Drawing Blood

by Deirdre Verne

  “His art,” I said and smiled.

  “It impressed me too,” Frank agreed, and then added, “It also got me thinking.”

  “About what?”

  Frank’s voice was low and careful. “About Bob, the human being.”

  I drew a massive, loopy heart around Bob’s head. “He was a good person,” I said.

  “Then let’s start with that. Up until this point, we’ve only received positive feedback about Bob.”

  “Thank you,” I said.

  Frank turned to Cheski and Lamendola. “See if you can find manufacturers that supply name tags to companies in the area. Then take Charlie to the warehouse and help him organize the tech equipment in whatever way makes sense to him.” Charlie poked his head in the door and gave a thumbs-up. Frank rose from the table and reached out for my hand. “You and I will go talk to Jimmy, find out how the tech equipment gets to the recycling center and where it goes after. Then we’ll stop by Barbara’s.”

  “Okay,” I nodded.

  “We start tomorrow,” Frank said as he packed up his papers. “Bright and early.”

  fourteen

  I retreated to my attic studio and stretched out on my unmade futon. I tried to close my eyes for a bit, but it was useless. I rolled over and stared at my collection of sketches. The walls of the attic were impossibly slanted. To make the space more usable, I had hung old ladders from the rafters to display my work. Charlie had hinged the ladders to a pulley mechanism originally designed for formal drapes. This allowed me to slide the ladders from left to right. Then Charlie and I ran picture hanger wire across the rungs and I tacked my sketches to the wire with clothespins. Sometimes I’d leave a drawing up for months until the edges curled just enough to drive me crazy. At that point, I’d transfer a drawing to an ever-growing pile shoved into the corner.

  The doughy man had been hanging for a few days now. His facial detail was particularly frustrating because Marissa’s eyewitness account occurred from a distance. I had to be careful here, because without an accurate description, I might fill in the blanks with my imagination. Case in point, my postman and I have had an ongoing feud for the last few years, and his face seems to crop up in my sketches every time I’m in a nasty mood. I, incorrectly, have blamed my postman for junk mail. I do understand the postal service is an innocent distributor of third-class mail, but my damn postman is so smug when he drops a pound of rubber-banded circulars on my front porch. As much as I have grown to dislike our daily exchange—me chasing him down the driveway to take the mail back—I realize it would also be in bad taste to implicate the postman in a crime just because I associated his face with all things bad. Until I had a second sighting of the doughy man, his face would have to remain vague.

  I gave the woman’s calves the once-over. Based on Charlie’s description, I had started to pay more attention to current clothing styles. I had even dragged Katrina to the mall where we sat for hours watching people come and go. Charlie was right. The yoga pants craze is a real thing and young women do, in fact, wear skinny jeans.

  I heard the lower door to the attic creak open followed by footsteps on the stairs. Was it possible Frank had considered staying the night? I sat up quickly and messed with my hair. Then I positioned myself in front of my easel and appeared to be deep in thought.

  “Hey, Ce,” Charlie said.

  “Oh,” I sighed.

  “Disappointed?”

  I tossed my pencil aside and resumed my splayed position on the bed. “Of course not,” I said, patting my bed. “What’s up?”

  “Something about the track marks on Bob’s arm seemed wrong.”

  “I know. It’s just not Bob.”

  Charlie sunk back into my bed. “Maybe I’m being too optimistic, but even heavy dabblers get it together at some point. You can’t keep up the hard stuff that long. You’re either dead or out of recovery by the time you’re Bob’s age.”

  My heart kicked up a beat. The topic of drugs made me think about the unqualified parents that Lifely had serviced. What if my egg had been co-opted by a drug-addled couple? What if these crazy pill-popping parents checked out on their commitment and abandoned the product of my genes? I had visions of a baby in dirty diapers toddling around a crack house with a crusted spoon in its fist. I needed to talk to Dr. Grovit and fast. I was heartbroken over Bob, but the fate of my viable egg remained a real and present concern.

