He frowned, not wanting to give away anything to anyone, but finally directed me to the third door up the hall from him.
My luck didn’t hold when I found the proper door. The man in the tiny office had been in the cluster that saw my undignified entrance into the plant four days ago. At first he didn’t recognize me, but as soon as I mentioned Mitch Kruger’s name, Friday’s episode came back to him. He frowned ferociously and picked up the phone.
“Milt? Dexter here. Did you know that female dick was back? The one who came around last week? You didn’t? Well, she’s with me right now.”
He slammed the receiver down and folded his arms. “You just don’t learn, do you, girlie?”
“Learn what, pork chop?” I saw a folding chair next to his filing cabinet and pulled it out flat to sit on.
“To mind your own business.”
“I’m here doing just that. Answer a few simple questions about Mitch Kruger and you won’t see me again.”
He didn’t say anything. Apparently we were waiting for Milt Chamfers. The plant manager arrived a few seconds later, his tie knotted up to his throat and his jacket on. This was going to be a formal meeting, and I was wearing socks instead of pantyhose.
“What are you doing here?” Chamfers demanded. “I thought I told you to get lost.”
“Same thing that I was here for last week—to see who saw Mitch Kruger and when and where and all those other w questions they teach you in journalism and detecting schools.”
“I don’t know who this Kruger was, let alone when and where,” Chamfers mimicked in a savage falsetto.
“Then I’ll have to talk to everyone here at the plant until I find out who does, won’t I.”
“No you won’t,” he snapped, tightening his thin lips until they disappeared into his chin. “This is private property and I can have you thrown out if you don’t leave at once.”
I tilted back in the folding chair until it touched the filing cabinet, and smiled a little. “It’s a murder investigation now, sonny. I’m going to give you to the cops and you can explain to them why Mitch Kruger’s name makes you so angry and agitated.”
“I don’t let anyone come into my plant snooping around, pretending they’re looking for missing persons when they’re really engaged in industrial espionage. If the cops want to talk to me about some old man who worked here twenty years ago, I’ll talk to them. But not you.”
“Then I’ll just have to come at it from a different direction. You got a pretty small work crew here for such a big management staff, don’t you?”
Chamfers and the benefits guy exchanged a look— guarded, wary—I couldn’t quite make it out. Then Chamfers said, “And you keep wanting me to believe you’re not scoping us out for someone. Who you really working for, Nancy Drew?”
I stood up and looked at him solemnly. “Lockheed, sonny, but keep it to yourself.”
Chamfers once again stayed at my elbow while we made the long hike around to the front. Before we parted I said, “You want me to tell the guy tailing me where I left my car?”
His face shifted momentarily beneath its frown. He was surprised. At the news I had spotted my tail? Or at the news I had one? Pondering that little conundrum, I forgot to wave good-bye.
I walked down the road to where the tall grass cut off his view from the side of the building. Once there I hunkered down to wait. It was just about twelve. Maybe Chamfers brought a sandwich, but I was willing to bet he headed over to the little block of Italian restaurants four streets over. I pegged him for the late-model Nissan as well.
The grass hid me from the road, but it didn’t protect me from the sun. It was also a favorite hangout for flies and bees. I was so hot and sweaty after a while that I stopped trying to brush them away when they landed on my arms. At one point I got a rather nasty fly bite. Finally, a few minutes before one, the Nissan drove past me with the flare of gravel I expected from Chamfers.
Staying in the grass along the verge, I walked back to the plant. Another car was heading my way from the asphalt square; the maroon Honda, with the benefits manager at the wheel. I waited a few more minutes, but that seemed to be their output from the first shift.
I went back inside, to the door behind the stairwell, and reentered the machine-assembly room. By now I figured I looked like someone who’d been doing roadwork on a chain gang all morning. The tops of the high windows had been pulled out on their hinges to let in some air, but it was still cooler in here than it was outside. The women in their tank tops or T-shirts and work pants didn’t look particularly ruffled.
A half dozen were sitting near the door, eating sandwiches and talking softly in Spanish. The others stood alone or in pairs under the windows, looking vacantly at nothing, or talking desultorily. A couple in a far corner were having an intense interchange. This time they all saw me, all but the pair in the far corner, and conversation stopped.