument that got out of hand? Can you help me out here?

I realize one hand is wrapped around my pocketed obereg and willfully detach it. I consider the possibilities. Maybe someone had been using Bob’s beloved wrecks for target practice and he’d simply gotten in the way. I make a mental note to ask the detectives if they’d noticed bullet holes in any of the other cars.

Back in the office I take another look at the chart. Bob had faithfully reproduced the way the highway and county road squeezed his property into an uneven rectangle, wider at the southern end. Kind of like a pie wedge with a couple of bites gone.

My eyes go against my will to the farthest corner.  GROLCU77, it says, and my brain does a slow tilt. 

“Jules, the car Bob’s body was in—it was a Chrysler LeBaron, right?”

“Yeah. Why?”

I turn the mat around and show her. “Bob’s chart says it’s an Olds Cutlass.”

She snatches the mat and charges outside. Trailing behind, I watch her ambush one of the plainclothes guys emerging from the yard. She hands the chart to him, gesturing at the now open gate.

By the time I stroll over, she’s saying: “Look at this one. According to this chart, we should have found Bob Wray’s body in an Olds Cutlass, not a Chrysler LeBaron.”

The detective shrugs. “So, the chart’s wrong.”

“I don’t think so,” I say. “Bob Wray was fanatically organized. I doubt he’d make that kind of mistake.”

His eyes move from the chart to my face. “And you are...?”

July says: “This is Gina Miyoko. We found the body.”

“You a detective?” he asks me.

“Not professionally, no.”

He gives me a “look” and returns the chart to July. “This chart is only meaningful if it’s 100 percent accurate. You have any idea how long it would take to establish that? I’m not sure it would mean anything even then. Maybe Dixon put the car there and neglected to tell Mr. Wray he’d done it. Or maybe Wray put it there, but hadn’t gotten around to changing the notation.”

“But you’ll check it out?” I ask.

“Excuse me, I have work to do.” Mr. Plainclothes turns away and heads for his car.

“I’ll just bet his first name’s Dick,” I say.

“You think that’s how it happened?” July asks. “Bob never got the chance to write it down, or didn’t know it was there?” 

“In the end he knew it was there.”

We return to the office where Perry is standing in the doorway, looking gray. 

“They’re letting me go home,” he tells us. “I gotta think about things—like what I’m going to do for a living.”

“Any chance you can keep the lot open?” July asks.

“Maybe. Not sure for how long, though. He might have relatives somewhere...” He shrugs, then turns and starts to reach for the empty peg by the office door. “Oh, dammit, they took my fucking jacket.” He stares at the empty peg as if his train of thought has derailed.

“Perry,” I say, “how often did Bob update this chart?”

“What?”

“The chart that shows all the cars in the lot. How often did he update it?”

“Every time something changed.”

“Literally every time? Car comes in, you find a spot, and Bob writes it in?”

“Yeah, Bob was kind of maniacal about that.”

“So it’s accurate.”

“Yeah. Why?”

“Because the car we found Bob’s body in isn’t on the chart.” 

I keep my eyes firmly on Perry’s face, looking for what, I’m not sure. It’s hard to believe he’d kill Bob, racial bigotry notwithstanding. What I see is a slight widening of the eyes, a flush of color to the neck and ears.

“You’re kidding.”

“No. Right color; wrong make and model. Did you put it there?”

“No,” he says, then: “I’ve gotta go.”

We watch him lock up, then stand in the soaked parking lot like a couple of cows too dumb to get out of the rain. The whole thing feels so unreal. My stomach growls loudly, reminding me of the lamb vindaloo I’d never gotten for lunch.

“I think it means something,” I say.

July whistles the five-note Close Encounters melody. “I’m not taking you any place that serves mashed potatoes.”

“I’m serious, Jules.”

She looks up at the clouds. They shed tears in her face.  “Yeah. What do you think it means?”

“It means Bob thought there was a different car in that corner because he didn’t put the Chrysler there. Which could mean that Perry was moving some of Bob’s inventory on the sly.”

“Selling cars off the lot without Bob knowing? Why? I mean, how much is a twisted pile of metal worth? Besides, that leads to the conclusion that Perry killed him. Weak motive.”

I glance over at the now padlocked gate. “How long do you think the crime tape will stay up?”

“What are you thinking, Tink?”

I shrug. “I’d just like to take a look around. Find out if any of the other cars have bullet holes in them.”

“Ask.”

“You think Dick Plainclothes would tell me?”

