“So. What did Nevin do now?” he asks in an impassive way that makes his Scandinavian accent sound thicker. Then his gaze shifts downward after examining us and he spots the glass case. “What’s this?”
“A display case,” I say. “It used to hold a taxidermy goose. Nevin thought it would be funny to leave it here on your porch.”
“Why would this be funny?” he asks.
“Because your name is Gustav…” Annie supplies. “Goose. Gustav.”
“I see. They sound similar and so this is amusing.”
“I think that was his thought process, yes,” I confirm.
“Where is this goose now?” Gustav asks.
“That’s what we’re hoping to figure out,” I say. “Itwasin thiscase. But it isn’t now. And if you don’t have it, presumably it was stolen from your porch.”
Gustav scratches at his scruffy chin, considering. “Yes, I think I can help with this. Come inside, please.”
I follow Annie into the house. It looks like it hasn’t been updated since the 1970s; green shag carpet covers the floor and green-and-yellow floral-print wallpaper still hangs on the walls. The faintest hint of stale cigarette smoke lingers in the air, reminding me of my childhood home in Dundalk.
Gustav sits in a high-backed office chair at an expansive black desk designed for PC gaming. He has several monitors of varying sizes lined up on risers. “I do not trust government,” he says simply.
“The US government?” Annie asks.
“Any government. I know too much.”
She and I exchange looks.
“I take many precautions in case they are angry about this.” Gustav pulls up security camera footage of his porch, showing the glass display case from multiple angles.
I’m torn between excitement that he very likely can provide us with an image of the culprit and the uneasy feeling that we’re probably being recorded even now.
“Nevin said he left the goose early this morning.”
“I work third shift, so this makes sense why I did not notice it then,” Gustav says as he winds the footage back to 6:30 a.m., when the cameras caught him arriving home. He speeds up the recording until we see a Black teen nearly as tall as Marvin but much lankier, giggling as he and a large, baby-faced white guy carry the goose in its case up the stairs and set it in front of Gustav’s front door. The footage fast-forwards again as wesearch for what happened next. Based on the timestamp, it’s about an hour later when a woman with shoulder-length faded purple hair appears. Gustav switches back to normal speed and we watch as she stops at the top of the steps, looks both ways but apparently doesn’t clock any of thethreecameras watching her, and attempts to lift the case. When it doesn’t budge, she tries unsuccessfully to drag it. All this does is dislodge the glass top from the base. This apparently gives her the idea to fully remove it, lifting the goose from its stand and tucking it under her arm before replacing the glass top with obvious effort. It’s frankly a miracle she didn’t knock it over and shatter it.
“Then…” Gustav says, switching to a different camera view—I guess there arefourcameras—that shows the street. A yellow Volkswagen Beetle, the back covered in various stickers and magnets, is parked there. The woman opens the trunk, tries to put the goose inside, finds it doesn’t quite fit, and instead places it in the backseat. Then she does a three-point turn that’s more of a seven-point turn, and speeds off in the direction from which she originally came.
“Do you know her?” I ask Gustav.
“No. I have not seen her before.”
“Purple hair. Yellow Beetle with a ton of shit on the back,” Annie summarizes. “Not exactly inconspicuous. We can probably track her down…if you want to?” She looks to me.
I consider the possibility of letting this woman get away with taking the goose. The likelihood of it being traced back to Virtu at this point is certainly less. But it still isn’t zero.
I can’t risk it.
Harold would kill me, and Nicole would never trust me again with anything. And while we’re no longer together, I’m hopeful this is an opportunity to reestablish our friendship.Because seeing her again the other night made me realize that’s the part of what we had that was special, and what I miss the most.
I nod subtly. “Thank you, Gustav. This has been extremely helpful. And we’re sorry to have bothered you.”
He shrugs.
“Could we trouble you to send us the best still image of our mystery woman? And her car?” Annie asks.
“I never send things electronically, since they are watching me,” he says prosaically. “But I can print them for you.”
We leave Gustav’s bungalow with the empty display case and a surprisingly clear photo of the purple-haired woman standing beside her distinctive getaway vehicle.
