“So she read this whole thing where Mr. Grobian was telling Mr. Czernin to wreck up the factory, wreck up Fly the Flag, I mean. Billy’s aunt, she was at the meeting, not in the factory, but the one where they told April’s father to wreck up the factory. So the English lady read about what they all said, and how Mr. William himself said this would prove to the old man—he meant Billy’s grandpa—that he knew how to take strong action.
“So when she finished, Mr. William, he gave this kind of phony laugh”—she darted a glance at Billy as if he might be offended—“and said, ‘I see you were telling the truth, Czernin. I thought you were making empty threats. We’ll work it out. You get the truck loaded up, we found the sheets okay, they’re in these boxes here, and I’ll write you out a check.’”
Josie gave a startling imitation of William’s precise and fussy manner. Billy sat, glassy-eyed, as if he were in a drunken stupor. I didn’t know if he was hearing Josie or just reliving the evening in his head.
“Then I don’t know what really happened, because we were under a table, but Mr. Grobian and Mr. Czernin, they loaded up the forklift, and the English lady, she said, oh, she would adore to drive the forklift, she’d done tanks and the semi but never a forklift, and Mr. Grobian said he would back the truck up to the loading bay and Czernin could show her how to handle the forklift. Only somehow the forklift went over and they fell off, the English lady and Mr. Czernin. She screamed, kind of, but Mr. Czernin never made any sound…” Her voice trailed off; suddenly it wasn’t exciting anymore, it was frightening.
“What happened?” I was trying to picture the scene—the forklift driving up to the truck and then over the edge. Or Grobian and William dumping a load of cartons on Bron and Marcena.
“I didn’t see it,” Billy whispered. “But I heard Dad say, I think that’s done it for them, Grobian. Load them into the truck. We’ll take them over to the landfill, and their nearest and dearest can imagine they’ve run off to Acapulco together.”
He started to cry, loud retching sobs that shook his whole body. The outburst terrified Josie, who looked from him to me with scared eyes.
“Get him a glass of water,” I commanded her.
I went around the table to cradle his head against my breast. Poor guy, witnessing his own father commit murder. No wonder he was hiding. No wonder William wanted to find him.
I jumped as a voice spoke behind me. “Oh, it’s you, Victoria. I might have guessed from all the racket that you’d shown up.” Mary Ann McFarlane was standing in the doorway.
44
The Recording Angel…or Devil?
With her bald head atop her scarlet tartan dressing gown, Mary Ann made a startling sight, but all three of us responded at once to her authority. Billy’s ingrained good manners brought him to his feet; he drank the water that Josie had been holding out to him, and apologized to Mary Ann for waking her up. After we’d gone through the bustle of greetings, and how I’d happened on the fugitives, Billy finished the tale, by explaining how they’d ended up at Mary Ann’s.
They’d spent the remainder of Monday night huddled under the worktable, too shocked and frightened to try to leave. They thought they’d heard more voices than just William’s and Grobian’s, but they weren’t sure, and they didn’t know if someone was watching the plant. But by morning, they were cold as well as hungry. They risked getting up to use the bathroom, which was in the intact part of the plant. When no one attacked them, they decided to leave but didn’t know where to go.
“I wanted to call you, Coach Warshawski,” Josie said, “but Billy was afraid you might still be working for Mr. William. So we came here, because Coach McFarlane was the person who helped Julia when she got pregnant.”
I shadow-punched Mary Ann. “What was that you said to me this afternoon—about not knowing the Dorrado girls very well?”
She gave her grim smile. “I wanted them to go to you, Victoria, but I’d promised I’d keep their secret safe until they were ready to tell it. Trouble is, I thought Billy was hiding while he sorted out the ethics of his family’s business—I didn’t know ’til I heard him just now that they’d witnessed Bron’s death. If I’d known that, please believe I’d have called you quam primum famam audieram.”
Mary Ann breaks into Latin when she’s agitated—it calms her down, but makes it hard for people like doctors and nurses to know what she’s saying. I don’t follow her easily myself, and, right now, I was too overwhelmed by Billy’s narrative to make the effort.
“You said Marcena read from a transcript, that she didn’t play the recording,” I said to Billy. “But did you see her recorder at Fly the Flag?”
“We didn’t see anything,” Josie said.
“And Billy’s dad didn’t see you?”
“No one saw us.”
I could see why William was looking so desperately for the recorder. They’d gotten her computer, but they didn’t have the original. But why was he so desperate to find Billy if he didn’t know his son had been there? I asked Billy who else he had told.
“No one, Ms. War-sha-sky, no one.”
“You didn’t instant-message anyone?”
He shook his head.