She gives me a speculative look. “Maybe you should become a P.I.  Then at least you indulge this morbid curiosity of yours legally.”

oOo

In Sacramento the next day, July and I and try to get into the hunting/gathering spirit. I’m unaware I’m even thinking about Bob until lunch. I open my mouth for a bite of vindaloo and blurt: “Perry can’t be selling cars off the lot.  Then the cars would be gone, not different.”

“Maybe Cutlasses bring more on the black market,” July answers without missing a bite.

Despite the fact that we are sitting in an Indian restaurant eating food that causes euphoria, and discussing China patterns, she makes a seamless transition to murder and mayhem. I love that about July.

“Even so,” I say, “it’s hard to imagine anybody committing murder over an old wreck.”

“Unless they got caught stealing it.”

“Yeah, but murder?”

“Or an accident. Maybe whoever killed Bob didn’t mean to do it. But having done it...”

“You think the dog was an accident, too?”

“Maybe. Or maybe the perp was shooting at the dog and Bob tried to stop him.”

Her logic is appealing. Bob’s lot is being vandalized, the vandals go from taking pot shots at the cars to taking pot shots at the dogs. Bob walks into the middle of it and things go from mischief to murder.

The Sheriff’s Department likes that theory too. The problem is, they only find three bullets: one in Bob, one in the car, and one in the ground near the car. The last of these has doggie blood on it. Three bullets is hardly target practice. 

There is also the fact that the bullets are from different guns. The ones that took nibbles out of the rear quarter panel of the car and the Lab’s hip are from a ‘Saturday night special,’ the one that killed Bob is from a Glock. That ballistics bulletin doesn’t explode the favored theory, but it makes it less tidy. 

By the time I leave Grass Valley, the Sheriff’s Department is settling in for a long haul, crosschecking the million or so fingerprints they’ve collected from the car and garage, and thoroughly tossing the wrecking yard. So I’m surprised when, a little over two weeks later, July calls in a deep funk to report that the case has been all but shelved.

“So far, Perry is the closest thing to a suspect they’ve got and he was with his girlfriend until around three a.m. The time of death was no later than one. Right now, they’ve got two detectives on the case part time and they’re not doing jack. The D.A.’s put some pressure on them, but the Sheriff says they don’t have the resources to maintain a full investigation. And I can’t help but think...” There is an uncomfortable silence.

“What?”

“I think maybe they’d try harder if it was someone else.  If...if it wasn’t Bob.”

“You mean, if he wasn’t black? For God’s sake, July—tell me that’s not what you mean.”

“The Sheriff’s department here has a history of ignoring racially-motivated crime. Yuba county is a hotbed of skinhead gang activity, but they’ve got this ‘don’t happen here’ attitude about their own bailiwick. We can’t even get them to send representation to law enforcement workshops on hate crimes.” She sighs and continues. “But to cut them some slack, they’ve got no perp, no murder weapon, and no leads. None of the prints on the car are complete and none match anything in the AFIS database. Dammit, Gina, two agents who think they’ve hit a dead end are not going to solve this.”

“Have you asked Perry if there’ve been any more strange goings on in the yard?” 

“He says not. The theory is that Bob caught some vandals in the act. They killed him, maybe accidentally, and aren’t likely to return to the scene of their crime. They’ll find some other place to hang.”

“Yeah, or they might figure that with Bob gone, they’ve got no reason to suspend their activities.”

“What activities?”

“Activities that caused them to swap a green Chrysler LeBaron for a green Olds Cutlass.”

July is silent in a way that is not at all silent, then asks: “How soon can you be back up here?”

oOo

I’m in Grass Valley by suppertime, packing my Taurus and a new talisman. The babushka just wasn’t cutting it, so I swapped her for a Saint Boris medal. Saint Boris’ feast day happens to coincide with my birthday, which allegedly makes him particularly interested in my welfare.

It’s Sunday - a night on which we’d once observed activity in Bob’s lot. The sky is overcast, the streets wet with recent, unseasonable rain. It will be completely dark around nine, which leaves us very little time to plan. 

We dress in black, take cell phones—set to vibrate—and let only Lee know where we are going. We leave him watching the front of the lot from a car parked in the brickyard driveway across the street. He has instructions to ping July if he sees anything suspicious. I’m skeptical of this arrangement; God knows what a journalist finds suspicious. 

July is armed; I’m not, by her decree. If shots are fired, she says, they should come from a police weapon. So I enter the junkyard carrying nothing more deadly than my Nokia and a Saint Boris medallion.

We enter the yard from the far end, hiking around the perimeter in the dark, slinking through the brush and cutting across a firebreak that runs along the fence, bridging Highway 49 and the county road. We find a place where the links have been cut from the bottom of the support post and refastened with lightweight wire. We easily slip into the lot.

