“How about the pieces like ours?”
He clicked around. “Looks like the only ones that match and are currently in production are the last three.”
“Can we get close-ups?”
He enlarged one of the photos, and Casey reached into the box and pulled out the parts, setting them on the desk separately, beside the computer.
“Is my door locked?” Eric asked.
Casey made sure it was, and sat back down.
“Okay,” Eric said. “Let’s go through these one by one.”
“Ours isn’t the same as this photo.” Casey pointed at a piece on the computer. “That one, on the catch, it has another metal piece there I didn’t see before. On the rear part.”
“Right. Next.”
They studied the second photo. “Almost the same as ours,” Casey said. “But our strike looks…”
“Skinnier.”
“Yes, and longer.”
Eric held the piece up against the screen. “Nope. Definitely not the same. Here’s the third.”
It didn’t take long to see it wasn’t a match either, this one being entirely made of white plastic.
Eric sat back. “You think Aaron was wrong?”
“No. I mean, look at them. It’s definitely the same type of part. It’s just not exactly the same.”
“So is it from a different manufacturer? But why would Ellen keep that?”
“Let’s see if we can find it.”
They looked them all up. Whirlpool. Kenmore. Sears. Lots of parts that looked almost like theirs, but weren’t an exact match.
Eric put his elbows on the desk and rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands. “I can’t look much longer. My head’s bursting.”
Casey got up and paced. “Okay. There’s no record of this part in your computer. No sign of it anywhere else on the web. But…” She stopped and poked at the part. “It exists. It’s sitting right here. Could it be a prototype?”
Eric exhaled, letting his head drop back. “Sure. It could be.”
“And where would we find the schematics?”
He waved at the computer. “Should be in here. Unless the part’s so new it hasn’t made it in yet.”
“Who would know?”
He jerked a thumb behind him, toward the plant. “Someone over there. I mean, somebody made this.”
Casey nodded. “Jack.”
“What?”
“He’s still working here. We can ask him.”
“At rehearsal tonight?”
“No, we don’t want to take this there. Too many people.”
“He could be working now. We could find him.”
“Huh-uh. We can’t go take this into the factory.”
Eric sighed. “Of course. You’re right.”
“You know what shift he works?”
“No clue. But I guess it could be on here somewhere.” The computer.
“Doesn’t matter. We can just call him. If he’s home, we can go see him.”
A knock sounded on the door.
With a sweep of his hand, Eric cleared the parts from the desk, dumping them into the box. Casey shoved the box under the desk while Eric clicked out of the screen displaying the parts.
“Yes?” Eric said.
“Eric?” A woman’s voice.
Eric got up, scooted around Casey, and opened the door. “Yvonne?”
“I wasn’t expecting to see you here again.” She looked past him to Casey, who still sat behind the desk.
“Oh, um, I was just showing her around.”
Yvonne’s eyes flicked to the door, which had been locked, and to the sofa in his office. “Of course.”
Eric’s face reddened. “I thought you left at noon.”
“I did. But I left my book in my desk.” She indicated the novel in her hand. “I wanted to read it this weekend.”
Eric nodded. “Sure.”
They stood awkwardly for a moment before Yvonne stepped back. “Well, I’ll be seeing you, then.”
“Have a good weekend.”
Yvonne hesitated, glancing once more at Casey, before walking out of the office.
Eric put one hand on the doorjamb and circled the other around. “Now there will be all sorts of rumors. I’m sorry.”
Casey shrugged. “I’ve been through worse.”
He looked over at her, a question in his eyes.
Casey stood. “So do you want to call Jack from here?”
He watched her for a few seconds before straightening. “Why don’t we just go over? It’s not far, and I’m ready to get out of here.”
She couldn’t argue with that.
It took only a few minutes to reach Jack and Aaron’s home. On the way, Eric pointed out a gray two-story house. Several beautiful large trees graced the yard, but the shrubs needed trimming, and the yard hadn’t seen a mower for just a little too long. Other than that, the place looked well taken care of. Not exactly inviting, but in basically good shape.
“My place,” Eric said.
Casey studied it as they drove by. “Nice.”
“Yeah.” He gave a little laugh. “It’ll do. Not exactly House Beautiful, though, is it?”
“You put your time into other worthwhile things.”
He laughed shortly. “That’s the polite way of saying it needs some help.”
“The thing is, I mean it.”
He let it drop, and they drove the rest of the way to Jack and Aaron’s place, which sat on a street Casey had toured during her bike ride. The house was one of those with a flowerpot on the porch, and a Welcome sign on the door. Cheerful, well-kept. A not-so-subtle difference between their place and Eric’s.
Jack was mowing the lawn, but turned off the machine when Eric and Casey got out of the car.
“Hey!” Jack called. “What’s up?” He left the pushmower where it had stopped.
Eric held up the box. “We were wondering—”
The screen door on the front porch slapped shut, and Aaron came trotting down the steps. “It’s okay, Jack, I got this.”
“Actually, Aaron,” Eric said, “we need him this time.”
Aaron looked at the box. “I was wrong?”
“Nope. You were right. But we’re confused.”
“I am, too,” Jack said, with a grin. “What is it?” He leaned toward the box, as if to see inside the closed lid.
Eric glanced at the neighboring houses. “Can we go inside?”
“Oh! Right. Sure,” Aaron said. “Come in.”
He led them into the front room, where they stood in a circle around the box. Eric held it out to Jack. “Can you identify this?”
“Sure, it’s a box of pasta.”
The rest of them didn’t laugh.
“Sorry.” Jack took the box and opened it. “Oh, it’s a dryer door latch.”
“I told you that.” Aaron frowned.
“Yes,” Casey said, “you did. But we need to know exactly which dryer door latch this is.”
Jack squinted into the box. “Can I take it out?”
“Of course.”
He set the box on the coffee table and sat on the couch behind it. Aaron took a place beside him, and Casey knelt on the floor. Eric perched on a close-by chair.
Jack pulled the two pieces out, turning them over in his hands. He looked up at Eric. “It’s a HomeMaker piece. For sure. You checked inventory?”
“It’s not there. Several that look almost like it, but none with that metal piece.” He pointed at the side of the catch.
“Yeah. The ones we’re doing now are all plastic.” Jack’s eyes widened, then narrowed, and he set the pieces down on the table. “Last year. Last spring. We made these. And then all of a sudden they were gone, and we were making the all-plastic ones.”
“No explanation?”
He shook his head. “None was needed. They bring in the instructions, we make the parts. It doesn’t really matter to us what we’re making or why. We just put in our hours and come home. Everything goes to the all-mighty HomeMaker, no matter what it is, so what’s the point in worrying about it?”
Casey sat back on her heels. “We didn’t find it in the computer at all. There were other parts that were either out of production or special order, but this was gone completely.”
Jack shrugged. “Don’t know anything about it.”
“So as far as you can remember,” Casey said, “you made this a year ago last spring?”