A Missing Clerk Brought The Yellow Pages To A Quiet Room

The old receipt listed a gray generator, a price of $85, and a buyer named Ellen Dace.

“Someone paid for that generator already,” I said.

Nina nodded. “Ellis circled the date.”

The current receipt showed a $4,200 sale under the same number. Its file made the generator look like unsold stock. The photo in my caption packet was the old photo, right down to the cracked wheel.

Ruth placed the yellow sheet in a clear sleeve.

“We'll let the investigator ask Ellen about her purchase.”

Nina sent one message from her phone. Then she turned it facedown.

“My brother wants someone to tell him what happens if he comes back.”

“I can't promise that,” I said. “Gabriel can tell him what he can and can't do.”

“You trust him?”

I looked at my evidence receipt on Ruth's desk.

“He's kept every small promise so far.”

The meeting took two more days to arrange. Ellis chose his own lawyer. His lawyer chose a quiet conference room outside Rockford, and investigators handled his travel.

Nobody sent me an address until that morning.

I went because Ellis wanted to meet the person who heard the threat. Ruth came with me. Gabriel waited until Ellis's lawyer said we could enter.

There were no cameras waiting outside. Nobody asked Ellis to stand beside me for a picture. He had brought a small bag of clothes, and his lawyer put it behind her chair before she opened her notes.

I had pictured finding a witness. I hadn't pictured how hard it would be for him to walk into a room.

Ellis was thin, with a gray beard growing in patches. He had kept his coat on.

“Did she hear it?” he asked.

“I did.”

“All of it?”

“I heard him say where your sister parked. I couldn't hear anyone on the phone with him.”

Ellis looked at Gabriel.

“I never picked up. I'd stopped listening to his messages.”

His phone had been switched off in a drawer. He agreed to let a technician examine it. The message might still be stored by his phone service, Gabriel said; they would seek it through the proper process.

I liked that he said might.

Ellis's lawyer helped him lay a yellow receipt pad on the table.

“The white copy goes with the buyer,” Ellis said. “Pink goes to the release desk. Yellow stays in the pad.”

He showed us the square notch at the top.

“This old pad got caught in a drawer latch. I kept using it. Nothing fancy.”

The notch linked the loose receipt Nina held to a page stub. It wasn't proof of every word on the sheet. It was one thing a technician could check.

Ellis had mailed Nina the generator receipt after he found it reused in the new auction file.

“Ellen paid $85,” he said. “Her nephew was supposed to pick up the generator. It was still waiting in storage.”

Mott had used its old listing and number to give the blue pump a city sales record. North Fork Materials would get a release bearing the city's name.

“A buyer sees that stamp and stops asking,” Ellis said.

Gabriel asked, “Where did the pump come from?”

“Juno Basin Works. Flood crew. Their equipment plate was still on it.”

He slid over a photo he had taken during intake. A metal plate showed a serial number and the company's name.

“I marked it hold for title. Berrin told me to clear it. I wouldn't.”

“Was that when you left?”

“After Mott said he'd put missing city fuel on me. He knew my sister's route. I stayed with a retired driver I trusted.”

His lawyer touched the pad.

“We've discussed the city records you removed. We're offering them through counsel and asking for a written review of your role.”

Ellis swallowed. “I signed the pump into the building. I didn't sign it out.”

Gabriel wrote both sentences down.

When Ellis began to shake, Gabriel closed his notebook.

“We can take a break.”

“You need the story.”

“I need you able to tell it.”

Later, I stood by a vending machine that wanted $1.75 for crackers. Gabriel arrived with two paper cups.

“Water,” he said. “I didn't make a coffee decision for you.”

“A rare public service.”

He smiled. I noticed how tired he looked when he stopped trying to put Ellis at ease.

“You've eaten?” I asked.

“Does a mint count?”

I bought two packets of crackers. We ate standing apart in the hall while the lawyers talked.

For five minutes, he told me about a crooked shelf he'd built. I told him about captioning a meeting where three men named Steve kept interrupting each other.

It felt easy. Then his work phone rang, and he went back inside.

Before we left, Ellis opened an envelope tucked behind the pad's back cover.

“This came with Berrin's instructions,” he said.

Inside was a copy of an $18,000 consulting invoice addressed to the private business of Dana Creel, the city's purchasing director.