At four o’clock, he called Evelyn again and asked whether she still had the magnifying lamp she used to read tiny figures on tax forms. She brought it without asking why. Caleb held the lamp against the suspect area and studied the seam beneath the coating. He could see a line that disappeared under a decorative clamp and emerged on the other side. The closer he looked, the more the tube seemed to tell a story he did not want to hear.
“What do you see?” Evelyn asked.
“I think someone made a repair they didn’t document.”
“Is that bad?”
“It depends why they made it. This one looks like somebody wanted it hidden.”
Evelyn watched him photograph the area from several angles. “Call the owner,” she said.
“If I call him now, he’ll want to know whether it’s finished.”
“He’ll want to know whether he can safely ride it. Those aren’t always the same question.”
Caleb could not deny it. He reached for the telephone, then hesitated because he had no way of proving what his instincts insisted was wrong. A photograph of a suspicious paint seam might persuade Ray, but Grip would see a teenager inventing excuses for missing a deadline. Caleb set the receiver down. He needed to know exactly what was happening before he asked anyone else to believe him.
He loosened the ornamental bracket and saw the paint beneath it had been disturbed. There was no obvious factory repair, and the affected section carried none of the marks associated with an honest restoration. Someone had concealed a joint, then refinished the surrounding metal so carefully that it vanished in normal light. The frame had been repainted only a month earlier, according to Grip. Caleb thought of every mile the biker had traveled since then and felt cold despite the heat.
At four-thirty, he stopped work long enough to eat the second egg sandwich. The bread had gone soft and the egg was warm, but his hands were shaking from hunger and concentration. He sat on the edge of the office chair, looking at the bank letter, the phone, and the motorcycle through the window. He imagined calling Grip and saying the frame might be compromised, then watching the man arrive with his prospects and demand to know why the job was still unfinished. He imagined saying nothing and allowing a dangerous machine back onto the highway.
The picture of Ray at his bench came to him again. His uncle had once refused to release a customer’s truck after discovering a crack in a suspension bracket. The customer had been furious, accused him of inventing work, and threatened to tell everyone in town he was a thief. Ray put the truck keys in the safe and offered to arrange a tow. “You can hate me in my shop,” he told the man. “You can’t hate me if you’re dead in a ditch.” The customer returned six months later with a pie and an apology.