  “You’re breathing heavy,” Charlie said, raising an eyebrow.

  “I’m upset about Bob,” I lied, placing my hand over my chest. “But you’re right. Maybe the marks are old.”

  “Wouldn’t Barbara know if her husband had an ongoing addiction?” Charlie asked.

  I thought back to the day Frank and I saw Barbara. There was nothing about her demeanor that was false or even awkward. “I don’t think Barbara hid anything. She seemed as surprised as we were that Bob hadn’t shown up for work.”

  We lay next to each other staring at the ceiling. Lacy strands of dust clung to the beams. For years, I had wondered if dust balls could be converted into something usable, but I’d come up dry every time.

  “Are you dating anyone?” I asked.

  “I met a web designer at a tech conference recently.”

  “Wow,” I said, truly surprised. “A web designer. That’s perfect for you. A web designer is like an artsy engineer.”

  Charlie nodded. “How about you and Frank?” He turned on his side propping his head up on his well-defined arm. Charlie wore

  t-shirts no matter what the weather. Tempting. It was almost cruel on his part.

  “It’s good,” I said, keeping my eyes on the rafters.

  “Good?” Charlie repeated.

  “Sure,” I said, a little too quickly. “It’s good.”

  Charlie lifted himself up and hung his head over mine. Our noses were so close I could see the hair in Charlie’s nostrils wiggle when I exhaled in his direction.

  “You haven’t slept with him yet. Have you?”

  I swallowed hard. “None of your business,” I said, pushing him away.

  He bounced up and clunked his head on the slanted wall. “Shit,” he yelled, and then rolled over to muffle a laugh. “No offense, Ms. Prentice, but you’re pretty easy. This is totally out of character.”

  “Shut up.” I punched hard this time, but Charlie’s stomach didn’t give. “Don’t you worry. I’ve slept with him.”

  “Liar.”

  “Fine,” I admitted. “We’ve only done it a few times.”

  “What?” Charlie asked in only the way a guy who gets it anytime he wants could ask. He was utterly dumbfounded.

  I sat up and folded my arms across my chest. “I really like Frank.”

  Charlie poked me in the ribs.

  “Fine. Maybe I love him.” That was hard to admit to Charlie. We had been on and off for so many years, I wasn’t sure how he’d take my confession.

  He hugged me gently and then whispered in my ear. “Why just a few?”

  I blew air slowly out my mouth as I considered my dilemma. “It was weird, especially the first time. Too soon, maybe. So we’ve decided to slow it down.”

  “I think the term is a ‘born-again virgin.’”

  “Sounds like a great blog topic.”

  “We’ll call it ‘Virtual Virgins.’”

  I smiled at Charlie. “Can we still do this?”

  “What? The witty banter?” he said, becoming serious. “Don’t think you’re taking that away from me.”

  I sat up. “Look, I never would have met Frank had Teddy lived. That’s very difficult for me to accept. The same goes for Frank.”

  “I get that,” Charlie said. “But you’re thinking of it as a penalty. Maybe Teddy’s karma is what brought you to Frank.”

  I titled my head and stared at Charlie, who only on the rarest occasions sh
owed his emotions. “How spiritual of you.”

  “I have a soft side.” Charlie blushed and then switched gears. “For real, just a few times?”

  “That’s right.”

  Charlie rose from the bed and rubbed his head. “Call if you need me.” He winked and sauntered off. I threw a pillow, missing Charlie but connecting with my easel. The doughy man’s picture slid to the floor. I climbed off the futon and stood above the unnamed man. I had drawn him with long sleeves. Now, I wondered what was under those sleeves. I really needed to call Dr. Grovit, but it would have to wait. First thing tomorrow, Frank and I were headed back to the recycling center to talk to Jimmy, Bob’s right-hand man.

  fifteen

  monday, april 21

  It took a full five minutes for the conveyor belts to grind to a halt and the employees to congregate on the ground floor of the recycling center.

  “This is Detective DeRosa,” Jimmy announced. “And most of you know CeCe.”

