“I must know him to dismantle him in court,” Berger goes on, her eyes reflecting her inner fire. “I can only know him through you. You must make that introduction, Kay. Take me to him. Show him to me.” She sits on the hearth and dramatically lifts her hands. “‘Who is Jean-Baptiste Chandonne? Why your garage? Why? What is special about your garage? What?”
I think for a moment. “I can’t begin to say what might be special about it to him.”
“All right. Then what’s special about it to you?”
“It’s where ! keep rny scene clothes.” I begin trying to figure out what might be special about my garage. “‘And an industrial-size washer and dryer. I never wear scene clothes inside my house, so that’s rather much my changing room, out there in the garage.”
Something shines in Berger’s eyes, a recognition, a connection. She gets up. “Show me,” she says.
I turn on lights in the kitchen as we pass on through to the mud room, where a door leads into the garage.
“Your home locker room,” Berger comments.
I flip on lights and my heart constricts as I realize the garage is empty. My Mercedes is gone.
“Where the hell’s my car?” I ask. I scan walls of cabinets, and the specially ventilated cedar locker, and neatly stored yard and gardening supplies, the expected tools, and an alcove for the washer, dryer and a big steel sink. “No one has said anything about taking my car anywhere.” I look accusingly at Berger and am rocked by instant distrust. But either she is quite an actor, or she has no clue. I walk out into the middle of the garage and look around, as if I might find something that will tell me what has happened to my car. I tell Berger my black Mercedes sedan was here last Saturday, the day I moved to Anna’s. I haven’t seen the car since. I haven’t been here since. “But you have,” I add. “Was my car here when you were here last? How many times have you been here?” I go ahead and ask her that.
She is walking around, too. She squats before the garage door and examines scrapes on the rubber strip where we believe Chandonne used some type of tool to pry the door up. “Could you open the door, please?” Berger is grim.
I press a button on the wall and the door loudly rolls up. The temperature inside the garage instantly drops.
“No, your car wasn’t here when I was.” Berger straightens up. “I’ve never seen it. In light of circumstances, I suspect you do know where it is,” she adds.
The night fills the large empty space and I walk over to where Berger is standing. “Probably impounded,” I say. “Jesus Christ.”
She nods. “We’ll get to the bottom of it.” She turns to me and there is something in her eyes I’ve never before seen. Doubt. Berger is uneasy. Maybe it is wishful thinking on my part, but I sense she feels bad for me.
“So now what?” I mutter, looking around my garage as if I have never seen it before. “What am I supposed to drive?”
“Your alarm went off around eleven o’clock Friday night,” Berger is all business again. She is firm and no-nonsense again. She returns to our mission of retracing Chandonne’s steps. “The cops arrive. You take them in here and find the door open about eight inches.” Obviously, she has seen the incident report of the attempted breaking and entering. “It was snowing and you found footprints on the other side of the door.” She steps outside and I follow. “The footprints were covered with a dusting of snow, but you could tell they led around the side of the house, up to the street.”
We stand on my driveway in the raw air, both of us without coats. I stare up at the murky sky and a few flakes of snow coldly touch my face. It has started again. Winter has become a hemophiliac. It can’t seem to stop precipitating. Lights from my neighbor’s house shine through magnolias and bare trees, and I wonder how much peace of mind the people of Lock-green have left. Chandonne has tainted life for them, too. I wouldn’t be surprised if some people move.