 Inside, we expect to see the Chrysler LeBaron, returned from impound. We are in for a shock. The spot is occupied by a Cutlass Supreme. The dim glow of the junkyard lights reveals it to be green. I suspect this is the car that was supposed to be here all along. Question is: how did it get here? 

Mom would say I should just ask it. In her world, despite the objections of the Church Fathers, inanimate objects have spirits you can communicate with. In my world, cars don’t talk.

We don’t know what to expect, but we decide the best vantage point from which to observe the unexpected is the rooftop of the parts shack. From here we can see all the way from the front gate to the back corner. At 10:47, we hunker down for what may be a long night.

At 12:35, July’s phone vibrates and Lee demands to know if we intend to stay there all night. July is telling him to go back to sleep when a flashlight beam slices through the mist from beyond the rear corner of the lot. July flicks off her phone, and slides forward to peer over the ridgepole, watching the light wriggle up from Highway 49.

A metallic clatter announces that someone is messing with the fence along the firebreak. The dogs commence barking. There’s no one to let them out.

The section of fence through which we entered the lot is disappearing, left to right, rolling back from its support post.  When the entire section is gone, the blunt nose of a tow truck pushes into the dimly lit aisle, pulling up just this side of the rusting Cutlass. It’s towing a second old junker, also green.  

Four guys pop out. In seconds, they’re on the Cutlass like ants on an Oreo. In the dim light, they strike me as average. Average build; average height; average clothing. They’re wearing jeans and khakis; camouflage. They flip the car over and roll it up against its neighbor.

One guy trots back to the tow truck and jockeys the car they’re towing into the empty spot. The dispossessed Cutlass is then rolled into a semblance of uprightness, attached to the tow bar and carted away, the fence rolled neatly back into place behind it.

In less time than I would have thought possible, the car swappers are gone, leaving behind another green car, two gawping women, and a pack of frantic, laryngitic mutts. 

When the dogs eventually calm down, July figures it’s safe to move and talk. 

“What the hell was that?” she asks.

“A drop off.”

“Of what?”

“I’m just dying to know, aren’t you?” I slither backwards off the roof of the parts cottage and swing to the ground in its shadow. July follows.

We approach the wreck cautiously. It’s a LeBaron. A glance at the driver’s side rear quarter panel indicates it is the LeBaron. July slips past it, all the way to the fence that overlooks the highway. 

Since I’m alone with the car, I take advantage of the opportunity to have a word with it. In The Mother’s Country, the spirits of houses are called domovoi. I’m not sure what to call the spirit of a car, but I’m game: “Autovoi,” I improvise, “where have you been?”

Predictably, there is no answer. I decide my time is better spent examining the trunk latch. I’m absorbed in that when July returns.

“They took off.”

I tap the latch. “Locked.”

“Damn. You any good at picking locks? I suck.”

“Fair to middling if I have a locksmith’s kit. Which I don’t.”

She puts a hand to her hair. “And I had to braid instead of pin.”

“That never really works anyway. Let’s see if we can get one of the back doors open. Maybe we can get into the trunk through the back seat.”

The back doors won’t budge. I mutter to the autovoi that it really could be more helpful, and look around for something I can use to take out what’s left of the back driver’s side window. 

July’s phone vibrates, making her gasp. She yanks it out of her pocket. “What?” she asks, while down at the garage, the dogs start barking again. She turns back to me. “Someone just pulled up out front.”

And that isn’t all. The fence is wiggling again.

I clutch July’s arm, pulling her down behind the rear of the LeBaron. There’s no way we’re going to make it back to our aerie. We’d have to cross the aisle in full sight of whoever’s coming in the back door. 

As we creep along the back row of cars, I hear the metallic scrape of the fence being peeled back. Through the empty windows of the Capri we use for cover, we can just see the gap at the end of the aisle. No tow truck appears this time, just a big, low slung Cadillac. It’s primer gray with patches of a darker color—perfectly camouflaged for a dark night with a light fog. 

The car rocks and bumps backward up the aisle and trembles to a stop in front of the very popular LeBaron. Its headlights wink off, leaving just the parking lights.

Three guys crawl out. They are not average in any sense of the word, except possibly among members of the Average White Aryan Brotherhood. They are young, brawny, and have barely enough hair between them to cover a peach. It’s downright chilly for June, but two of them are wearing only jeans and leather vests; the third sports a plaid jacket over his stylish black Tshirt. What exposed flesh I can see is mottled with tattoos.

The smallest of the guys moves to the rear of the LeBaron while the other two hover in the aisle, heads swiveling. At about the same moment I realize someone’s coming up the aisle behind us on foot, Plaid Man reaches into his jacket and pulls out a gun.

