Steven Gore - Power Blind

“Then how do they-”

“They pulled one off another line afterward and concluded that’s all it could’ve been.”

“What about the plaintiff’s experts?”

“They couldn’t come up with anything definitive to counter it.”

“What about maintenance records?” Alex Z asked. “When was the last time they inspected the valve before it blew?”

“About a month. They did the annual turnaround, shut the tower down and inspected-” Gage caught himself. “Makes me wonder how well they inspected it.”

“I’m no expert in workers’ comp law,” Viz said, “but that would still be just a screw-up on the part of some worker. How would that implicate management in creating dangerous working conditions?”

“It doesn’t, but it’s a place to start.” Gage looked at Alex Z. “They deposed a welder in the shop, Wilbert Hawkins. He testified he inspected the release valve, but didn’t see anything wrong with it. He went off to work in an oil field in Pakistan. Find out where he is now.”

Viz pointed at Skeeter Hall’s file. “What do you think the case would’ve been worth if the judge hadn’t dismissed it?”

“Skeeter thinks TIMCO would have settled for ten million dollars, but he could’ve taken it to trial and got thirty.”

“ If they could have gotten the case to a jury.”

“Yeah,” Gage said. “If…”

A lex Z appeared at Gage’s door two hours later, shaking his head.

“Hawkins never came back from Pakistan, boss. It’s like he evaporated.”

The strap of Jeannette Hawkins’s yellow-flowered shift slipped off her shoulder as she pulled open her front door. Her half-exposed left breast lay sagging against her chest like a flag at half-mast. She shifted her Budweiser bottle into her left hand, hoisted up the strap, then looked up at Gage standing on her porch.

“I paid it already,” she said.

“I’m not-”

“I paid the car note. Leave me alone.”

Gage glanced over at the 1993 faded red Ford Fiesta parked on the hard-packed front yard of the hillside bungalow in north Richmond. He then took in the cracked concrete leading to the sagging front steps and the tan paint peeling from the weathered clapboard siding. The front right corner of the roof was covered with a blue tarp. Cigarette butts littered the porch like spilled popcorn.

“I’m not here about the car,” Gage said. “I’m looking for your husband.”

“ Ex… Ex-husband… Ex-son-of-a-bitch husband.” She inspected Gage. “Who’re you?”

Gage reached into the pocket of his brown corduroy workshirt and pulled out his business card. She accepted it in her veined hand, but ignored it. Instead she stared at his shirt.

“That a Carhartt?”

He nodded.

“Son of a Bitch used to wear Carhartt every day over at TIMCO. Like a uniform.” She squinted at Gage. “You’re not from TIMCO, are you? I already got my check. I don’t figure I have to keep saying thanks in person.”

Gage pointed at his card in her hand. “I’m a private investigator.”

“Big deal.” She looked down at it, then extended it in front of her to allow her fifty-plus-year-old eyes to focus. “Anybody can make one of these. You got some ID?”

Gage reached into his front jeans pocket, withdrew his ID case, then flipped it open, displaying his California private investigator’s license. She grabbed for it, but he pulled it away. “Sorry. No touching.” He didn’t want to wrestle with her to get it back.

“Why do you want to talk to Son of a Bitch?”

“It’s about something that happened a long time ago,” Gage said. “You know where he is?”

Jeannette lifted the beer to her mouth and took a sip while peering at him with narrowed eyes. The bottle made a popping sound when she pulled it away.

“What thing that happened a long time ago?”

She said the words in a tone communicating that other than Son of a Bitch running off, only one thing of any significance had ever happened in her life, and she had only been at the edge of it.

“Over at the refinery,” Gage said.

“Can’t help ya, pal. He’s gone, gone, gone.”

“As in dead, dead, dead?”

“Naw, just dead gone.” She grinned, then eyed his left hand. “You married?”

“You looking?”

“Does pork fat come off a pig?”

Two Harley-Davidsons downshifted up the short hill; the syncopated chugging of their V-twins vibrated the house. Gage turned to see black Hell’s Angels vests disappear over the crest.

“You wanna come in?” Jeannette asked.

Gage smiled. “You’re not going to try to seduce me, are you? My wife won’t let me go out and play anymore.”

Jeannette winked. “We’ll see.”

Gage followed her as she backed into the house. It smelled of beer, cigarette ashes, and dog pee, the odors Gage went to sleep with as a rookie cop the night after his first day on the job. It couldn’t be washed off and stuck to those old wool uniforms like epoxy. That was one of the reasons he’d decided to wear a cotton shirt and Levi’s.

She pointed to the couch. “You can move those newspapers.”

Gage was surprised. He hadn’t taken her for a reader, and she wasn’t. They were months-old Auto Trader s she apparently used to shop for the Fiesta.

“You wanna beer?” she asked, walking toward the kitchen and stepping over a Slurpee cup.

“Sure.”

Gage watched her open the refrigerator, pull out two Budweisers, then twist off the caps. She headed back with the two bottles and handed one to Gage. He lifted it toward her, then took a sip.

As she lowered herself into a green upholstered Barcalounger, her shoulder strap slipped off again. She left it there, then peeked over at Gage and grinned.

“It do anything for you?”

Gage shook his head. “I’m not allowed to look.”

She pulled it up.

He took another sip, then waited for her to take one.

“You know where he is?”

“Sorta. He’s in one of them rag-head countries.”

“You know which one?”

“I’m not good with geography. My son is though.”

“Is he around?”

“Nope. County jail.”

“How come?”

“Got wrongly accused of touching a little girl-at least that’s what he says. But I don’t believe him about that any more than I believed his father about anything.”

“Has Wilbert called lately?”

Jeannette’s brows furrowed. “Wilbert?”

She said the name with such puzzlement Gage thought for a half second he’d misremembered Hawkins’s first name.

“Wilbert?” She laughed. “I’ve been calling him Son of a Bitch for so many years I almost forgot his name was Wilbert.” She shook her head, a smirk twisting her mouth. “What a stupid name for a guy born in Marin County.”

She squinted toward the tan phone hanging on the kitchen wall.

“Yeah, he called three years ago. On my daughter’s thirteenth birthday.” She snorted. “He should’ve spent the money on child support.”

“Where is she?”

Jeannette stared at the clock on the mantel of the trash-filled fireplace. “Let’s see, she got off work at Wendy’s about a half hour ago, then she was going to pick up my pills at the Walgreens… Let’s see…” She tapped her finger against her chin as if thinking through her daughter’s after work route, then looked back at Gage. “I know exactly where she is. She’s screwing her thirty-six-year-old biker boyfriend in the garage he calls an apartment.”

Gage glanced up at framed baby photos of the children on either side of the clock, innocent eyes gazing out at the wreckage their lives had become, and then changed the subject.

“Did Son of a Bitch leave an emergency number?”