This time John Porzolkiewski opened his front door wide. He surveyed Gage, then shook his head and smiled.
“You look like hell.”
“A little jet lag is all.”
Porzolkiewski’s smile faded.
“You got something new,” Porzolkiewski said, “or are we just going to be like hamsters chasing each other around in one of those wire wheels.”
“Something new.”
Porzolkiewski shrugged, then stepped back. “Suit yourself.”
Gage walked inside and found a living room reminding him of his grandmother’s in Nogales in the 1970s, except for the cats rubbing their sides against his legs. Not a sofa, but a huge flowered davenport covered in plastic. Not wing chairs, but two brown leather recliners facing an old-style television in a console. He had the feeling that Porzolkiewski had preserved the room just the way it was on the day his wife died.
Porzolkiewski directed Gage toward a lace-covered dining table. He walked to the head and pushed aside his half-eaten chicken and rice dinner, then motioned Gage to sit to his left and sat down.
Gage reached into his suit pocket and set his digital recorder on the table between them.
Porzolkiewski held his palms up to Gage. “Even if I had something to say, which I don’t, I wouldn’t say it on tape.” He folded his arms across his chest.
“It’s not for recording,” Gage said, “it’s for playing.”
Porzolkiewski’s face brightened. It struck Gage that he was probably once a charming man.
“But,” Gage continued, “I want to cut a deal. Part of what you have for part of what I have.”
Porzolkiewski’s eyes narrowed. “Why only parts?”
“Because if you knew it all, you might get a gun and kill someone.”
“So I guess one part isn’t you trying to get me to say I shot Charlie Palmer.”
“For the moment, let’s classify his death as a kind of suicide.”
“Now I’m confused. I thought Palmer was the point of you coming by the first time.”
Gage shook his head. “Not entirely.”
“Then what is it you want?”
“Judge Meyer’s wallet.”
“I told you I don’t have it.” Porzolkiewski paused, and then pointed a forefinger at Gage. “I’ll give you something for free. And it’s really true. Two guys came by after Palmer did. They gave me ten grand and I gave it to them.”
A piece fell out of the puzzle Gage had put together in his mind. Meyer already had his wallet back when he called Gage in. Gage shoved the piece back in a different direction. Maybe Meyer just didn’t want to explain how he got it.
“How about copies?” Gage asked.
Porzolkiewski smiled. “Let’s see your part first.”
“If it accounts for what happened at TIMCO, will you give them to me?”
“If I believe it.”
Gage didn’t like making decisions when he was jet-lagged, but he had years of reading faces and he knew that underneath Porzolkiewski’s anger was a very sad man.
He pointed at the recorder. “Wilbert Hawkins.”
Porzolkiewski’s eyes hardened as he repeated the name. “My lawyer hired a private investigator to look for him after the judge dismissed the case. He wanted to file a motion for reconsideration. But the guy disappeared… gone. Where’d you find him?”
“Can’t say. That’s one of the parts you don’t get.”
Porzolkiewski opened his mouth to object, and then closed it. He stared at length at the recorder. Finally, he said, “Okay.”
“Portions are beeped out, like where he is. And this is not all of it, just what you need to know at this point.”
Porzolkiewski nodded.
Gage turned it on:
“My name is Graham Gage. I’m a private investigator from San Francisco, California.” I’m in BEEEEEEP talking to Wilbert Hawkins. I need you to identify yourself for the tape.”
“My name is, uh, Wilbert Hawkins. I was a welder at TIMCO fourteen years ago.”
“That’s the asshole,” Porzolkiewski said. “I still recognize his fake Okie accent.”
“How long had you been working at TIMCO before the explosion?”
“Nineteen years.”
“My understanding is that there was a turnaround a month before the valve failed on the kerosene line on Fractionating Tower 2.”
“Yeah, there was.”
“Explain what a turnaround is.”
“It’s, uh, when we shut down the tower for maintenance. You know, take apart the critical components and then make whatever repairs are needed. Takes a couple of weeks.”
“Tell me what happened when you examined the pressure device on the valve.”
…
“Answer the question.”
“I need a lawyer. Even a lawyer from BEEEEP.”
“You’re not getting a lawyer.”
Porzolkiewski smiled.
“Answer the question.”
“I… I took the valve apart and, uh, found the pressure release was corroded.”
“You tell anybody?”
“My… uh… supervisor. Then me and him went to the, uh, plant manager. The tower was old. Nobody made that valve anymore. It was gonna cost maybe fifty grand to make another one from scratch-and we’d have to replace dozens of them, all over the refinery. We knew from experience that this one going bad meant that all of them had gone bad. He needed the plant manager to make the decision ’cause it meant shutting down all the fractionators for a couple of months.”
“And…”
“And TIMCO would’ve lost millions of dollars. We had kerosene, diesel, jet fuel, and gasoline coming off those towers. Huge amounts. Big contracts from buyers already signed.”
“What did the plant manager tell you to do?”
“He talked to the big bosses in Dallas, then called me in… He
… he… uh… told me to pull out the release device and
… uh… weld over the hole and try to keep the pressure in the pipe down once the tower was back in service.”
“What happened?”
“We didn’t keep it low enough. And with no pressure release… the… uh… the… uh…”
“The what?”
“The whole valve blew.”
Gage switched off the recorder and watched Porzolkiewski finish the story in his mind. Kerosene spraying down onto the scrubber, flames exploding back up the tower. His son and three other men incinerated because a hundred-billion-dollar company didn’t want to lose a few bucks.
Porzolkiewski closed his eyes, then lowered his head. Jaws clenched. Face flushed. Fighting back tears. Hands gripped together on the table. His whole body shuddered, then he buried his face in his palms. Muffled crying, almost hysterical.
Years of outrage had dissolved into immeasurable grief.
Gage reached over and gripped Porzolkiewski’s shoulder. “I’m sorry you turned out to be right,” Gage said. “I wish it had been just an accident.”
A few minutes later, Porzolkiewski looked up, then wiped his eyes with the back of his sleeve. “I never…” He cleared his throat, then took in a breath and exhaled. “I never cried for him like that before… I guess I was always too angry.”
Porzolkiewski pushed himself to his feet and walked into the kitchen. Gage heard him open the refrigerator, then the inside freezer door, expecting him to return with ice water. He came back carrying a Ziploc bag and handed it to Gage.
“This is what you want.”
Gage removed a dozen eight-and-a-half-by-eleven folded pages. Gage laid them out. They warmed in the dining room air.
Displayed before them were photocopies of Brandon Meyer’s life, in paper and plastic.
A s Gage lay in bed that night next to Faith, too jet-lagged for sleep, he didn’t regret traveling halfway around the world to obtain something that all along had lain hidden in a freezer just miles from his office.
Then an image came to him: Porzolkiewski weeping at his dining room table.
And Gage’s last thoughts before finally drifting off to sleep were of a father’s grief finally anchored-forever anchored-to the truth about the corporate murder of his son.