She had been 3 years old and she remembered with the particular clarity that childhood memories sometimes arrived with standing in the gravel and watching him up on a ladder with a brush of paint mixing with the smell of gasoline tall he had seemed against the sky. She got out of the truck and she unlocked the garage. She went inside and turned on the work light. She looked at the space familiar, hers, smelling like oil and metal and 35 years of her family's labor, and she felt something that was not quite anger and not quite grief, but was in the neighborhood of both. She picked up a wrench.
She set it down. She picked up her phone. She opened the evidence folder. She looked at the entry dated 3 weeks ago. A voice that said, among other things, if you don't sign the papers by the end of the month, the next conversation will be less comfortable than this one.
Less comfortable. That was the phrasing. She looked at the healing knuckles on her right hand. She closed the folder. She sat down on the stool beside her father's workbench.
For the first time in a long time. Not because she was broken, not because she was giving up, but because she was alone in the place she loved most. With the weight of everything she was holding, she let herself feel exactly how heavy it was just for a minute. Then she picked up the notepad, heard writing. There was a motorcycle waiting on Thursday, and she had work to do.
Thursday came with a sky the color of old pewtor and a wind that had teeth in it. Pulled into the Hell's Angel's garage at 9, 2:00 in the morning, earlier than anyone expected, later than she'd planned because she'd spent 40 minutes on the phone with her father's doctor before she left the house and the conversation had taken something out of her that she was still quietly rebuilding on the drive over's name was Thomas Morgan. He was 58 years old, which was too young for what was happening to him. Had used words like progression and adjustment of care plan and quality indicators. Had listened to all of it, standing in her kitchen with her coat already on and her tool bag already by the door and she had asked exactly the questions that needed asking and she had written the answers down on the notepad she kept beside the coffee maker.
As she hung up, she had stood very still for about 30 seconds bras. Then she picked up her tool bag and she walked out to the truck because the work was still there. The bills were still there. Evidence folder on her phone was still there. The mortgage on the Morgan property was still there.
3 months behind now because customers who had been scared away by rumors and intimidation. Don't unscare themselves just because you want them to. Everything was still there. And so was she. The side door of the garage was already unlocked when she arrived.
Danny Reyes was inside working on something at the back bench and he looked up when she came in with the particular expression of someone who had told himself he wasn't watching for her and was now being caught watching for her. He said I said Thursday, Haley said. I didn't say what time Thursday. He smiled at that in spite of himself. H's not in yet.
He'll be here around 10:00. Then show me what you've got in the back, she said. Ex Cole mentioned. Dany set down his wrench for a second, not dismissively. Not the way he'd looked at her the first night.
Like someone recalibrating an instrument after discovering the previous calibration was off. He said, "Come on." There were two of them. '7s Iron Head Sportster that had been sitting for almost a year with an electrical problem that had defeated two attempts at diagnosis. A more recent touring bike with a transmission issue that its owner, a member named Garrett, who was currently out of town, had described left with the bike as grinds when I hit third. And I've already replaced the clutch plates twice and I'm at the end of my rope here.
Haley read Garrett's note twice. Has placed the clutch plates, she said. Garrett first time, then a shop in Carile the second time. Did anyone look at the shift forks? Danny paused.
No. Did anyone check the detent spring? Another pause. I genuinely don't know. Haley folded Garrett's note and put it in her jacket pocket. I'll start with the iron head, she said.
The electrical issues are usually more satisfying to solve in order. What does that mean? It means electrical problems are like arguments. She said already crouching beside the sportster. You have to go back to where it started where it is now.
If you try to solve it from the middle, you'll chase your tail for months. Danny looked at the bike. He looked at her. Is that what you think the other guys did? I think that's what most people do.
She said judgment. It's the natural instinct. The problem is presenting here. So you fix here except here is a symptom. The cause is somewhere behind it.
She had her flashlight out already looking. How long has the electrical issue been going on? About 14 months, Danny said, give or take. And what does it do exactly? Don't give me what the previous mechanic said it does.
Only what the owner experiences. Danny thought about it. Intermittent total power loss. Sometimes it comes back on its own. Times it doesn't.
No pattern anyone could find. It happens at different speeds of temperatures, sometimes sitting still. Haley was quiet for a moment. She was looking at the wiring harness near the headlight with the expression she got when something was becoming clear to her. Intermittent and no pattern usually means a connection issue.
A component failure, she said. A failed component fails consistently. A connection fails when something moves or heats up or vibrates in a specific way. She put her hand on the wiring near the main junction and she moved it carefully while watching the area around it. Who's the owner?
Guy named Pete. He's 52. Been riding since he was in his 20s. He's not misusing it. Pete ever crash it?
Anything that would have put lateral stress on the frame at the front end. Danny's face changed about 16 months ago. Bike went down. The speed was okay. Bike looked okay after just some cosmetic stuff.