was mistaken, an external disk drive. Did they even make floppy disks anymore? Along another wall stood a row of filing cabinets, beneath framed photographs of uniformed policemen. Not a single civilian.
“Nineteen seventy-one, you said?” Coffin called over his shoulder.
“Right,” Lincoln told him, though of course he hadn’t ever said anything to him.
“May of nineteen and seventy-one,” he heard the man mutter. “Here we go.” Leaving the file drawer open, he returned to the front room and tossed a manila folder onto the coffee table. Its tab read MISSING GIRL. No other information, not even Jacy’s name, which struck Lincoln as odd until he thought about it. In big cities, girls went missing every week. For all he knew, Jacy might be one of only a handful to disappear from here in the last century.
“Beverly says you’re retired?”
“Two years ago yesterday, not that I’m keeping track.”
“You’re allowed to take files home?”
“No original documents. Just photocopies. Your own notes.”
“Well, I appreciate your taking the time to see me,” Lincoln said.
“Time’s my long suit,” he replied, seemingly aware of the statement’s irony. The guy’s days might be numbered, but that didn’t make the hours of those same days any easier to fill. It occurred to Lincoln that Beverly might’ve urged him to visit in hopes it would take the man’s mind off tomorrow’s operation, maybe even give him a sense of purpose. If so, it meant that he was probably wasting his time. “If it wasn’t for my daughter-in-law,” he said, as if he were a mind reader, “I’d probably never leave the apartment. She takes me grocery shopping. We go for coffee every now and then. To church on Sunday. You a religious man, Mr. Moser?”
“Lincoln, please. And no, not really.” He was glad Dub-Yay wasn’t hearing him say this.
“Me neither. I like going to church, though. The feel of it, I guess.”
“You don’t drive?”
“Not often these days. I still have a vehicle, but my blood pressure’s all over the place. Mostly high, but every now and then it falls off the cliff and I black out. I’d hate like hell to be behind the wheel when that happens. Run over some kid, with my luck. You want a cup of coffee?”
“No, I’m good.”
“It’s no trouble. Beverly bought me one of those Keurigs.”
Lincoln nodded. “We got my father one last year.”
“How old is he?”
“Early nineties.”
“Good for him. And what’d he do?”
“He was part owner of a small copper mine in Arizona.”
“You sure you don’t want a cup?” he said. “I think better when I’m fully caffeinated.”
“Okay, why not?” Lincoln said.
“I like the one cup at a time,” Coffin said from the kitchen. “I just wish there was something you could do with the pods besides toss ’em in the trash. Must be millions of these things in the dump.”
“I’m not sure I even know where the landfill is.”
“That’s because there isn’t one,” Coffin said. “There used to be, years ago. Now all our trash gets hauled off to the mainland. Somebody else’s problem. The older I get, the more I think about things like that. People who don’t even know us have to deal with our shit.”
“I doubt they do it for free,” Lincoln said, for the sake of argument. Listening to the Keurig hiss and gurgle in the kitchen, he was tempted to sneak a peek at what was in the suspiciously thin folder, but he resisted.
“No, I’m sure they don’t, but still. I read somewhere that out in the middle of the Pacific there’s this vortex of trash. Ocean currents bring it all right there. You toss one of these plastic pods overboard off the coast of Oregon and another into the Sea of Japan and they both end up in the same spot. A hundred miles of Keurig pods and plastic bags and all manner of crap bobbing there in the waves, and not a human in sight. Nothing to connect you and me to the crime. Your old man ever worry about stuff like that—the world we’re leaving behind for our children to deal with?”
Lincoln had to smile at this. “I’m not sure my father fully believes the world will continue to exist after he leaves it.” Then once Coffin returned to the living room with two steaming coffee mugs, Lincoln said, “I hear you’re having an operation tomorrow.”
“That’s the plan. They’re gonna Roto-Rooter a couple clogged arteries. Put in a stent. I’m told the whole deal should come in at under a million dollars.