All The Way Down

Chapter 20

When the steaks were done, I turned the oven off and left the oven door ajar. The potatoes still had several minutes to go in the microwave, and I tore lettuce for salads into small bowls. Then I pulled glasses from the cupboard and loaded ice cubes into them.

The doorbell rang. I answered the door, and Michelle was standing on the porch in a plain blue skirt and a beige cotton blouse. She had a bottle of red wine in her hand.

I held the glass storm door open for her. She gave me a small kiss as she entered, and handed the bottle of wine to me. Until that moment, I hadn't thought about how uncomfortable it might be for her to be in the Brick's old house again. She walked stiffly into the kitchen and began looking at dinner. She had an inch thick bundle of green and white computer printouts under her arm. The microwave beeped that the potatoes were ready.

"You're not bad for a bachelor," she said.

"Thanks," I said. "I hope you like your steak cooked medium."

"Yup," she said. She laid the printouts on the breakfast bar and carried the glasses over to the faucet to fill them with water. She turned on the tap and brown water came out of it.

"Gross," she said. "The water's rusty again."

She left the tap running and pulled a green plastic pitcher from the refrigerator. She poured ice water into the glasses and put the pitcher back in the refrigerator. I was watching her, wondering how many times she had been in the house before, how she knew the pitcher was there. I turned the tap off as she put the tumblers on the table. The water was clearer now.

We talked about Rosalie for most of dinner. Michelle told me that Rosalie was born the summer of her sophomore year in college. Her mother had cared for Rosalie while she finished college and tried graduate school. I didn't ask what had happened to the father. I figured that Michelle would tell me in her own time.

She poured a little more red wine into my glass.

"I think you're very polite," she said "not to have asked me where Rosalie’s father is. Most guys I see more than once want to know."

"I'm curious," I said. "But I figured you'd tell me when you were ready to."

"My boyfriend in college was very sweet and at the time I thought I loved him. When we found out I was pregnant, he even offered to marry me. He wasn't mature enough to be married to anyone, though, much less be a father. I did a lot of soul-searching with my mother's help and decided to keep Rosalie. You can see that I made the right decision."

"Yes I can. She's a beautiful little girl."

"She's very fond of you, Del. She carries that golf ball everywhere now."

I laughed. "I like her too. She seems to have a problem with sharing cookies, though."

"We just need to make bigger batches," Michelle said.

We cleared the kitchen table after dinner, and loaded the dishes into the dishwasher. She laid the printouts on the kitchen table. I pulled one of the chairs around to sit beside her so we could look at the printouts together. She had a stapled stack of paper from the security office, too, and she set that off to one side.

"Before we start digging through these printouts, let me tell you what I'm looking for," I said. "What I want to know is this: should Brick have been there for that shift? Were any other cars there that night that usually weren't there?" I knew that if Brick was supposed to work that shift, and all the other cars in the lot were supposed to be there, we were going nowhere. It would just mean that someone on that shift probably did him in. That wouldn't narrow it down much.

Michelle looked up at me, blinking. "That's what the people in security said that the police wanted to know. I already went through these with security before I came over. Apparently, these are the only two cars that shouldn't have been in the parking lot." She picked up the copy of the report from the security office and pointed at a couple of license plate numbers on the printout that had circles drawn around them. I recognized one as being the plate on my brother's car. It was a New Mexico vanity plate: XL 429, for the model of car and the engine size.

Michelle continued, "Our records showed that Brick didn't usually work that shift. The other car belongs to Ray Archer. He also usually didn't work that shift. The only thing is," she paused, "people who want to work extra shifts can just show up and drive the trucks if one’s available. If there are extra trucks ready to go, they can use one. Just because Ray's car was there doesn't mean he did anything, does it?"

I thought about the ride in the blue Chevy with Ray. Ray seemed hostile when he drove off, but the idea that I had ridden in a car with Brick's killer seemed implausible to me.

"You say that someone can just show up to drive extra shifts," I said. "Do they have to check in with a foreman or anything?"

"Not for the graveyard shifts." She flushed in embarrassment at her choice of words. "I'm sorry. I wasn't thinking. The thing is, most drivers don't want to work the night shifts because it's harder to see what you're doing in the quarry. It's dangerous driving up and down the wall of the pit. Most nights only about half the trucks are in use. If someone wants to make some extra cash, the trucks are gassed up and ready to go."

"Do drivers punch a time clock?" I asked.

"Sure. All the hourly employees punch in. If they want to get paid, they have to punch their card."

"Well, did anyone check to see if Brick and Ray punched in at the time clock?"

"I don't know."

"Did the police ask you about who usually worked what shift?"

"Yes they did. I sent them out to talk to the foreman. He knows who works what shifts. There are only about fifty drivers."

"Can you get at the time cards?"

She nodded. "Anyone can," she said. "There's a big rack just outside the driver's locker room."

"I want to look at Brick and Ray's cards."

"I can look at them tomorrow morning and call you."

"I want to look at them now."

She sighed. "Okay," she said. "You drive."