J. Wachowski - In Plain View

“‘Docudrama style’? That’s two, College.”

He rolled his eyes up to heaven hoping for a second opinion.

“Maybe we can shoot the manager on Jost’s patio.”

The sound of a ball game on television mingled with the voices inside.

“…no shit?” a woman’s voice asked.

“…clean fuckin’ shirt?” answered our Fred Flintstone with the potty mouth.

“Not as if lighting is going to make the difference for this guy,” I had to concede.

Fred re-emerged a few minutes later in a clean knit shirt, with very unfortunate horizontal stripes, and the word Manager embroidered above the pocket. He’d clipped a carabiner full of keys to his belt loop that gave him a jingle as he walked.

“Tom’s place is right down here. You want to see inside?”

“That would be great.”

“Cops were here last week but they didn’t say nothing about it being off limits. I can let you in. No problem.” He had one eye on Ainsley’s camera box. “Am I gonna be on TV?”

“I was hoping you might agree to let us interview you if you’ve got a minute? We’d like to ask a few questions about Mr. Jost.”

Ainsley unsnapped the case and had the camera on his shoulder ready to roll faster than I’ve ever seen.

“Did the police remove much from the apartment?”

“Nothing to take,” he assured me. “Guy lived like a hermit. Cops walked through. Took some pictures, a few personal papers. That was it.”

“Did you know Tom?”

“Yeah, sure. I manage this building so he had to come through me for everything. Keys, light bulbs, shower clogs, I do it all. I think he had one clog, once. Odd guy. Nice enough, sure, but something about him. Wasn’t right, you know?” He tapped his temple with his finger. “Guy was a firefighter for the city though. You knew that, right? I’m local VFD myself, so when this guy calls saying there’s a fellow fireman looking for a place, I’m gonna help him out, you know, Amish or whatever.” He unlocked the door and waved us through.

Jost’s apartment was as spare as I remembered. Ainsley set up with a flood lamp attachment, which would probably look crappy, but was the best choice given the circumstances. I walked around pointing out the pick-ups I wanted: the lonely bed, the uniform fresh from the cleaner, the photo of Tom and Rachel at the carnival.

“Tell me more about Tom.”

He crossed his arms above his gut and propped himself against the table, the picture of authority. “Well, he was real quiet. Never heard him coming in, going out. Most of the people in this building, I know when they come and go. Not Tom. Never drank beer, either, and I offered plenty of times. Never took me up on it. Then, there was the problem with the animals. Couple times, I had to give him warnings about that. No pets allowed, you know.”

“What about the dog sign out front?” Ainsley pointed out.

“That’s a guard dog.”

Ah. “What kind of pets did Jost keep?”

“They weren’t pets. They were pests. Baby birds that made a nest in the firehouse and had to be fed like every commercial break, you know? No one in the firehouse would take them so he did. Shit like that, pardon my French.” He glanced at the camera. “Sorry.”

A woman with straw-colored hair and freshly applied lipstick popped her head around the corner. “Honey? Mrs. B is on the phone.”

“I’m busy here,” Fred replied.

“She says it’s an emergency.” She whined at him, but smiled at me. “They never leave him alone. Especially on weekends.”

Fred heaved a gusty sigh. “This’ll only take a minute.”

“No problem.”

I was afraid the wife would stay to supervise but Fred pulled her into a hotly whispered argument on his way out, the gist of which seemed to be if he couldn’t stay to be on TV, neither would she.

“Leave the set up,” I told Ainsley the minute the door closed. “Let’s look around.” Ainsley made a face like he’d swallowed something nasty and shook his head no. I got busy opening kitchen cabinets, the utility closet, the fridge.

“Don’t panic. I’m not going to ask you to roll camera on his underwear drawer.”

In a worry-whisper, he asked, “What are you looking for?”

“You’ll know when you see it.”

The best thing about my college boy was he mostly did as he was told. The camera came with him. In most camera jocks, this would be because the camera is as much a part of them as some people see their shoes, their keys, their wallets. Ainsley wanted it for his cover story, in case we got busted searching the place.

Exploring Jost’s place did not take long. If there was anything interesting to find, we’d have found it. The only halfway remarkable item was the sheer mass of strawberry jam-at least two dozen jars in the cabinet.

“How much jam can a guy eat?”

“Don’t knock it. This is really good stuff.” Ainsley pulled down a jar and held it out for me. “You ever had Amish fruit spread?”

“Focus, College. Stay focused.”

I grabbed the jam jar and looked more closely at the label. The handwriting on the front was a thin, slanted script that seemed to barely touch the paper. It made me wonder if Tom’s taste for preserves had more to do with the strawberries or the girl who made them.

“Let’s try the bedroom.”

Empty, except for a full-sized box spring and mattress. I looked under the bed. “Nothing.”

“Why do you say it like that?” Ainsley asked. “Is being neat such a crime?”

“Guy had a trunk full of pornography, remember?”

“So?”

“It occurs to me, College, there are more convenient places to peruse your porno collection than the car.”

“Oh. I get you.” Ainsley ducked behind the viewfinder.

There was nowhere in the room to hide anything. The guy didn’t even have a night stand. His phone charger sat empty on the floor, plugged into the outlet closest to the bed. The closet was as sparsely arranged as the kitchen cupboards. I shuffled the few hanging items over to the far side of the closet. A tool belt hung on a hook above a set of construction boots. There was something tucked behind his boots in the back corner, an empty box for a pair of brand new, long-range binoculars.

“Check this out,” I called.

“This guy doesn’t even have a stereo,” Ainsley pointed out. “Why’s he got those?”

“Watching the neighbors?”

Ainsley peeked out around the camera. “You’ve got a bad opinion of humans for the most part.”

“You think?”

“Maybe Jost was a bird watcher,” Ainsley suggested, hopefully.

“I’m back,” Fred called.

I stood up and faced the door.

“Oh, here you are.” He gave a little self-effacing chuckle and then bluntly asked, “Look my wife’s wondering if you can put her on TV too?”

“Sure. Great idea.”

An hour’s worth of interview with Fred and his wife and I was generating spin-offs for future stories: Dangers of Rural Housing Developments.

“We are on a roll, College,” I reported as we pulled out of Jost’s parking lot. “We scored background and meat on the same day. Things are looking up.”

The sun was at the hard edge of the horizon and setting the sky on fire. The green-white light of the street lamps burned like spot-flares above Butterfield Road’s five lanes of strip mall flow. Everything looks better when the work goes well.

The empty binocular box kept running through my head. According to Manager Fred, the cops hadn’t removed anything from the place. “What’s there to take?” he’d scoffed.

The cops wouldn’t make the connection to the death scene I was making because they hadn’t seen my photos. At this point, I was the only one who knew someone had been watching Jost hang through binoculars. Unfortunately, I couldn’t ask the cops if they knew anything that might explain the empty box or the watcher in the barn without Curzon requesting full disclosure.