July and I move in unison, edging around the tail of our Capri and hunkering down.

“What the hell are you doing?” The voice is Perry Dixon’s.

Poking my head up as far as I dare, I can just see the back of his head through a couple of busted windows. Beside me, July draws her automatic.

“Picking up,” says Lesser Tattooed Man, putting his own piece away. “What the fuck does it look like?”

Perry makes an explosive noise and comes back with, “You lame-ass shits. Are you out of your fucking minds? This place has been crawling with cops for weeks and you call for a drop off now?”

“We need the goods.”

“Bad enough to go to jail? Jesus, Coop, if you leave here with that stuff, there’s every chance some local cop is gonna bust your ass.”

“For what, breathing?”

“A cruiser goes by here every half hour. The cops might just find it interesting to see a punk drive out of here in an old junker that’s dragging its rear end on the road.”

“Who’re you calling a punk?” asks Coop—rhetorically, I assume.

“You’re pretty fucking mouthy,” says Plaid Man. He has yet to put his weapon away.

“Bob Wray is dead. Me being mouthy is the least of your worries.”

Plaid Man takes a step back and glances at Coop, who says: “That wasn’t us. Must’ve been the other guys.”

“Your word against theirs.”

I’m relieved, to an extent that surprises me, that Perry is not Bob’s murderer. Just short of real relief, I hesitate, realizing I have no idea what Perry Dixon is.

“So? Why do you care who shot that old ni-“

“Don’t use that word,” says the man who not that long ago referred obliquely to Bob as a “coon”. “Get out of here. Come back tomorrow during regular hours and take the car off the lot like we planned.”

“Plans have changed,” says Coop. “We’re nervous about waiting.”

“Why? Car’s not going anywhere; nobody but me knows there’s anything in it. I’ll be the one handing it over to you.  Tomorrow.”

There is a long, chill moment during which Coop and his buddies exchange glances. Finally, Coop shrugs. 

“Have it your way. We’ll be back tomorrow.” He jerks his head toward the Caddie.

The others move in obedient unison, ambling back to the car and disappearing into it.

Perry turns on his heel and walks off back toward the garage while Coop watches him in a way that makes the skin between my shoulder blades crawl. He stands there so long one of his buddies climbs out of the Caddie.

“What’s the hold-up?”

“I’m thinking.”

Hence the complete lack of movement.

“We going?”

“Yeah, we’re going. But we’re not waiting till tomorrow. We’ll give Perry a chance to clear out, then we’ll do this thing.”

“What if Perry’s right about the cops?”

“What if Perry’s full of it?”

They return to the Cadillac and pull out of the yard, not being awfully careful with the fence. It still hangs slightly askew when they disappear into the gloom.

My first impulse is to race to the LeBaron and crack it open like an oyster. To pry out whatever pearl these guys want so badly that it cost a man’s life. This is a dangerous impulse, and hard to resist.

“We don’t have much time,” I say. 

July is already punching a number on her cell phone. “I’m calling the Sheriff’s Department. You call Lee and tell him what’s happened.”

I obey. 

Naturally, Lee orders us out of the yard. “Dammit, Tink,” he says. “It’s time you turned this over to the police.”

“July’s doing that right now.”

“Fine. Get-” His voice just quits.

My blood chills a few degrees. “What?”

“Perry’s leaving. Should I follow him?”

Tempting. “No. Stay where you are.” I hang up.

“I don’t believe this,” says July, fiercely punching off her phone. “The officer on duty thought I was a prankster.”

For a moment, all I can do is stare at her. “Call the CHP.”

“Come on, Gina. You know better than that. We don’t have jurisdiction.”

“Then what do we do? Frankly, I’m not up for one of those Charlie’s Angels takedowns. We’d probably end up under arrest.”

“Now that’d be a real defining moment in my career.”

“Then again, if we do nothing, Bob’s killers and whatever’s in that car...”

July stares at me in the dim junkyard light. “We don’t have lock picks.”

“Nope. But I’ve got a little Swiss Army knife.”

I get up and move down the row of cars to the tail of the LeBaron where I kneel to pull out my handy swivel-head flashlight. I clip this to the collar of my jacket and aim at the lock, thinking: O, autovoi, give me a break.

Apparently, you have to watch your language around inanimate spirits. The penknife quite literally breaks off in the lock after a mere five minutes of abuse.

“Now what?” asks July.

I poke at the broken blade with a fingernail. “We could shoot it out. That always works on TV.”

“Not funny, Gina. We don’t know what’s in that trunk. It could be a bomb.”

Or another body. “Kidding. How about a crowbar?”

She glances toward the parts cottage. “I’ll go see if I can find one.” 

