“Probably it’s nothing,” she said. “Maybe it’s nothing; Josie kept saying not to bother you with it.”
When I pressed her harder, though, she finally blurted out that last month, when she arrived at work—and she always got there early, always anxious that she be thought a good employee—if there were going to be more layoffs she couldn’t let anyone say she had a bad attitude—anyway, she arrived to find she couldn’t get her key in the lock. Someone had filled the keyholes with Krazy Glue, and they lost a whole day’s work while they waited for a locksmith to come and drill them out. Then another time she opened the factory and found it full of a really bad smell, which turned out to be dead rats in the heating ducts.
“Because I’m there early I got all the windows open, and we could still do some work, it wasn’t too bad, but you can imagine! We were lucky the weather was not so bad—in November, you know, it could be a blizzard, or rain or something.”
“What does Mr. Zamar say?”
She bent over the baby. “Nothing. He tells me accidents happen at plants all the time.”
“Where was he when the locks were glued shut?”
“What do you mean?” Rose asked.
“I mean, wasn’t it surprising that you discovered they were glued shut? Why wasn’t he there?”
“He don’t come in early because he stays late, until seven or eight at night, so he don’t come in usually till eight-thirty in the morning, sometimes even nine.”
“So he could have glued the doors shut himself when he left the night before,” I said bluntly.
She looked up startled. “Why would he do that?”
“To force the plant out of business in a way that let him collect the insurance.”
“He wouldn’t do that,” she cried, too quickly. “That would be wicked, and, really, he is a good man, he tries hard…”
“You think maybe one of the people he laid off could be doing it for revenge?”
“Anything is possible,” she said. “That’s why—I’m wondering—when Josie told me a lady cop is coaching now instead of Mrs. McFarlane—can’t you go in there and find out?”
“It would be much better if you’d call the police, the real police. They can ask—”
“No!” the word came out so loudly that the baby hic-cupped and began to cry.
“No,” she said more quietly, rocking the infant against her shoulder. “Mr. Zamar, he told me no police, he won’t let me call. But you, you grew up here, you could ask some questions, no one would mind questions from the lady who helps the girls play basketball.”
I shook my head. “I’m just one person working alone, and an investigation like this, it’s time-consuming, it’s expensive.”
“How much money?” she asked. “I can pay you something, maybe when I finish paying the hospital for Julia.”
I couldn’t bring myself to tell her my usual fee was $125 an hour, not to someone who thought she was lucky to feed five children on thirteen dollars an hour. Even though I often do pro bono work—too often, my accountant keeps telling me—I didn’t see how I could conduct an investigation at a shop where the owner didn’t want me.
“But don’t you see, if you don’t find out, if we don’t stop this, the plant will close, and what will happen to me, to my children?” she cried out, tears in her eyes.
Julia hunched deeper inside her T-shirt at her outburst and the baby squalled more loudly. I rubbed my head. The idea of one more obligation, one more rope tying me to my old neighborhood, made me want to join Julia on the couch with my head buried in an imaginary world.
With a leaden hand, I pulled my pocket diary out of my bag and looked at my commitments. “I can come down early tomorrow, I guess, but you know I’m going to have to talk to Mr. Zamar, and if he orders me off the premises I won’t be able to do anything else but leave.”
Rose Dorrado beamed at me in relief. She probably figured once I took the first step, I’d be committed to the whole journey. I hoped very much she was wrong.
8
Plant Life
I hugged my windbreaker close to my chest and slipped through a loose piece of the chain-link fence. The pale steel of a late-fall dawn was just beginning to lighten the sky, and the air was cold.
When I told Rose Dorrado I’d come by Fly the Flag this morning, I’d originally planned to arrive around eight-thirty to question the crew. Last night, though, when I was talking to Morrell about the situation, I realized I should come early: if someone was sabotaging the plant before the morning shift arrived, I might catch them in the act.