“I didn’t follow you,” I admitted. “I was just riding for exercise when I saw you.”
Norma seemed confused by my explanation. “Just riding?” she asked.
I nodded, and she went back to unloading the dishwasher. I walked over to a corkboard covered with family photos and studied the pictures. “Do you work here?” I asked.
“I’m mooning, and I’m so sorry.”
“I think you mean moonlighting.” The drinking glasses clinked at her touch. My visit had made her nervous. “Did my father get you this job?”
“Ohh,” Norma groaned. “He called me when your mother went to rehab. He still pays me for your house, but he pays me more every week to come here. How can I say no to good money?”
I wasn’t sure it was good money, but I kept that to myself.
The kitchen was in the back of the Colonial. From the table I could see straight down the center hall, through the windows lining the front door, and across the street to my bicycle, which, despite my attempt to hide, was in full view. It wasn’t just my bicycle that stuck out like a sore thumb. My father’s motivation to place Norma in this job was an oversized red flag.
“Has my father been here?”
Norma nodded. Her guilt crushed her, but there was nothing I could say to make her feel better. She likely needed the money, but she also knew this arrangement my father had orchestrated wasn’t kosher. My guess is that fear played a factor too. I watched Norma fiddle with the spray attachment at the kitchen sink. I figured this would be a bad time to introduce her to the financial benefits of Freeganism as a form of self-sufficiency.
“He came in the house?”
“Yes.”
“What did he do?”
“Same thing as you. He looked at the pictures on the board.”
“How about this: We pretend this never happened,” I suggested.
She nodded.
“Except for one thing,” I added. “For my mother’s sake, you need to let me know when my father contacts you, and I promise you won’t get fired.” The last part was a lie. I couldn’t protect Norma from my father.
Norma frowned as she rinsed out the coffee maker. “Okay, I do it for your mother.”
Back outside, I retrieved my bicycle from the neighbor’s yard and started to pedal toward my final destination. I got what I’d come for: a firsthand look at Dr. Carolyn Corey. I also got a bit more than I intended. I could have biked cross-country and still not found the time to solve the new problem I had just created for myself. How was I supposed to tell Frank that my father had found Norma a job working at Dr. Corey’s house without revealing that I had been spying on Dr. Corey? I couldn’t ignore what I had discovered; it highlighted that Dr. Corey was on my father’s radar, and that seemed like a very bad turn of events. Frank, of course, would be too savvy to buy my “biking for exercise” story. I wrestled with the idea of telling Frank that Norma had a come-to-Jesus moment and voluntarily told me about the arrangement, but then Frank would want to speak to Norma, and I was sure she’d unravel under his scrutiny.
I passed the Cold Spring Harbor train station and congratulated myself on never succumbing to the drudgery of a daily job. I considered a detour by the platform to see if the bagel guy had thrown out any day-olds, but it was unnecessary. Norma had packed a snack for me from Dr. Corey’s kitchen. Instead of stopping, I pressed on, biking up and down hills that looked an awful lot flatter on my map.
About twenty minutes into my ride, I turned into a neighborhood I had never been in before. The houses weren’t on par with Dr. Corey’s, but the streets were nicely laid out with quaint Cape Cod–style homes, many of which had been renovated and expanded over the years. I rode as far into the neighborhood as I could in search of a public path at the end of a cul-de-sac, as indicated on my map. I found the path easily and rode through the woods until the path became too bumpy, forcing me to walk along side my bike.
There were a few splits in the trail that required left or right decisions, but before long I spotted the roofline of the recycling center. I leaned my bike against a tree and climbed up a few branches. From my perch, I had an aerial view of the path that connected the recycling center to the neighborhood I had entered. One thing that struck me was the lack of options or exits the path allowed. Although there were turnoffs and forks, all roads led either to the neighborhood where I had entered or to the recycling center. I wondered if the skinny jean woman had a car. Was it possible she saw Bob being threatened by the doughy man, got scared, and ran toward the woods to avoid detection? Maybe she retrieved her car later. Or was it possible she arrived and departed on foot? If she had left by the path, she may have had a car parked in the neighborhood I had just ridden through. That would make sense, since she seemed to be on foot the day I saw her at Bob’s house. The other possibility was that she made her way to the main road. From there, she might have been able to hitch a ride … except that no one bums a ride in the suburbs, even Freegans.
I rummaged through my backpack and tore the wrapping off an organic fruit bar courtesy of Norma. I washed it down with a child’s juice box. What a waste of individual wrapping, I thought. Doesn’t anyone drink from a reusable glass anymore? The bendy straw was so thin that the sucking started to give me a headache. My squeaky slurping caught the attention of a dog, who found his way to my tree and proceeded to bark incessantly.
“Hey,” the dog’s owner apologized when he caught up. “He doesn’t bite.”
I climbed down the tree to greet the man and his dog. Not that I had much of a choice, but I allowed the dog to slobber all over the last bite of my fruit bar. It tasted horrible anyway and that’s coming from someone who eats out of a Dumpster.
“What were you doing in the tree?” the man asked. “Are you lost?”
“A bit. I wanted to see if there were other ways out.”