“I’ll check the garage.”

“It’ll be locked. And we’ve seen how good you are with locks, Nancy.”

“Yeah, like you’re Bernie Rodhenbarr.”

We split up, July taking off for the parts place and me sprinting for the garage. The dogs are still going nuts.

I dash across the open area between the yard and the garage, hoping I’m invisible against the uneven backdrop of shrubbery. Once behind the garage, I make my way to the rear door of the shop.

Locked.

I slip over to a window and peer in. A tiny, flashing red light high in one corner of the cavernous room tells me that Bob was as security conscious as he was neat.

I’m considering options when every light in the yard winks out. This does not bode well. I slip to the corner of the garage and peer toward the back of the lot. The mist in the far corner is suffused with dim and flickering light.

I bolt through the junkyard gate on a rush of adrenaline, then sprint in the direction of the parts shack, where I hope I’ll find July. I zigzag, straining to see the bulk of the little building. If Lee isn’t asleep, he will have seen the lights go out. I pray he doesn’t take it into his head to be a hero.

I’m almost past the cottage before I see its boxy silhouette in the gloom. July is nowhere in sight. I hear a car engine and imagine the old Caddie creeping along the back row to the music from Jaws, drawing ever closer to the Le Baron.

Head down, I scurry across the clearing where Perry had been working on the old Electro-Glide. It’s still there, sitting on his workbench under a tarpaulin. Diving into the nearest row of cars, I head for the back of the lot. 

Within sight of the drop spot, I dodge behind a crumpled pickup. The Cadillac is sitting right in front of the old Chrysler, its trunk wide open. Two men are moving around the LeBaron. I recognize Coop as he rounds the rear bumper and turns his face back into the light from the Caddie’s parking lights. He bends to the trunk latch and my stomach flip-flops.

“Son of a bitch!” Coop straightens, taking swift inventory of the lot. “Someone’s messed with the car. Something’s broke off in the lock.”

One of the other guys sidles up to him. A flashlight winks on.

“Perry?”

“Perry knows what’s in the trunk, moron. Someone else has been here. Maybe they’re still here.” Head rotating like a radar array, he steps out from behind the car, drawing his gun. 

I’m close enough, and the light is just good enough, for me to see that it’s a Glock. Possibly the gun that killed Bob Wray.  I think longingly of my little blue Taurus, tucked away in the Petersen’s gun locker. I sidle back along the pickup truck, then hunker over and run. I’ve barely covered three yards when I collide with someone. We fall in a tangle of arms and legs. 

Training kicks in and I ball up like a pill bug and pop to my feet again in defensive posture. July faces me across a tiny arena defined by a pack of leering grilles, her gun aimed at me.

“Damn it, Gina-!“

She’s silenced by a shout nearby.

“Less talk. More fleeing.” I bolt toward the parts shop, thinking of the workbench with its concealing tarp. 

We serpentine through the cars, the sounds of pursuit closing. Flashlights slice through the ground mist. Why aren’t these guys speeding away in abject fear? What’s in that trunk that makes it worth the risk?

The parts cottage looms so suddenly it brings me up short.  A second later, a flashlight beam lances over my shoulder and splashes on the shop’s bright blue front door. A guttural yell and a warning shot follow it.

The workbench is a no-op. Plan B, then. I let momentum carry me into a painful collision with the front of the building. My head grazes the frame of the single front window; my left elbow makes solid contact with one of the panes, shattering it. I make a flailing grab through the jagged hole into the interior of the shop—grasping at straws, and giving my new leather jacket lots of character in the process.

“Hands behind your heads!” The male voice is sharp.

I pull my arm out of the broken windowpane. Shards of glass fall to the ground with tiny, thin explosions. Hands on my head, I peer through the shattered window into the dark room beyond and pray that Bob was as consistent as he was orderly. I try to breathe evenly, and not imagine being shot in the back.

“Hey,” says a second male voice about ten feet behind me.  “It’s a woman!” He approaches me from behind, stops about three feet away, and says: “Turn around.”

I do. A flashlight beam hits me full in the face, making me wince and blink. 

“This one’s a girl, too.” He takes a step closer, then pats me down—thoroughly—taking my cell phone and fanny pack. The backwash from the flashlight is enough for me to see the stupid leer on his face.

“Definitely a chick,” he says, and squeezes a telltale spot as if to confirm it. If he didn’t have a .38 pointed at my throat, I’d cheerfully kick him in the narlies.

“What are you two fine young things doing messin’ around a junkyard at night, China Doll?”

No points for originality. “I’m Japanese. And I could ask you the same question.”

His grin broadens. “You first.”

“I need a spare part for my Harley.”

