by Debbi Mack
A knock on the door and half a minute later, Karla opened up and greeted me with an open mouth and wide green eyes.
“Hi. I don’t know if you remember me—”
“Yeah, I remember you. What do you want?” She crossed her arms.
Nice. A woman who got right to the point.
“I’d like to talk to you about Billy Ray. But, first, I’d like to introduce myself. My name is Sam McRae and I’m—”
“I know what you’re doing. Everyone does, okay? You’re helping that awful lawyer Mulrooney with your friend’s defense, right?”
“Yes, I was just about to explain—”
“Save your explanations. I loved Billy Ray and now he’s dead.” Her voice cracked on the last word. “Okay, so maybe he wasn’t nice to your friend, but that was no reason to kill him.” Her volume rose and her face reddened as she spoke. Her eyes actually teared up.
I cleared my throat. “My friend has been accused, but that doesn’t make her guilty. I’m just trying to clarify—”
“Stop it! You’re not trying to clarify anything. You’re just looking to lay the blame on someone else. You’re trying to confuse everyone. That’s all you criminal lawyers are good for. You’re awful. How can you even come here and question me? Billy Ray’s dead and I’ll never get to see him again. Thanks to your friend.”
Then she broke down and started sobbing.
I was speechless for a long moment. Finally, I said, “I am truly sorry for your loss.”
She backhanded the tears from her crimson face. Her expression twisted in fury, she said, “Give me a break. You don’t give a damn.”
With that, she slammed the door shut.
That went well.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
I am so screwed. How could I help Jamila, if no one in this wretched backwater would talk to me?
It was coming up on 12:30 and I was starving. I stopped at a roadside stand that sold crab cakes and soft-shell crab sandwiches. Have you ever had a soft-shell crab? Full of green stuff. Don’t ask. I bought a crab cake on a roll.
I checked the time. The hour for meeting with Jinx was closing in. I directed myself toward the Route 50 bridge and tried to prepare for whatever she had in store for me.
The trip to Java on the Beach was quick but stimulating. Negotiating Coastal Highway traffic in early summer has that effect. The June bugs were out in abundance. They drove, bicycled and scootered their way through the throng, willy-nilly. The roar of glasspacks competed with hopped-up Harleys and bullet bikes. The ambient air was a stew of exhaust.
I turned onto the side street leading to the parking lot near the boardwalk—surviving a near miss with a boy on a moped who shot in front of me at the last second.
I found a space—miracle of miracles!—near the ramp leading to the boardwalk. From there, I plunged into a crowd of tourists. People wearing T-shirts bearing messages like, “I’m with Stupid.” The kind of thing that was new thirty years ago.
Java on the Beach was tucked between a gift shop and a video arcade. The place looked dead. I strolled in.
The small box of real estate contained a counter and a motley collection of round tables with chairs. The few customers sat silent or spoke in hushed tones.
I spotted Jinx against the far wall. When we made eye contact, she jumped up.
“Yoo hoo! Here I am.”
I surveyed the tiny shop. “So I see.”
I put in my order and waited for my coffee. Jinx sat at the table, watching me and looking ready to burst.
I took a seat opposite her and leaned on my forearms. “So. What is it we need to talk about?”
She gave me a look of sheer rapture, eyes aglow.
“Ray Mardovich,” she said.
For a moment, I said nothing. Just waited.
Jinx smiled and waited, too.
I said, “What about him?”
Jinx leaned across the table. “I know what he did to you.”
“What are you talking about?” I wasn’t going down without a fight.
She placed a confidential hand on my arm. I wanted to shake it off, but chose to keep our meeting from becoming confrontational.
“He did the same thing to me.” Her eyes revealed pain. Pain I could completely understand.
I smiled and faked a small laugh. “I’m still at a loss.”
“Sam, please.” It was as close to begging as I’d ever heard from Jinx’s lips. “Don’t insult my intelligence.”
She paused, biting her lip. “I know Ray was seeing you. He was seeing me before he got involved with you.”
It was June and we were sitting in a stuffy little café on the boardwalk. The ocean breeze had died and the place smelled like rotten fish. Even so, my insides turned to ice.
I swallowed and said, “How do you know this?”
“I have photos. I followed him to your place.” She gave me a hard look. “There’s even one of you two kissing on the stairs. See?”
She pulled out a digital camera and turned it on. In the viewfinder, I saw an image of the stairs leading up to my apartment. Ray and I stood on them, K-I-S-S-I-N-G.
Swell.
“Jinx,” I said. “Let’s get to the point, shall we? We aren’t exactly best buds. And I don’t think you invited me here for tea and sympathy.”
She nodded. “You’re right. Okay, look. Ray’s all set to be installed as the president of the state bar association, right?”
“Uh huh.”
“Don’t you see? He doesn’t deserve it.”
“Oh, I don’t know.” This whole discussion was making me queasy.
“Are you going to let this womanizing creep climb the ladder of success? Don’t you think we should say something to stop him?”
“You’re saying ‘we’ as if you and I were some kind of team. Pretty ridiculous, given our history.”