  Marissa waved to me. Her hair and make-up were impeccable, as always.

  “They’re here to ask questions about Bob,” Jimmy said as he hung his head. The plant workers responded in kind with an impromptu moment of silence. “Please do your best to be helpful.” The sea of orange suits dissolved as workers made their way back to their stations. Jimmy handed Frank a plastic Ziploc.

  “It’s Bob’s tool kit and his receipt pad. We found it in the pile. It must have fallen out of his pants pocket.”

  Frank glanced at me, and I nodded. I recognized the small leather case that held Bob’s tool kit as well as his spiral notepad. Now that Jimmy mentioned it, Bob did always have the pad on him. Periodically, he’d pull it out and jot down notes.

  “I don’t think it will help,” Jimmy said. “I paged through it already, just receipts.”

  “I’ll take a look at it,” Frank said, accepting the plastic baggie. “We need to talk about the e-waste that comes into the facility.”

  “Sure,” Jimmy said as he led us outside to a row of ten Dumpsters lined neatly under a metal overhang. Jimmy unlocked a gate too high to scale, which effectively rendered the containers unreachable by the public. I placed my foot on the bottom rim of the first container and hoisted myself up. It was about half full of electronic products—televisions, phones, screens, computers.

  “How does the stuff end up in here?” Frank asked.

  “A few ways,” Jimmy said. “A resident can curb it and then call in for a special pick-up on items they can’t lift, like a television. We charge a small fee for scheduled pick-up. Some residents, the cheap ones, drive right up and dump their garbage at no charge. Then we get calls from businesses who are overhauling their equipment. We recommend an independent mover who picks up large loads and drops off here.”

  “I’ll need names of the independent haulers,” Frank said.

  Jimmy nodded and then continued. “Last, we run a free residential program once a year where we’ll pick up any type of e-waste at your curb.”

  “I thought it was more frequent than yearly?” I asked, distinctly remembering carting stuff to the curb with Charlie.

  “We used to do it quarterly,” Jimmy responded, “but the scavengers were eating away at our profits.”

  Frank dropped his arms and looked up at the sky. I knew exactly what he was thinking. Freegans, Dumpster divers, pickers, day trippers, and now scavengers. Garbage had its own language, and Frank was a non-native speaker.

  “I guess I need to ask,” Frank said. “What is a scavenger?”

  Jimmy smiled and pointed to a discarded bench. We sat down and listened as Jimmy explained the inner workings of the trash business. “Most garbage can be repurposed, but in the United States, only twenty percent actually gets recycled. It’s a shame, because when you do it right, garbage is a profitable and environmentally sound venture.” Jimmy straightened his back and swept his gangly arms across the recycling center. “I wish we had more of it. When we started twenty years ago, this place was half the size and costing taxpayers a couple of hundred thousand bucks a year. Now, we’re netting over

  a million dollars a year through properly sorting, packaging, and redistributing materials.”

  “Who did what?” Frank asked.

  “Bob watched the market and cut the deals, and I handled the day-to-day.”

  Frank folded the cover on his iPad and leaned forward. “Give me an example.”

  “Water bottles,” Jimmy responded quickly. “Bob found a manufacturer in Minnesota who turns plastic bottles into polyester fabric. Plastic bottles can be ground down to a flake-like consistency. Those flakes can then be melted into a spaghetti-thin filament.”

  I nodded eagerly. “Like thread,” I said. I had heard of this recent innovation in water bottle recycling, and I was happy to discover that Bob and Jimmy were on top of it.

  “Exactly,” Jimmy confirmed. “Thread that can be woven into polyester material. Anyway, Bob was a master at staying on top of the next greatest green trend. I worked on my end to streamline the sorting and baling.”

  “So what’s a scavenger?”

  “Scavengers also watch the market, and they attempt to get to the hot items before the legitimate dealers. They’re low-level middlemen who add another layer of distribution to the system. Our problem was the curbside pickup. Scavengers keep track of municipality recycling schedules. They study the calendars looking for the special pickups—like the quarterly collection of tech items. In the middle of the night, they comb the streets and strip the computers clean. By the time we picked up in the morning there was nothing left to sell.” Jimmy took a deep breath. “It drove Bob crazy. We’d be left with a computer shell.”