“One way in and one way out.”
I pointed back to the neighborhood. “Do you live over there?”
“I do,” the man said. “First house at the end of the path. It’s really convenient with the dog.”
I patted the dog on the rump and climbed back on my bike. “Do you think I’ll see anyone else today?”
“Nah, not during the workday. In the late afternoon, you get teenagers. But that’s it.”
thirty-seven
Snack consumed and legs rested, I continued on my way. The wooded path quickly evened out, and I was able to bike the rest of the way to the recycling center. My ride had come to an end and I still hadn’t figured out how to tell Frank I had stalked Dr. Corey. Worse, I had to tell him my father had gotten to Corey first. I chained my bicycle to a fence just in case someone might think it was garbage. The bicycle had, in fact, been garbage at one point until I rescued it.
The recycling center was quieter than usual, and I noticed Jimmy supervising the repair of one of the sorting machines.
“I don’t suppose you brought a ten-inch rubber belt with you?” Jimmy asked from his hunched position.
“Not today,” I said. “May I speak with Marissa?”
“The pickers are on break until I finish this up. Check the lunch room.”
The lunch room was packed, but I spotted Marissa and asked her to step outside with me, and she willingly agreed. My sketch pad was opened to reveal my latest version of the doughy man. It was a long shot, but I had used the close-up photos of Bob’s doll to develop my sketch. The challenge, of course, was to tone down Bob’s satirical exaggerations to create a more lifelike rendering. Almost like undoing a caricature. For example, the doughy man doll, upon closer inspection, had huge ears and droopy eyes. In Bob’s interpretation, the man looked like a bloated hound dog. I took those features and drew them realistically. Bob’s doll also had a particular hair style, the thinning combover. For the viewer to see the receding hairline, I had to draw the face slightly downward and to the side.
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“Is this the man you saw?”
Marissa was a detail-oriented person. I knew this already by her attire, make-up, and jewelry, and as I had hoped, she studied the photo carefully.
“The hair. It’s good,” she confirmed. I had felt confident about the hair, but Marissa’s acknowledgment cinched it. Bob’s diorama had delivered.
“I want to ask you about the man’s badge.” I pointed to my chest. “Have you seen anyone else with a badge at the recycling center? A badge like the man wore?”
She shook her head no.
“One more question. Do all the workers leave at the same time each day?”
“Yes. Some drive home, and some of us walk to the road and wait for the bus.”
“So a bus comes by?”
“Yes, I take the bus, but I missed it that day, and I had to wait for another.”
“When you left, were there cars in the parking lot?”
Marissa’s eyebrows rose. “Well,” she said slowly. “If I had recognized one of the cars, I would have asked for a ride. I hate missing the bus. I guess I didn’t know any of the cars or I would definitely have asked for a ride home.”
That made sense. When you’re reliant on public transportation, missing a bus is a big deal. I believed that Marissa did, in fact, check the parking lot for a coworker’s car in order to avoid waiting for a later bus.
“Think hard,” I urged.
“I remember being sad I’d missed my bus.” Marissa opened her mouth and placed a neatly painted nail on her chin. “Now that you say it, I think there was only one car in the lot and I didn’t recognize it.”
“And Bob didn’t drive a car to work?”
“Mr. Bob walked.”
That would leave only the doughy man and the skinny jeans woman with transportation needs. Assuming the workers had left for the day, there should have been two cars, unless one of the two people had walked.
“Are you sure there was only one car?”
“Maybe.”
I thanked Marissa and handed her a jar of jelly from my bag.
My plan had been to return home by the same route, but I figured a quick ride to Bob’s house wouldn’t kill me. I was interested in the trails surrounding Bob’s house. Could the skinny jeans woman have moved undetected from the recycling center to Bob’s house on the day I saw her? I turned into Bob’s driveway.
Frank’s car was parked ahead. I’d forgotten he’d wanted to check Bob’s home computer for participation in a social group or network. I rode so slowly my bicycle almost tipped over. Turning around was an option, but that seemed even more childish than hiding behind a bush to spy on Dr. Corey. If only I could think of a lie that made me look good from Frank’s perspective.
I chose to ignore the inevitable tongue lashing and headed to Bob’s house. What I had discovered at Dr. Corey’s house was too important to hide.
“Hey,” I said, pushing the half-hinged metal door from the frame. “Anybody home?”
“In the kitchen,” Charlie said.
Charlie and Frank were both standing, arms crossed, staring at a computer on the kitchen table.
“Where did you find it?”
Frank shifted from side to side. “It was in his art shed.”
“Is there a password?”
“Recycle,” Charlie said. “It took less than thirty seconds to figure out.”
Charlie sat down at the table and slid the cursor to an icon, branded with the capital letters OL. “Are you all familiar with this site?” he asked us. “It’s called Other Life, or OL for short.”
“Is that the social site where you make a better, but cartoony version of yourself, like a new-and-improved you?” I asked.
“Yeah, it’s called an avatar,” Charlie said as he clicked on the icon.
“Then you socialize with other new-and-improved people in computer-generated fantasy locales,” I added.
