Rob picked up the cue. "So, Barrie, we were wondering. There was a car crash a few days ago-the Subaru on Route Five?"
Barrie was already nodding. "Leo's car. He all right?"
"He's a mess. In the hospital. Intensive care."
"Damn."
"Yeah." Rob pointed at the doorway Barrie was filling with his slight frame. "You want to let us in?"
McNeil bobbed his head and stepped backward awkwardly. "Oh, yeah. Sure. Come on in."
They entered a waiting room of sorts, certainly a room with three mismatched office chairs lining a wall, facing a card table with a pile of ancient and bedraggled magazines strewn across its surface. There were posters hanging about advertising young, semi-clad women holding automotive products, and rows of shelves sagging under stacks of oil filters, brake pads, boxed sparkplugs, and the like. It was all beyond a restorative cleaning, aside from the gleaming spare parts themselves, and all illuminated from a single slightly flickering fluorescent light overhead, whose plastic enclosure showed off the shadows of generations of dead insects. An open door to the side revealed the garage proper and a car with no wheels, perched high atop a lift.
The entire place was uncomfortably hot, explaining how the T-shirted Barrie had so easily loitered within the open doorway without complaint.
"Barrie," Rob began, strolling around the room, looking at the posters, "tell us about tie rod nuts."
Barrie hesitated, again nervously switching his attention from one of them to the other.
"They hold the tie rods together?" he guessed.
"Just like that? You screw 'em on and they hold on tight?"
"Pretty much… There's a cotter pin."
Rob turned to face him, as if responding to a poke in the ribs. "A cotter pin? Why?"
"So it don't back off. Is that what happened to Leo's car?"
Rob tilted his head to one side. "Is it?"
Barrie pursed his lips, clearly not wanting to flunk whatever test this was.
"Probably, if it failed. That happens," he said tentatively.
"A lot?"
"No… Sometimes."
"What about Leo's car?"
McNeil scrunched up his face in confusion. "Jesus, Rob. That's what I just asked."
"And what did you come up with, Barrie? Could the nut have come loose in Leo's car?"
McNeil snatched his baseball cap off and passed his palm across the top of his head several times. "No… I mean, it could have, but I don't see why. This is all fucked up, Rob. What do you want?"
Rob leaned forward at the waist for emphasis. "I want to know about Leo's tie rod, Barrie. Talk to me."
Barrie slapped his hat back on and extended his arms out to both sides, saying loudly, "I don't know about his fucking tie rod, Rob. I never touched it."
Barrows let a slow count of five tick by before he stepped back and said pleasantly, "Geez. You seem awfully worked up about something you never touched."
Barrie didn't answer, but he'd gone paler in the process.
"Okay. Cool," Rob resumed. "Let me take a look at Leo's service records on that car. Maybe we can clear this whole thing up here and now."
But it didn't work. Barrie's face shut down. "No can do. Not without a court order. Boss's orders. That computer is, like, sacred."
"Griffis?" Joe asked, unable to stop himself.
McNeil looked at him as if he'd just stepped into the room. "Yeah. I let you do that, I'm outta here. Like that." He snapped his fingers. "That's, like, his biggest rule."
Rob looked vaguely offended. "You're shitting me. Why would the old man get all cranked up about a bunch of car repair records?"
But now it was Barrie's turn to turn the tables. "I'm not talkin' about E. T.," he said. "Dan's the boss."
Once more, Joe couldn't stop himself. "Dan owns the garage?"
"Yeah, for a coupla years. Old E. T. gave him a bunch of stuff. Passing the light."
"Torch," Rob said sourly.
Barrie stared at him, back on firmer ground. "Whatever."
Joe asked, "Why did Dan slam the door on the records? You guys get sued or something?"
Barrie shook his head. "Nope. He just came in after he made boss, and said there was gonna be some tightening up around here, and that's when he gave the order."
"What else did he change?" Rob asked, looking around at the decor to see if he'd missed some subtle improvement.
"That was it."
Rob glanced at Joe, received a barely perceptible shrug, and told Barrie, "Okay. No problem going the legal route. In fact, even better. Keeps things clean. We'll get a warrant."
"Does Dan use the computer much?" Joe asked.
"All the time."
Rob moved toward the door to leave, but Joe paused to add a final recommendation: "You probably heard on TV how once data's entered into a computer, it never really disappears, right?"
Barrie clearly had no idea what he was talking about. "Yeah," he said without conviction.
"You want to think about that. Something happens to this one, we'll come looking for you to find out why, regardless of who monkeys with it."
The two cops left the building and walked back to Rob's cruiser.
"Nice, with the computer," Rob said as they settled inside. "Maybe he won't squeal to his boss."
Joe grunted. "Could be. If I were him, I'd solve the problem by throwing the damn thing into the river. Not that it matters. We'll never find a judge to allow us into it, anyhow."
Rob nodded without comment.
"Too bad we can't find that nut," Joe mused.
His companion glanced at him inquiringly.
Joe explained further, "It might have tool marks on it-something we could match to a wrench or something in there." He pointed his chin toward the garage. "Enough PC for a search warrant, given that Barrie said he never touched the nut."
Rob's expression began to lighten. "But that's possible. I mean, it's a reach. But it is possible."
"What? Find the nut?" Joe was incredulous. "There's two feet of snow out there. And who knows where it fell off?"
"Could be right near the crash site," Barrows said. "That's how it works sometimes-the nut falls off and the rod follows, slam-bam. There's no waiting. Not often, but when it does, it's immediate. The nut could be within a hundred feet of where they went off the road. Closer, even, if we're really lucky."
Joe was catching a fragment of his colleague's enthusiasm, but he still couldn't ignore the odds. "Be more likely to find a fresh flower in all that snow."
Rob smiled. "Can't find a flower with a metal detector, and the sheriff's got two of them. Plus," he added, holding up a finger, "a small crowd of teenage wannabe cops from the high school who love doing police work-our official Explorers troop, complete with uniforms. It wouldn't cost the department a dime to set them to sniffing around."
"The sheriff would go along with that?" Joe asked, finally gaining on the idea.
Barrows laughed. "You just watch."
Late that night, having missed the dinner hour, Joe found himself standing in the kitchen, scrutinizing stacks of cans in one of the cupboards.
"What are you looking for?" his mother asked from the door.
He turned and laughed. "Busted. I heard the TV. Didn't want to bother you. I know it's getting late. I was looking for some Spam or something."
Her eyes widened. "Spam? I should be visiting your graveside, the way you eat." She rolled farther into the room, heading toward the fridge. "I'll make you something. Leo's gotten me lazy. Time I got back into cooking. How about an omelet? I'll throw in some ham, tomatoes, maybe a little cheese?"
It was a more than acceptable compromise. Joe kept little in his own fridge except milk and mayonnaise, along with a few jars containing substances he couldn't identify. Eating was something he did out of hunger, drawing few distinctions between a doughnut and a salad. It used to drive Gail insane.
He settled down at the kitchen table to get out of his mother's way as she expertly traveled the room.