“Look.” She averted her gaze, then refocused on me. “I know we haven’t been the best of friends.”
I snorted. “There’s the understatement of the year. Maybe the decade.”
“But,” she continued, undaunted. “We’ve both been hurt by this man. I say we pool our forces and get some payback.”
“Exactly what is it you want to do?”
“Expose him. Tell everyone what Ray did. We have the pictures to prove it.”
Yeah. Pictures of me.
“Jinx, I suggest you do as I did. Forget about the asshole. Seeking revenge will only wreck your life.”
“Sam. I’m doing this. With or without your help.”
I sat and gawked at Jinx. She smiled like the cat that ate the canary.
“Figures,” I said. “Leave it to you to resort to blackmail.”
“I never—”
“Stop right there.” I rose and held up my hand. “Now I’m asking you not to insult my intelligence, okay?”
“I only—”
“I said stop and I mean it.” I hissed the words through clenched teeth and leaned in toward Jinx. She clammed up.
“Now, listen,” I said. “I can’t stop you, if you really want to do this. I have no control over your actions. But, please keep in mind you’re hurting people needlessly. I don’t know if that means anything to you, since you’re so capable of hurting people to satisfy your own interests. Even so, I hope you’ll consider what I’ve said.
“No matter what, understand this.” I stopped and shook a finger in her face. “I will not be blackmailed. You can threaten all you want, but I will not knuckle under to your demands. And I will have no part of your scheme.”
I turned and, over my shoulder, said, “Thanks for the coffee. This has been fun,” as I walked away.
Jinx, who’d been mute throughout my mini-rant, finally said, “Wait. I have another proposition.”
I stopped and shook my head. “Are you crazy? What could you possibly offer me?”
“Wouldn’t you like to know?”
This I
had to hear.
I strolled back and leaned upon my vacated chair. “Fine. What is it?”
“An exchange.” Jinx’s eyes narrowed. “Your good friend, Jamila’s arrest has already made the news. Wouldn’t it be nice to get the charges dismissed before things went any further? What if I could help you with that? Would you help me then?”
CHAPTER TWELVE
I stared at Jinx, wanting to say, “Yes, I’ll do anything to help her.” However, part of me wondered if it really included blackmailing and/or publicly humiliating someone. Including myself.
After taking a moment to consider my words, I said, “Assuming, I’m interested—and that’s a big assumption—what kind of help could you offer? And, more to the point, how can I trust you to deliver?”
“My family has old ties around here. I can probably help pull some strings.”
I sighed. “That’s nice, but we’ve already got a local lawyer who doesn’t need any help pulling strings. So unless your family is even more influential than our own politically connected lawyer, I doubt there’s much you could do for me.”
We shared a moment of silence as this sank in.
“Look, Jinx, this has been really interesting, but I have to go,” I said. “Before I do, could you explain why you’re so anxious to get me on board? You’ve got the pictures. Why do you need me?”
Jinx blinked up at me. “People like you, respect you. I thought if I acted alone, people would dismiss me. Maybe even claim I’d doctored the photos, you know? These days it’s so easy to do that. I could end up sounding like … Paula Jones or Monica Lewinsky. I wanted this to come from both of us. It would give the allegations more credibility.”
I wondered if I was hearing things. Had Jinx just paid me a compliment?
“Please,” she said. “Just promise me you’ll think it over.”
Great. I could expose Ray’s womanizing to help keep my best friend’s career from getting flushed down the toilet, while turning myself into another Paula Jones. And in league with the Devil herself, no less.
I thought I’d gag swallowing my pride, but said, “I’ll think it over. But that’s all. And I’ll need more than verbal assurance of your good faith.”
I left before Jinx could see the anguish written all over my face.
*****
I needed to clear my head, so I took a brisk stroll down the boardwalk. The fresh tang of ocean breeze cleansed the coffee shop’s rotten fish smell from my body. That and my increased inhalation rate. What started as a stroll turned into a march. I stomped while fuming over Jinx’s threat—or was it a proposal?—and the fact that she had photos of me and Ray. The thickening crowd parted like the Red Sea before Moses. I think my speed and facial expression sent a signal to make way. Or else. Before I knew it, I’d reached Thrasher’s French Fries stand, which meant I was nearing the end of the boardwalk. The tantalizing smell of potatoes cooked in peanut oil tickled my nostrils. I stopped and stood, a rock awash in a sea of people.
What are you doing? I was wasting time and the thought made me even angrier.
I turned and pounded the boards to where I’d parked.
*****
I started the car and joined the flow of Coastal Highway traffic. Was it safe to assume that Billy Ray’s male friends—Curtis Little and Dwayne Sutterman—wouldn’t give me the time of day? No, but I was pretty sure they wouldn’t welcome me with open arms. I turned into a strip mall featuring a coffee shop that advertised Wi-Fi access.
I settled in with a cup of black coffee and turned on the laptop. After opening the browser, I checked my email. My inbox was crammed with messages—mostly junk I could read later—however, one message caught my eye. Someone named Amber from the Farmworker Protection League had responded to my request for information.
The message read: Feel free to come by our offices so we can talk. The email had a phone number in the signature line.