“Yeah, right,” says the guy who’s just shaken July down. “You always go shopping in the middle of the night packing heat?” Over Coop’s shoulder I see him hold up July’s automatic.

“Okay, you got us. We were ripping the place off. You gonna call the cops?”

“Don’t have to,” Coop’s buddy says. “Got a cop right here.” He holds July’s open wallet up in the beam of his flashlight.  Her shield catches the light. 

The smile is sucked from Coop’s face as if by Hoover. “Sonuvabitch,” he says and glares at me as if he’s just now detected the animosity I directed at his narlies. “Sonuvabitch.”

A man of limited vocabulary, our Coop.

“What now?” asks his pal.

“Let me think.” Coop proceeds to do that, expending less effort than I expect. Then he grabs me by the collar and flings me backwards against the wall of the shop. My head makes painful contact with the window frame for the second time. 

The gun jammed into my neck, Coop gets real intimate, pinning me to the wall with his body. He smells of cigarettes, and damp leather; Budweiser breath tickles my cheek; his face is starkly up-lit by his flashlight. 

I think, nonsensically, of campouts and ghost stories.

“Was that your work, China Doll—the lock on that wreck?”

“What wreck? I told you, I was ripping the place off. The lady cop was busting my chops when you intervened. Thanks, I guess.”

Coop glances back over his shoulder at July. “Yeah?”

“Yeah,” she concurs. “Now, if you’ll give me back my badge and gun, I’ll just take my prisoner and-“

“And leave us to go about our business?” Coop finishes.

“Why not? You have a right to protect your property.”

She’s giving them an out. Taking advantage of my eclectic upbringing, I pray to Moses, Buddha, Jesus, and Saint Boris that  they’ll take it.

Coop’s wiry body relaxes and I think my prayers have been answered, when his buddy says: “Just a fucking minute! This badge is CHP. She’s got no business busting somebody out here.”

Great. All the skinheads in California and we get one with legal acumen and a sense of geography. 

Coop steps back so fast, I topple over. He grabs my shoulder, heaves me upright, and shoves me toward July and Mr. Smarty Pants. They march us to the corner of the lot, where Plaid Man pops out of nowhere, holding something small and red between thumb and forefinger. 

“I think I know what’s jammed in the—damn! What you got there, Coop?”

“Cops. What you got?”

“Swiss Army... Cops? Oh, man,” moans Plaid Man. “This is bad.”

I feel Coop’s rush of fear and fury like a cold spray of water down my back, smell it on him as he grasps my elbow and propels me the last several feet to the Cadillac. 

“Shut up, moron.”

“I’m a moron?” says Mr. Plaid in apparent disbelief. “I didn’t bring any fucking cops into this.”

“I said, ‘shut up’. Did you move the stuff?”

“Lock’s still jammed.” 

Swearing, Coop and Smarty Pants drag us to the rear of the wreck. Coop holds a gun on us while his buddy checks out the lock. He has a handy dandy locksmith’s kit in his back pocket, and I decide that if I survive this, I’m going to get one too—no offense to Saint Boris. 

I pray again to the autovoi—this time that my broken knife blade will put up a fight. It doesn’t. Smarty has the blade out and the lock open in less time than it takes most people to pick a popcorn kernel out of their teeth.

“Don’t be stupid, Coop,” I say. “Killing us is a death sentence for you too.”

“Bet that just tears you up inside, huh?”

“Not really. But I’m trying to appeal to your ass-saving instinct. People who kill cops in the state of California tend to fry.” I sound cocky as hell, except for the fact that my voice is all raspy with abject terror.

“If we get caught. And we won’t get caught. Get the stuff moved,” he says to Mr. Smarty Pants, then escorts us back to the Caddie at gunpoint. “You two are going for a ride.”

“The place is under surveillance,” says July.

Coop snorts. “Yeah, every half hour.”

We are relieved of the contents of our pockets, including the Saint Boris medal. I tell myself I don’t mind. I don’t really believe in all that stuff and the darn thing was useless anyway.

Then we watch as, one armful at a time, Coop’s buddies move the contraband from the LeBaron to the Cadillac. The canvas-wrapped packages come in assorted sizes and shapes; some are large and obviously awkward to carry; others are smaller and lumpy.  They roll into the blackness of the Caddie’s big trunk and disappear with dull thuds.

The rear of the car has sagged to within inches of the ground. Would a highway cop really notice?

“Done,” says Plaid Man as he drops his last load into the car.

Coop nudges July. “You first, baby.”

July shoots me a stricken glance, then climbs into the trunk. When my turn comes, I put up a fight, flailing with my feet, trying kick out a taillight.

I fail. Coop is too strong and my legs are too short.

