The back page touted Bevel’s engineering degrees and his career with Pacific Gas and Electric, along with a graphic suggesting thatyour solar investment would pay for itself in just a few years, which seemed a little optimistic in the rainy Pacific Northwest. At the very bottom was the company contact information. Email, phone, and physical address.
507 Puyallup Avenue, Tacoma, WA.
The storefront he was standing in right now.
Holy shit. He turned back to the photo of the founder. He looked again at those eyes, that face. He felt something click.
He couldn’t prove it, but he felt pretty damn sure that Garrison Bevel was the voice on the cassette tapes. Garrison Bevel was the Messenger.
41
June
June already had Sanjay Mishra’s home address. He lived about two miles from the university on a tree-lined street in Ravenna, across from the ravine park that gave the neighborhood its name. He owned two small Craftsman-style houses that were joined together with a modern glass addition. June guessed if you had money and four kids and you wanted to be able to walk to work, that was a pretty good option.
When they knocked on the door, a woman answered immediately. She had long blond hair, a ski-jump nose, a peaches and cream complexion, and a scowl. She carried a fussing baby on her hip with another clinging to her leg. “You bloody buggers better not be trying to sell me something. I just had this one down for his nap.” She sounded like a woman pouring pints in an English pub.
June handed her a business card. “I’m sorry to bother you, Mrs. Mishra. We’re looking for your husband. I understand he’s been out of the office for a few days. Is he home today?”
Her face crumpled for a moment, until she recovered, holding herself together. “No, he’s not home—he’s bloodymissing. I can’t bloody reach him.”
She stepped back, ushering them into the comfortable clutter of the house. It had been opened up into one large room, with a bright kitchen, a wooden train set looping a sectional couch, and unfolded laundry heaped on the dining table. The two children stared at June with enormous eyes.
“I tracked his mobile to a parking lot in feckin’ Sumner, of all places. I loaded up the kids and drove all the way down there yesterday, found his feckin’ car with the mobile under the seat. I can’t imagine why he’d leave it behind. He lived on that damn thing. I was always on him to put it down.”
She blinked hard, then furiously swiped away a falling tear. “Silly bugger’s never gone this long without checking in. We usually talk three or four times a day. I didn’t think he even knew where Sumner was. I called the coppers and they couldn’t be bothered.”
Then she caught herself. “What the bloody hell do you lot want with my Sanjay?”
June gave the woman a sympathetic smile. “My name’s June Cassidy. Mrs. Mishra, we think your husband might be involved in something we’re looking into.”
“Call me Sally, please. Is Sanjay in trouble?”
“We hope not. Did he ever mention something called the Gun Club?”
“I don’t believe so.” She hugged the fussy baby closer. “Now you’re scaring me. My husband is a good man.”
“What about somebody called the Messenger?”
“No. What on earth is this about?”
“Did your husband ever talk about preparing for some kind of natural disaster?”
Sally Mishra made a face. “Had a midlife crisis, if that’s what you mean. Got all worried about living in an earthquake zone, filled our basement with bottled water and tinned food and nappies and all kinds of other supplies.” She shrugged, bouncing the baby on her hip. “A couple of years later, he was on to something else. We’ll be eating tinned beans until we’re ninety.”
June fished into her pocket and came out with the Messenger cassette. “Have you seen your husband with one of these?”
“That was Midlife Crisis 2.0,” Sally said. “He got interested in jam bands.” She made air quotes and shuddered. “Phish and Widespread Panic? I can’t stand that shite. But he started trading tapes of live shows with people through the mail. He plays them on his walk to work.”
June raised her eyebrows at Lewis. Geoff Reed had told his sister he collected bootleg tapes, too. She said, “May we see his collection?”
Sally Mishra stared at her. “Who the bloody fuck are you people? And what is this all about?”
“Better you don’t know,” June said. “Not yet. We need to see those tapes.”
Sally scowled again, but she detached the toddler from her leg, took the child’s hand, and led them all through the glass addition, which was set up like an English solarium with plants and couches, and into the other house, where a back bedroom had been converted to a home office. It had a reading chair by the window, a large wooden table with a giant monitor and related computer clutter, and floor-to-ceiling shelves.
Mouth set, the baby fussing on her hip, Sally pointed at the shelves, where a rack for cassette cases stood about three-quarters full. Beside it was a portable tape player and a pair of cheap headphones.
