Leaving Time(46)

“Um, Ralph looks like he’s a thousand years old.”

“He looked like he was a thousand years old back when I was still working here,” Virgil says. “We used to say he’d become just as fossilized as the stuff he watches over.”

He takes a deep breath and walks down the corridor. The evidence room has a half door, with the top open. “Hey, Ralph! Long time no see.”

Ralph moves as if he’s underwater. His waist pivots, then his shoulders, and finally his head. Up close, he has as many wrinkles as the elephants in the photos clipped to my mother’s journal entries. His eyes are as pale as apple jelly, and look to be about the same consistency. “Well,” Ralph says, so slowly that it sounds like whaaaaale. “Rumor has it that you walked into the cold case evidence room one day and never came out.”

“What is it Mark Twain said? Reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated.”

“Guess if I ask you where you’ve been, you’re not gonna tell me, anyway,” Ralph replies.

“Nope. And I’d be awfully grateful if you didn’t mention me being here, either. I get itchy when people ask too many questions.” Virgil takes a slightly mashed Twinkie from his pocket and sets this on the counter between us and Ralph.

“How old is that?” I murmur.

“These things have enough preservatives in them to keep them on the shelves until 2050,” Virgil whispers. “And besides, Ralph can’t read the tiny print of the expiration date.”

Sure enough, Ralph’s entire face lights up. His mouth creases in a smile, and it has ripple effects that remind me of a YouTube video I once saw of a building implosion. “You remember my weakness, Virgil,” he says, and he glances at me. “Who’s your sidekick?”

“My tennis partner.” Virgil leans through the opening in the door. “Look, Ralphie. I need to check out one of my old cases.”

“You’re not on payroll anymore—”

“I was barely on payroll when I was on payroll. Come on, bud. It’s not like I’m asking to mess with any active investigation. I’m just freeing up a little space for you.”

Ralph shrugs. “I guess it can’t hurt, as long as the case is closed …”

Virgil unlatches the door and pushes past him. “No need to get up. I know the way.”

I follow him down a long, narrow hallway. Metal shelving lines both walls from floor to ceiling, and there are cardboard boxes neatly jammed into every available space. Virgil’s lips move as he reads the labels of the banker’s boxes, arranged by case number and date. “Next aisle,” he mutters. “This one only goes back to 2006.”

After a few more minutes he stops, and starts to monkey-climb the shelving. He pulls one of the boxes free and tosses it into my arms. It’s lighter than I was expecting. I set it on the floor so that he can pass down three more boxes.

“That’s it?” I say. “I thought you told me there was a ton of evidence taken from the sanctuary.”

“There was. But the case was solved. We only kept the items that were connected to people—things like soil and trampled plants and debris that turned out to not be consequential were destroyed.”

“If someone’s already gone through it all, why are we going back to it?”

“Because you can look at a mess twelve times and see nothing. And then you look the thirteenth time, and whatever you were searching for is staring out at you, clear as day.” He opens the lid of the top box. Inside are paper storage bags, sealed with tape. On the tape, and on the bags, it says NO.

“No?” I read. “What’s in that bag?”

Virgil shakes his head. “That stands for Nigel O’Neill. He was a cop who was searching for evidence that night. Protocol means that the officer has to put his initials and the date collected on the bag and the tape, to make the chain of evidence hold up in court.” He points to the other markings on the bag: a property number, with a list of items: SHOELACE, RECEIPT. Another: VICTIM’S CLOTHING—SHIRT, SHORTS.

“Open that one,” I direct.

“Why?”

“You know how sometimes a specific item can jog a memory? I want to see if that’s true.”

“The victim here wasn’t your mother,” Virgil reminds me.

As far as I’m concerned, that remains to be seen. But he opens the paper bag, snaps on a pair of gloves from a box on the shelf, and pulls out a pair of khaki shorts and a shredded, stiff polo shirt with the New England Elephant Sanctuary logo embroidered on the left breast.

“Well?” he prompts.

“Is that blood?” I ask.