Inside the trunk, my suspicions about the contraband are confirmed. It’s hard, metallic, and all angles. It clatters when I roll in on top of it.

We are riding on a big canvas-covered pile of artillery.

Coop leans into the trunk over me. “All those guns, and not one of ‘em loaded. I’ll show you a loaded gun when we get where we’re going.”

In the flashlight glare, I see him grab his crotch. Now, I really do regret not having unloaded on his gonads. I feel a deep, sickening quiver of fear as he closes the trunk on us.

We are crammed in like spoons in an over-full drawer; I can feel July’s breath in uneven bursts on my neck. The guns dig into our ribs and hips; the trunk lid presses down claustrophobically, pinning us. Smelling oil, gasoline, and fear, we each face our demons in silence. 

I think of Mom and Dad. Bring a sweater. She couldn’t have said, “Don’t go anywhere without your gun?”

The engine of the old Caddie roars to life; there is a stomach-turning lurch and we are in motion. July gasps as the guns shift under us.

I try praying again. Third time’s a charm. I pray to the autovoi that the Caddie will run out of gas, or her wheels fall off. I invoke Saint Boris. But we are turning right, and then we are rocking and bumping as the car navigates the rough old firebreak to the highway. 

I take a deep breath and focus. I’m lying on my right side, facing the rear bumper. Practically in front of my nose, I can see the faint glow of a taillight.

My right arm is wedged under me but my left, though pinned against the trunk lid, is relatively free. I wriggle my left arm forward, trying to extend it toward the taillight well.

The final bounce as we pull onto the smoother expanse of Highway 49 shifts the load and my arm shoots forward, my hand connecting painfully with the bare metal of the trunk lid.

That’s when I hear sirens so faintly I think my ears are ringing. I grope upward, toward the light, feeling for the wires I know must be there. O, autovoi...

“Gina, you all right?” gasps July, and I realize I’ve been growling and muttering during this entire, possibly futile exercise.

My questing fingers have stretched as far as they can when I suddenly realize they have met with wires. “Fine,” I pant, and pull as sharply as I can.

The wires, old and brittle, wrench free and the taillight flickers, but doesn’t die. Then I realize that the sirens have begun to wane. 

I envision the Nevada County Sheriff’s Patrol responding to the security breach at Wray’s Wrecks, pouring into the empty parking lot, finding gates wide open, and a groggy guy sitting in a Honda across the street. How long would it take them to figure out that Lee isn’t a suspect? That someone else set off the burglar alarm. That the back fence is agape.

I begin counting in my head, trying to establish distance.  I haven’t counted far when the car slows and veers right and up.  An off ramp.  

Before my eyes, the taillight winks out.

We swing hard left onto a cross street, not slowing down. Aging shocks overloaded, the Caddie wallows like a barge, scraping its rear bumper on the road. Then it picks up speed and holds steady. We are headed for Penn Valley, or points beyond—Marysville or Yuba City. Who the hell are these guys that they need this much ordnance?

My thoughts blur. The air in the trunk is thick and reeks of exhaust fumes. I’m overwhelmed by sound: the protesting creak of the Caddie’s outraged suspension, the whine of tires on tarmac.

Suddenly, I think I hear sirens again. Or rather, a single siren. It draws closer, or I imagine it does. And then it seems to be overtaking us. I try to care more, but I’m cold and damp and blind and I can’t move my legs and I really want to sleep.

The car slows, then comes to a stop on the shoulder of the road. The siren passes by and winds down in front of us. I hear the faint sound of a car door slamming.

The voices are mere mumbles. Coop says something and then the cop says something and I wonder if the cop could hear me scream. 

Then the Caddie rocks gently and the slam of a door sends a ripple of vibration all the way to the trunk. A moment later I hear the cop’s voice again, closer, but phasing in and out like a bad AM signal.

“Well, son,” he says, and delivers a speech of which I catch only the words “fix-it ticket”.

Coop’s voice is muffled, too. “No problem, officer,” he says sweetly.

Gravel crunches dully under their feet. I draw as deep a breath as I can and shout.

Or at least, I intend to shout. What comes out is a breathless croak. I try to move, too, to wriggle, to rock the car, all the while letting out explosive little squeaks, which is all I can manage. Behind me, July pants like a dog. 

But we’re too weak to rock the heavy car. And I doubt we’re loud enough to be heard outside the trunk. The cop is two feet away and we can’t make him hear us.

O, autovoi, if you’ve got any stuff at all, now’s the time.

I kick as hard as I can with my numbed legs, putting everything I’ve got into it. The Caddie merely shivers.

