For the first time since the threatening text, I went to bed without checking the window every ten minutes. I was still afraid. But the fear no longer had the entire building to itself.
Thursday morning brought two things I had been waiting for and one I hadn't. The independent specialist arrived at eight, spent nearly two hours examining the repaired frame and safety-related systems, and told me the work met the requirements of the inspection he had been asked to perform. Grip had his first truly documented approval in eight months, though the specialist still reminded him to treat any old motorcycle with respect. Then the mail carrier delivered a certified envelope addressed to Oildale Customs in thick black print.
Inside was a letter from a law firm representing Thomas Allen Carver's development company. It alleged that I had made defamatory statements regarding a business transaction and demanded that I cease repeating any suggestion that the company had arranged damage to a motorcycle. The letter gave me three business days to confirm that I would not distribute additional claims. It was written in the polished, bloodless language of people who expected paper to frighten someone more effectively than a raised voice.
I had never accused Carver publicly. I had told an investigator what I'd observed and what Delgado claimed to know. The distinction felt important, though I wasn't sure it would protect me from a lawyer who could bill more in an hour than I earned on an oil change. I took the letter to my desk and called Ellen Pierce.
She asked me to read every paragraph before I described how it made me feel. Then she told me not to answer the law firm myself, not to post about it online, and not to stop cooperating with a lawful investigation. She said a letter could state many things without proving any of them. I had been so frightened by the heavy envelope that I nearly laughed when she reminded me a demand was not a court order.
"There's something else," she added. "Carver's attorneys may know a complaint is being investigated, but they can't make a witness forget what he saw. Just stick to what you can establish."
I set the envelope beside the old invoices and looked at it for a long time. My uncle had taken in stray dogs, loaned money he rarely got back, and argued with men twice his size when he thought a repair was unsafe. Yet the thought of a formal legal letter might have frightened him, too. I was realizing courage wasn't a quality you possessed permanently; sometimes it was a decision you made again every few hours.
Grip arrived after the inspection and stood beside the motorcycle without mounting it. He had waited long enough to be suspicious of good news. I handed him the paperwork and watched him read it, the careful attention returning to his face.
"How does it feel?" I asked.
"Strange," he admitted. "I've been angry at this machine for almost a year. Some mornings I thought about selling it. Then I'd remember the man who owned it before me, a friend who died of cancer, and I couldn't bring myself to let it go. I thought selling it would mean admitting the thing had beaten me."