I let out a breath and almost smiled. At last. One person in this burg willing to talk to me. Perhaps I’d unearth a lead.
I dug out my cell phone and dialed the number.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
The Farmworker Protection League had offices in an old house in Salisbury. The house had been converted into offices not unlike my own in Laurel.
I entered a small reception area, outfitted in furnishings with utility utmost in mind. A small second-hand wooden reception desk greeted me. Multicolored metal file cabinets lined the far wall. To the right, a sofa covered in a faded red and white floral pattern provided visitors a place to cool their heels.
As I walked in, I glimpsed in profile a slim brunette, late twenty-something woman dressed by L.L. Bean in Capri pants and a striped T-shirt. Engrossed in searching through a filing cabinet drawer, she squatted and bent to her task.
“Amber Moore?” I asked.
She jumped and turned.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I didn’t mean to startle you. I’m Sam McRae. We spoke earlier.”
She smiled and rose. “Right. Come in, come in.”
Amber ushered me into the office where she worked as a summer intern at FPL. She offered me coffee or water. I declined and explained my interest in Marshall Bower.
“Oh, he’s an interesting character, all right. Let’s talk.”
Thank God, I thought.
“So, where’d you study law?” she asked.
“University of Maryland.”
“I’ll be starting my third year there this fall,” she said. She indicated a guest chair, taking a seat in a matching one. “It’s nice to meet a fellow Terp.”
I couldn’t help grinning. Could it get much better than this?
“How did you end up here?” I asked.
“Maryland has a great environmental law program. I got interested in agricultural practices—use of pesticides, runoff into the Bay—that kind of thing. So I sought out opportunities to work on those issues and found out about this internship. This makes my second summer at FPL. As I learned more about the agricultural industry, I became aware of a number of other issues. Things you wouldn’t believe. Worker safety problems, immigration issues, and employees working eighty-hour weeks for peanuts. And their living conditions …” She shook her head. “Don’t get me started.”
I thought about doing just that, but chose for the moment to focus on Marshall Bower.
“What can you tell me about Bower Farms and its owner?”
“Well, Marshall Bower got into the poultry business only recently. The really big players, like Purdue and Allen’s, are institutions around here. However, Bower has connections and … I think he may tend to cut corners a little to try to compete with the big guys.”
“Cut corners how?”
Amber clasped her hands and planted her elbows on the armrests. “How much do you know about the poultry industry?”
“Not much.”
She smiled. “Let me give you a little tutorial then. You may find it helpful.
“For the major players, the days of family chicken farming are long gone. Poultry companies rely on contractors—known as ‘grow-out farmers’—to raise the chickens. These are high-volume operations that use cheap, nonunion labor. The farmers don’t even own the chickens. It’s the companies that provide the chickens, their feed, and anything else needed to care for them.”
She paused, as if waiting for questions.
“So, we’re talking big business?” I said.
“Huge. Poultry processors on the Delmarva Peninsula and in the South have virtually sewn up the market. These businesses dominate the local economy. Yet most of their workers aren’t locals.”
“Really?”
She nodded. “When the chickens are ready for slaughter, the company sends a crew of chicken catchers to round them up and bring them to the processing plant. Because the poultry industry no longer pays enough to attract local workers, they’ve come to rely on migrant workers—many of them Hispanic, many of them of
dubious legality, immigration-wise.”
She paused to let this sink in.
“Are you telling me Marshall Bower cuts corners by hiring illegal alien workers?”
“I’m not saying that he does,” she said. “But it has been known to happen. Using undocumented workers cuts costs. And we’ve become aware of cases in which illegal workers have been injured or killed due to poor working conditions.”
I wondered if there was a point to this discussion and was about to ask, when she resumed her spiel.
“Illegal workers are afraid to report health and safety violations, so it’s hard to prove anything against their employers. I couldn’t say for sure that Bower Farms has engaged in these practices. But given the cutthroat competition—um, no pun intended—I suspect they may have done so.”
“Where does Marshall Bower’s stepson fit into this picture?”
“According to my confidential sources, Billy Ray was being groomed to take Bower’s place at the helm of his vast empire. Essentially, Marshall Bower was sharing a great deal of authority over the poultry company with his stepson. Theoretically, Billy Ray could step in at a moment’s notice and take over the whole company in the event of his stepfather’s demise.”
“So, he would’ve known about any shady hiring practices? Or poor working conditions?”
Amber nodded. “Even if he didn’t know, he’d certainly be held responsible for them.”
Could any of the hapless workers have wanted to kill their employer? Was there any straw I could grasp in this? Especially when I considered my alternatives. Billy Ray’s friends. Probably not forthcoming. Conroy. What a guy. And Jinx. Shit.
“I’d like to take a look at Marshall Bower’s operation,” I said. “Talk to some of his employees. Any chance of that?”
“I can probably arrange it with a man I know there. When would you want to do this?”
“As soon as possible.” I attempted to not sound desperate.
“All right. I’ll try to set this up and get back to you with the details.” She looked somber. “And just so you know, the tour won’t be easy or pleasant.”