41. #2
Ruby stood outside the factory, watching the last of the workers leave for the day.
They said goodbye to each other, carrying their empty lunch boxes.
They would go to their apartments across the street and wash the plastic bags they had carried their sandwiches in—bread bags that once had labels, now worn off—and they would hang the bags over the kitchen sink spout to dry as she and her mother had done.
Once, eating a sandwich at school, she had accidentally eaten a tiny piece of label that said Franz, and, amused, she had imagined it growing into a factory inside of her, all clanging metal and rising yeast.
A man was coming out, talking with the supervisor.
Ronald, as fresh as a West Coast sunrise in the Georgia glimmer.
He saw her, and his handsome face registered pleasure. Then he was crossing the sidewalk to say hello. He towered above her,
friendly.
“We were just discussing you,” he said.
The others had left; it was just the two of them.
“I was just thinking about factories,” she said.
“Tell me over a drink?” he asked.
They went not to the Drinking Spot but to another place down the street, a smaller pub with a swinging sign outside. She noticed
that his accent changed in the room. People were mimics, she had found. If they were around bad people, they became bad, and
they didn’t even know it.
Ronald, his last name plain old Smith, ordered himself a beer, and she had a glass of white wine that tasted as crisp as summer.
They sat near the bay window, to watch the sunset. She pictured it diving over the Pacific.
He seemed to be thinking the same. “I have a place in Winchester Bay, by the ocean,” he said. “It’s not the fanciest place,
but I like it there. Have you ever been?”
She was surprised and pleased. Winchester Bay was an Oregon fishing town, with old men and women sitting in the shadows of
the sea, and stinging spray over the smell of freshly shucked oysters. It was exactly the kind of place she liked.
“I have,” she said, sipping her wine.
“I imagine a lot of the places you end up are poor.”
“Well, I’ve never seen a rich man on death row.”
He drank his beer, wiped his mouth. The bar was warm, but not too warm: it smelled of hops, like Old Town. She felt an almost
dizzying array of emotions.
“I looked you up,” he said. “It must be lonely work.”
“I think most people pick careers to be happy, or at least secure,” she said. “There’s nothing wrong with that. But my career
picked me.”
“I imagine it must feel like being a person of biblical times going out into the wilderness to pick up the dead goats after
they had been driven out.”
She blinked: It was a terrible, and accurate, assessment of her work.
“The more you do it,” he said, “the harder it must be.”
“It stops seeming real,” she said. “The city becomes the dream. The mirage. The real world is out there—here in the wilderness.
It’s Mitchell in his cage, waiting to die.”
“No wonder you didn’t want to talk to me.”
They drank, quietly, for a moment. Soon, she knew, he would ask if she’d like another drink, and she would say no, because
she was on a case—she was always on a case—and she had never found a man who was willing to fit into that kind of work, to
support her the way she supported him. She didn’t want something ordinary. That was the truth. Because she was not ordinary—none
of us are, really—and neither was the world. It was extraordinary.
“I came down here to check the factory,” he said. “We have several factories here in the Deep South, where labor—and housing—is
cheaper. Others are overseas. I travel a lot, too. I get it. Maybe not entirely, but I do.”
“Have you ever married?” she asked, taking a sip of her wine.
“No,” he said.
“Did you really come down here on the eve of an execution to check the factory?”
He looked outside to the gloaming night. In the apartment building up the street, women in kitchens were making sandwiches
for tomorrow, the men in front of the tube.
“The supervisor told me you visited. Do we have anything to do with this?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Can I help?”
A wildness filled her. The wildness of hope.
“Do you know what happened?”
“I’m afraid not.”
“Then maybe not.” She smiled at him.
“The fellow who visited before, was he a real investigator?”
“Nope. I checked.”
“Well, shit. We should have known better. He had access to the files, you know—don’t know if the supervisor told you that.”
“He did not. Was anything missing?”
He looked uneasy. “Yes. Mitchell’s file here. The supervisor didn’t realize it at the time. But that’s what I just confirmed.
We went looking for it, and it was gone.”
“How long has it been gone?”
“No idea. No one ever asked before.”
“Do you know why someone would take it?” she asked.
“No,” he said. “But you have the original copy from Oregon, right?”
“Right.”
His face was genuinely kind, and caring.
“If you don’t find anything by tomorrow—”
“He dies.”
It was as simple as that: the dead goat, torn apart by the wolves. The scapegoat the people had decided must suffer for all
their sins.
“You’ve saved a lot of men, I read. Dozens.”
“More have died.”
“And you find missing women, too.”
She appreciated that he didn’t say, or imply, what others sometimes did: that the missing women were a side job.
“Other than that, I couldn’t find anything on you. No interviews, even though I found mention of you on some pretty high-profile
cases.”
She smiled a little to herself. “The attorneys like to take credit. It’s okay.”
“I’m sure you could get publicity, if that’s what you want.”
“That’s not what I want.”
He looked at the last of his beer, sliding down the inside of the glass. He didn’t seem in a rush to drink more, like many
people. She liked him now.
“What do you want?” he asked.
“That’s a big question,” she said quietly.
She could feel it in the air then. The hum.
They looked at each other for a long moment.
“How about you?” she asked.
He sighed, rubbing his chin. “When I was a little boy . . . no, I won’t burden you with that story. Instead I’ll just ask,
because I know you probably want to finish your work here, when you get back to Portland, and I’m there, too, will you go
out with me? We could even drive down to Winchester Bay.”
“I’d like that,” she said.
He smiled, truly happy. He carried their empty glasses to the bar, and the bartender smiled, too, observing that the couple
looked years younger than they had when they came in. He liked to think his pub was like that: Magical things happened here.