Pebble number seventeen sat on a paper napkin in the middle of the break room table. Around it stood forty-two brooms, like a lineup of janitors.
It was Saturday morning, and the practice was closed. Theo had made coffee, which he does badly and with great ceremony. Marguerite had come in too, although nobody had asked her. She said she was protecting her investment.
"Start from the beginning," I said. "And I mean the actual beginning. Not 'the road keeps a receipt.'"
Theo looked offended. "That is the actual beginning."
"Before that."
He sighed and wrapped both hands around his mug.
Nine years ago, Theo was thirty and had just bought the practice from old Dr. Halloran. He had a mortgage on the building, a loan on the equipment, and four patients who still asked for Dr. Halloran by name. One of them asked every visit, although Dr. Halloran had moved to Arizona.
That spring, a friend talked him into a charity 5K on a Saturday morning. Theo had never run a race. He had bought new running shoes. He had laid them out by the door the night before.
At six a.m., a patient called with a cracked molar and a wedding at noon.
"Whose wedding?" asked Marguerite.
"Hers," said Theo. "She was the bride."
He did the emergency repair, finished at eight-forty, and drove straight to the race in his scrubs and his clinic clogs. The clogs lasted until the first corner. He took them off, set them on top of a mailbox, and kept going.
"You just kept going," I said.
"I'd paid the entry fee."
He finished in the middle of the pack. Then he sat on the curb near the finish line and called his father. His father was a retired accountant named Walter, then sixty-five, who did not believe anything he could not staple.
"I ran a race," Theo told him. "Without shoes. The whole way."
There was a pause on the line. Then Walter Marchetti said, "Get a receipt."
So Theo looked down, picked up the nearest pebble, and put it in the pocket of his scrubs. He wrote the label that night. He mailed his father a photograph of it.
"He framed the photograph," Theo said. "It's in his hallway in Tucson. Next to his CPA certificate."
Marguerite sniffed. She claims it was the coffee.
"So that's one," I said. "Forty more to go."
"After the first one," Theo said, "it wasn't a decision anymore. It was a system. Every course gives you one. You just have to finish."
Then he told us about Birch Hollow.
Four years ago, the city chip-sealed Birch Hollow Road in late spring. The notice had said that loose gravel might be present "for several weeks." The Birch Hollow 5K was in August. The gravel was still there.
"Still loose?" I asked.
"Everywhere. On the shoulders, in the gutters, in drifts at the corners. It was like running across a spilled bag of aquarium gravel. Except angrier."
"And you ran it anyway."
"I'd paid the entry fee."
It had been his slowest 5K ever. At the finish, he had looked for a pebble. There were no pebbles, only chip seal chips, glittering and sharp-edged and everywhere.
"So I took a chip," he said. "Under protest."
"Disputed," I said.
"Disputed." He touched the label with one fingertip.
"I wrote a letter to the city. I got a form reply. 'Thank you for your feedback. Your concern has been forwarded to the appropriate department.' I don't think there was an appropriate department."
I looked at the dark little stone on the napkin. Then at the email from Amos, still open on Theo's laptop. Consistent with prior practice.
"Theo," I said slowly. "If you hated that road, what about everyone else?"
I estimated that a public records request would take twenty minutes to file. It took fourteen. The city has an online portal. It is surprisingly pleasant, with a cartoon owl who says Transparency is a hoot!
I requested all claims filed against the City of Calder Falls relating to Birch Hollow Road, May through December, four years ago. Damage, injury, anything. I hit submit.
The owl reappeared. Thank you! Requests are fulfilled within ten (10) business days.
"Ten business days is the twenty-fourth," I said. "That's two days before the race."
"That's too late to change anything," said Theo.
"It's government. Too late is their favorite time."
Theo stood up. He took his cardigan off the back of the chair. I recognized the movement. It was the same one from the day of the notice.
"Where's the records office?" he asked.
The records office was on the third floor of City Hall, open Saturdays from nine to noon. It was staffed by one clerk, a young man named Lyle, twenty-nine, with very precise sideburns.
Lyle took his job extremely seriously. He listened to our request without interrupting. Then he consulted a binder.
"Requests through the portal are processed in ten business days," he said.
"We know," said Theo. "We were hoping to look at the records in person."
Lyle consulted the binder again. He turned four pages. He ran his finger down a column.
"Under Municipal Code 2-114, a member of the public may inspect records that are readily retrievable, same day, under supervision." He looked up. "Claims files are in the annex. They're in boxes."
"Are boxes readily retrievable?"
Lyle thought about this for a long moment. It was clearly a question he had never been asked.
"I'd say they're retrievable," he said finally. "Readily is a judgment call."
"What's your judgment?"
Lyle looked at Theo. He looked at me. He looked at the clock, which said ten-twenty.
"I have a hand truck," he said.
There were three banker's boxes. Lyle sat with us at a long table and watched us like a lifeguard.
We found the first Birch Hollow claim within six minutes. It was a cracked windshield, filed in June. The second was also a windshield. The third was a bicycle tire, plus a pair of torn cycling shorts and "emotional distress (minor)."
By eleven-thirty, we had sixty-three claims.
Most were windshields. Nineteen were bicycles.
Four were from people who had slipped while walking. One was from a woman whose golden retriever had refused to walk on Birch Hollow Road. She had claimed the cost of a dog stroller.
"Did the city pay for the stroller?" I asked.
Lyle leaned over and checked. "It did," he said, with something like pride.
At the back of the third box was a memo. It was from the Department of Public Works, dated that June. It said that post-cure sweeping on Birch Hollow Road had been deferred pending budget review. The estimated cost of sweeping was six thousand two hundred dollars.
It was signed by H. Gaines, Deputy Director.
I added up the claims on my phone calculator. I did it twice, because I didn't believe it the first time.
"The city saved six thousand two hundred dollars by not sweeping," I said. "Then it paid out forty-one thousand three hundred and eighty."
Theo did not say anything. He picked up the memo and read it, and then he read it again. Then he looked at the date on the last windshield claim. August fourteenth.
He took pebble seventeen out of his cardigan pocket. I had not known he'd brought it. He turned the label toward me.
BIRCH HOLLOW 5K, 23:51. DISPUTED. And underneath, in even tinier writing I'd never noticed: 8/14.
"Same day," Theo said.
Lyle, at the end of the table, made a small noise. "Could I make copies for you?" he asked. "Twenty-five cents a page."
"Yes, please," said Theo. "All of them."
On Monday morning, at eight-oh-five, the phone rang at reception.
Marguerite answered it, listened, and put the caller on hold. She turned around in her chair. She was smiling the way people smile when the horse they bet on comes around the far turn.
"That," she said, "was Amos Gaines. He's calling to reschedule his cleaning. It's Tuesday at four."
"Again," I said.
"Again." Marguerite held out the receiver to Theo. "Line one. I believe you'd like to tell him something."
Theo looked at the folder of copies under his arm. It was two inches thick. It had cost us forty-one dollars and seventy-five cents.
He took the phone.
"Good morning, Amos," he said. "Please don't reschedule. Tuesday at four is perfect."
He listened for a moment, nodding.
"And Amos? Bring your budget."
Up next: The Tuesday Problem
Continue to Part 5 →