A false dark-brown beard. A small bottle of yellow liquid labeled “Spirit Gum.” A dark long-haired wig with a pony tail.

I shut the drawer, glanced around. Only two places left to check. The MEN was unoccupied. The same couldn’t be said for the WOMEN.

A male figure, slumped, hunched over with head hanging, was seated on the toilet, its lid down, his pants up. Even sitting, he was obviously a big man, easily as big as me, burly not fat. His head was shaved. Arms hung limp. Feet, in rubber-soled work boots, were askew. He wore the navy-blue coveralls of the mechanic he was. Or had been.

Carefully, using his ears, I used both hands to lift his head back. His eyes were open and rolled back and filmed-over, dull with death; his tongue-lolling mouth was open, as if seeking breath or sustenance or perhaps an ability to speak, all of which would be forever denied to him. His face was blue with need of a shave, which would be up to his mortician now.

None of that was what was the most disturbing thing. That distinction was left to his upper torso, which was caved in so deep that the top half of his jumpsuit was puckered. He might have taken a cannonball to his chest cavity.

I took a look at the floor leading into the WOMEN and could see the trail of dark rubber from his heels as he’d been dragged, already dead, into the cubicle. In this black-windowed room, next to this desk, someone had somehow shoved this man’s chest in.

* * *

A squad car preceded Pat Chambers only by a few minutes. I gave the pair of blues the basics, but waited for Pat to give out chapter and verse. He went around taking it all in, from the dead mechanic in the WOMEN’s room to the Ferrari, the black cover to which I had not replaced.

“Sorry about my prints,” I said.

We were standing outside now. The crime scene guys were in there shooting their pictures and collecting their evidence. We were just two guys who had both quit cigarettes a long time ago whose breath was smoking in the cold nonetheless.

He shrugged. “You had no way to know.”

His unmarked Chevy Caprice was parked on the cement apron of the place where three gas pumps had once sprouted. His radio on the dash squawked for his attention. He went over to it, climbed in, grabbed the mike and, sitting there with the car door open, listened and talked a while. I rocked on my heels and waited. Pat had called R & I to run Roger Kraft through and this appeared to be the callback.

He strolled over. Like me, he was in a trenchcoat and hat. Mine cost more. We taxpayers are stingy bastards, except where we’re concerned.

“Roger Kraft has a record,” Pat said. “Armed robbery down south. Series of smash-and-grabs at…you’ll love this…gas stations. Long time ago. After that he was in the service, motor pool guy.”