The Boss Offered A Missing Man In Exchange For Paper

I read Willa's name three times.

"She didn't sign that page," Celia said. "It's his list of people he claims will support him."

"Will she?"

"We'll ask."

I liked her less when her careful words did not soothe me. Then I liked her more for keeping them careful.

I hired a local lawyer named Ben Acker. His first bill was $600. I paid from the money set aside to replace my garage roof.

"Don't call Voss," Ben said. "Don't answer this in the newspaper. We'll answer in court."

He filed a denial and a demand that the company preserve its records. He included the written consent for the inspection, my lease, and the state inspector's test sheet.

"He wants you upset and talking," Ben said. "Let's make him read."

Voss had already sent his story around the county. By evening, a former customer asked whether my hearing had caused a dangerous mistake.

I sat at my kitchen table after that call.

My right ear had lost most of its use years before. My left needed help. Neither fact changed a stamped number, but I knew how quickly people let one weakness stand for a whole man.

Emma drove down from Omaha that night.

"I'm not here to take over," she said, setting soup on the stove.

"Good. I haven't got a spare house key."

She held up the one I had given her ten years before.

I ate two bowls.

The next morning, Celia called with Willa's answer. She had not agreed to support Voss. Through her lawyer, she had sent a signed statement saying so.

The settings page also helped investigators seek the office computer and accounting books through a warrant. Celia said the prosecutor was building the request, with the sheriff's office handling the missing man evidence.

"What about the roll?" I asked.

"Sealed in the evidence room. Images stored separately. Each transfer logged."

"Can someone make it vanish?"

"Someone would have to explain several missing records now."

That was as close to a promise as she came.

My cart returned that afternoon on a state trailer. I checked it with the delivery officer watching. The recorder's front tray was bent, but its locked drum was empty because we had emptied it ourselves.

I drew a blue chalk ring around the new seal screw.

The officer asked what it meant.

"It means I'll notice."

Near dusk, my phone rang. The number was one I did not know.

"Mr. Ishikawa," Voss said. "I'm sorry about the lawyers. Things got away from us."

I stood up so quickly my chair scraped the floor.

"Talk to mine."

"Your lawyer doesn't know where Eli Mercer is."

I did not speak.

"I do," he said.

I wrote the time on an envelope. Then I put the phone on speaker, where my hearing aid could pick it up better.

Emma came into the kitchen. I pointed at the phone. She took out hers and stepped into the hall to call the deputy whose number Celia had left us.

"Is he alive?" I asked.

"He's eating. He'd like to go home."

I wrote those words exactly.

"Then send him home."

"You're making this hard, sir. I need the roll and a signed note saying your equipment gave false readings. Get those to me, and I'll tell you where to find him."

"The state has the roll."

"You could say you swapped it. People misplace things."

His voice sharpened on the last word.

"He's got a sister," I said.

"Then let's not keep her waiting."

I could hear a truck idling on his end. I could hear my own breath too loudly.

"I can't fetch state evidence tonight."

"You have until noon tomorrow. I'll call again."

He hung up.

I had not recorded him. I had a page of notes and a daughter who had heard the speaker. For one sick moment, that felt like nothing.

"It's something," the deputy said when he arrived. "Tell me from the start."

He took separate statements from Emma and me. He photographed my envelope and preserved the call details from my phone.

Celia arrived while he was finishing. She stayed by the door until he waved her in.

"I wanted to say yes," I told her.

"I understand."

"You would've lost your case."

"A man's life comes first. But you can't give back what you don't hold."

She sat beside me. Her hand rested on the table near mine. She did not close the space.

The deputy's radio broke the quiet.

A search team had reached Voss's second storage yard. Someone had cleared it in a hurry.

On a desk they found a fresh delivery slip for drinking water.

Its destination was written as two characters: L4.