Charlie laughed. “Pretty much. Basically it’s a series of virtual worlds you join and then hang out in. The worlds are designed for interest groups, like tattoo aficionados or motorcycle enthusiasts. This way the user can interact with other people who have the same hobbies or jobs or interests.”
“So what groups does Bob belong to?” Frank asked.
“That’s where I’m getting lost,” Charlie said as he poked at the keyboard some more. “Bob is maxed out at ninety-two worlds, way more than anyone can keep track of, even if you were able to create a super-improved avatar version of yourself.”
“What’s Bob’s avatar look like?” I asked, assuming Bob would have refashioned himself in to a svelte, athletic man. I’d never created an avatar, but an inch or two in height would be my personal priority. Charlie hit a key, and Bob’s Other Life avatar filled the screen.
Hmmm. Not what I expected.
In addition to Bob’s many hobbies, he now seemed to have a fascination with all things medieval. Although not a king or a serf in rags, Bob’s screen-self looked like he’d be right at home at a jousting competition. His avatar was stout, but not grossly overweight, and sure enough, the avatar sported Bob’s standard welcoming smile. I guessed the velvet cape from the diorama was inspired by this jousting theme. Under Bob’s avatar was a fictitious map. The red pin points suggested the locations of Bob’s movements through his virtual worlds. Quite the traveler, our Bob. I hadn’t seen him leave the recycling center in years but online, he was a regular Phileas Fogg.
A text box popped up in the corner. Hi, Bobin. We missed you.
Within seconds, text messages filled the margins of the screen. Most asked Bob, or Bobin, where he’d been and welcomed him back to whichever virtual world they were connecting from. Virtual Bob, it turned out, was a popular guy.
“Holy cow,” I said as I sat down. “More people who think Bob’s alive.”
“Charlie,” Frank yelled, “stop typing!” Charlie lifted his hands as instructed. “I need to think,” Frank said.
“This is freakish,” I whispered to Charlie. “It’s like he’s still here.”
Charlie nodded and then rested his hand on the mouse to scroll through the messages. “Not yet,” I said, and pointed to Frank, who had moved from the kitchen to the porch to the yard. “Let him walk it off. He’ll come back with a solution.”
We waited. My stomach growled. Apparently Dr. Corey’s fruit bar wasn’t sufficient given my lengthy bike ride. I rose, reached for a kitchen cabinet, and grabbed a box of opened whole grain crackers.
“Hungry?” I offered a few dry, brown squares to Charlie.
Charlie’s face was glued to the screen. “I’m pretty sure Bob’s got a better stash than dry crackers. Where’s the scavenger in you?”
Charlie was right. Organic crackers hadn’t pushed Bob to his peak circus weight. I was missing the mother lode of snack supplies. I tore through Bob and Barbara’s cabinets like I hadn’t eaten in days. Cups, plates, medicines, baking supplies. “Jackpot!” I yelled as I opened the narrow door on a floor-to-ceiling pantry. The shelves were lined with boxes of cookies—the good kind with fancy names that sounded like places you could never afford to travel to and containing no more than twelve cookies per bag. Two additional cookies and you’d likely use up your fat allocation for a month. I scanned the shelves and settled on a chocolate chip brand that, based on the picture, had more chip than cookie. My mouth watered as I separated the filmy layers of parchment between each wafer.
By the time Frank returned, there was one cookie left in the bag.
“The messages in the margin,” he said, pointing to the screen. “Did they load when you logged on?”
“Yup,” Charlie confirmed. “If I scroll back we should be able to see some history of conversations he had before he died.” Charlie scrolled up passed about thirty new welcome-back messages. “Here,” he said, running his finger down the screen. “Bob had been in
conversation with these people over the last few weeks.”
“Don’t click. Let’s print screen so we can read the messages.” A printer in one of the bedrooms kicked on, and I ran in and took the sheets from the tray.
“Besides someone is trying to kill me, what are we looking for?” Charlie asked.
“Any conversation that seems deeper than, Hey, how’s it going?” Frank replied.
With that, we dove into Bob’s message log. One thing was clear, the back and forth between Bob and his friends was short, almost superficial. Most repeated the same phrase—still working—until a few exchanges later where the friend would tell Bob they were looking for a new job. Bob always replied the same way: Three to five days. Regardless of the virtual world where the avatar resided, all the interactions were similar.
“Wait, I found one,” Charlie said. “It says, Recycle on Thursdays.”
The sugary remnants of my last cookie turned sour in my mouth. “Oh god, Thursday was the day Bob was pushed.”
“The avatar goes by the nickname the Maid,” Charlie said as he scrolled over the messenger’s screen name. “This message is from a medieval princess.” Sure enough, the Maid’s thumbnail looked like a character from a Disney movie.
“Is she online now?” Frank asked as he continued to scan the list of previous messages.
“She is,” Charlie said as he waited for Frank’s instructions.
Frank tapped on the computer sheet. “On the Wednesday before Bob’s death, the Maid wrote Recycle on Thursdays. She posted the same thing last Wednesday. If she’d attempted to communicate with Bob, it means she didn’t know he’d died the week before”
Drawing Blood Page 17