  “A true non-recyclable,” Frank said.

  “Yeah, useless garbage—how’s that for redundant? So now we run the program once a year, and we don’t print the date. We use an automated robo-call two days before pickup. Our yield is lower because residents are caught off-guard, but scavengers also have less time to mobilize.”

  “Who do the scavengers sell to?” I asked.

  “That’s a bit of a gray area. We’re a public facility. Bob dealt with reputable, large-scale recyclers. Have you ever seen a town purchasing order?”

  “Twenty people have to sign to place a three-dollar order for paper clips,” Frank laughed. “But it doesn’t mean that your legitimate recyclers didn’t buy from the scavengers. The town recycling center may have constraints, but the other players don’t.”

  “True,” Jimmy said, and then added, “Our red tape creates a window of opportunity for scavengers. Regulations slow us down. Scavengers will work through the night, sell to anyone, no paperwork, all cash.”

  “The garbage black market,” Frank said. “As long as there’s a monetary spread and two parties willing to trade, you’ll find a match.”

  Jimmy stood and rubbed his hollow cheeks. The rims of his eyes were rheumy with memories. “Bob loved this business. He thought every piece of garbage had a story, and he was happy to listen to people as they unloaded their junk.” Jimmy was silent for a moment, and I could see he wrestled to put Bob’s philosophy into words.

  I started to hum a familiar song, quietly at first, but as the tune came back to me, I broke out in a string of la la’s.

  Jimmy’s eyes widened as if he’d seen a ghost. “That’s Bob’s song,” he said, pointing at me. “He used to whistle that song.”

  “Actually, the song belongs to Oscar the Grouch.” I started to sing again, filling in with the words until Jimmy couldn’t help but join me in the chorus of “I Love Trash.”

  “Had you heard Bob whistle it?” Jimmy said.

  “I did,” I answered. “Bob loved trash because he knew he could give meaning back to people’s items by transforming them into something else.” The inspiration for his dioramas.

  Frank stood up and began to pace. I nodded to Ji
mmy and said, “Give him two minutes. He’s thinking.”

  Frank stopped and crossed his arms over his chest, then he tossed his head as if to say I’m not ready. Instead, he shook Jimmy’s hand, signaling the wrap-up. We were preparing to leave when Frank stopped again.

  “These containers,” Frank said finally, pointing to the row of e-waste Dumpsters. “How long can you hold what’s in there?”

  “As long as you want.”

  “Jimmy,” I asked as I looked at the plastic bag Frank held, “did Bob give people a receipt when they dumped their e-waste?”

  “Yes. The last three containers are donations that might be useful to nonprofits like churches and preschools. They’ll pick through the stuff and see what they can use. Not everyone needs the latest version. The donations are a write-off for the resident, and Bob gave them a receipt for their efforts.”

  Frank looked at the bag and then looked at me. Bob’s notebook wouldn’t get tossed anytime soon.

  Before we left, Frank and I toured the recycling center to inquire about the doughy man. We circulated photocopies of my sketch, leaving extra copies in the lunch area. Not a single bite.

  “Do you think the workers are afraid?” I asked Frank.

  “Hard to say. We’re not even sure the doughy man is involved,” he said. “He may have nothing to do with Bob’s death.” I stared at Frank. Neither of us believed that.

  “Now what?” I asked as we made our way to the parking lot with not much more information than when we arrived.

  “I keep coming back to Bob’s dioramas,” Frank said. “His art was so …” He trailed off.

  “Connected?”

  “Yes, and I get the sense Bob knew people. He had to be connected to someone who knows something, and I’m guessing his wife is the best place to start.”

  We decided to travel in Bob’s footsteps to see Barbara, walking the same path he took to and from work. After we put a few hundred yards between us and the recycling center, the sound died down,