My profound disappointment is interrupted by a muted hiss and a metallic groan. The car settles several inches more on the left, sagging in slow motion toward the tarmac.

“What’s in the trunk, son?” says the cop. At least I think that’s what he says. All I’m sure of is that it’s a question and his voice is sharp with suspicion.

Before Coop can fabricate a lie, the night is filled with the dulcet tones of more sirens. A duet, then a small ensemble, then a full choir. They crescendo amid the rhythmic counterpoint of cruiser doors and running feet. 

Coop must have made a move, because the cop yells: “Freeze!” in a voice that brooks no argument.

A second voice shouts: “Out of the car!” 

The Caddie rocks and the cop says, “Open it.”

The air is clean and sweet and fresh with rain. Intoxicating. Being able to breathe without impaling my ribs on an AK47 is wonderful.

In due time I’m upright, sitting on the rear bumper of the old Caddie, a light drizzle misting my face. Perched beside me, July quivers and hugs Lee, who has magically appeared out of the rainbow mélange of cruisers. 

I look up into the mist and grin stupidly at the ring of hovering policemen.

oOo

“So which means more to you?” I ask July. “The reprimand or the commendation?”

“The reprimand didn’t come from my superiors. It only came through them. And everybody pretty much agreed that we’d given the Sheriff’s Department due notice that there was a problem.”

I recall the expression of fatherly concern on the District Attorney’s face when, after being hauled out of bed at three a.m., he’d chewed July out for getting personally involved in a case that belonged to the Sheriff’s department. Then he tore another strip off her for not personally waking him at one a.m., when the action started.

“And the commendation will look good on my record when I move down to SF,” she continues. “But the personal thanks from Bob’s sister—that meant the most.”

“Yeah, me, too.”

We are sitting in the “hospitality suite” in the D.A.’s office in Nevada City, sipping coffee and preparing for another round of Q&A about our “bust.” July looks impressive in her uniform. CHP duds tend to make most femmecops look blocky. I sometimes think they’re intentionally unflattering. But they flatter July. On me they’d look like a Halloween costume.

Mr. D.A. himself—Mark Harrison by name—puts in an appearance just then, swinging through the double doors with paperwork in hand, looking very D.A.ish. He smiles when he sees us. 

“You ladies ready for another round?”

“Of what?” I ask. “Coffee or grilled girl?”

“Now, now. It’s not that bad...is it?” He glances at July, who shakes her head.

“Tink’s just being a drama queen,” she tells him.

“I can’t guarantee this will be the last deposition you’ll have to give before this goes to trial, but I’m hopeful. We should be able to send Gina home after this.”

“Great. Then Mom and Dad can grill me.”

The D.A. glances at the papers in his hand. “They want a plea bargain. Manslaughter instead of murder two; illegal possession of firearms instead of kidnapping, and they want the hate crime aspect thrown out.”

July’s eyes snap to his face. “You won’t let them?”

“Do I look like a pushover? Thanks to your lack of regard for jurisdiction, Officer Petersen, we have a murder case. And since Perry Dixon is more than willing to testify against these gentlemen, I wouldn’t be surprised to see these arrests lead to others. More than that, we have a line into an entire hate network and the weapons dealers who armed it. To all appearances, those boys were planning some serious action in Yuba county. Your methods were unorthodox, ladies, but you got results. I think Bob Wray would appreciate the fact that you not only solved his murder but may have prevented others.”

Unorthodox. I shrug. “Bob solved it, himself. It was his orderliness, his attention to detail and security...”

“Which you noticed and put to use. And that trick with the taillight—quick thinking. Anyone ever tell you you’d make a good detective?”

I grimace, wondering what he’d say that if he’d seen me curled up in the trunk of the Caddie muttering to its imaginary auto spirit.

July is laughing at me. “Everybody tells her that. Law enforcement is in her blood.”

Harrison grins crookedly. “I think they have medication for that. Right now, you’ve got a date with the defense attorneys.”

July picks up her coffee and stands. “Come on, Agatha. If we’re lucky we’ll only be here till dinner time.”

“Wow, I’ve been promoted. Think I’m ready to hang out my shingle?”

“Yeah. Tinkerbell, P.I.”

July is teasing, but I think about it seriously as we navigate the halls of Blind Justice—a career that will keep me close to law enforcement. I try it out in my head: Gina Miyoko, Private Investigator. 

Works for me. 

I decide I’ll look into getting a license when I get home.  Right after I buy one of those handy-dandy locksmith kits. I reach into my jeans pocket and find my new obereg—a small knot of desiccated Cadillac taillight wiring.

O, autovoi—specibo, supashi-bo, and thanks.

END

© 2007 Maya Kaathryn Bohnhoff