Riptide

by Debbi Mack

  “Hmm. Looks like someone’s hungry. Ooh, I’m jealous, girl. How do you stay so thin? Look at you.”

  “Well … I don’t eat like this all the time.” Please, please. Just fill my order. We’ll chat later.

  “It’s metabolism, you know? You lucky thing.” She paused and leaned in. “Anything else?” Her lips compressed into a knowing smirk.

  “No. Yes. Well, could I get the muffin and coffee first?” Please, please, please …

  “Sure, hon.” She flounced off and returned with both. It took great restraint not to stuff the whole muffin into my mouth.

  Later, as I gobbled my breakfast, Flo entertained with her running commentary. She could have done a solo Broadway show. “The Vagina Diner Monologues.” Flo was funny in the way that small-town waitresses can be. And friendly? Other than Amber at FPL, she was the nicest person I’d dealt with lately. While I harbored thoughts of asking her to run for mayor, Flo said something that snapped me from my reverie.

  “Hear about that murder at Bower Farms last night?”

  “Murder? You’re kidding.” A man two stools down spoke.

  “Well, according to the news I heard on the radio this morning, they think the dead guy might have been smuggling illegal aliens.”

  The man snorted. “Shit. Spics. The guy got killed smuggling Spics into the country? Spics who take our jobs? Serves him right, I say. Son of a bitch.”

  I could feel my face grow hot and my temper rise. Spics, my ass. And whose jobs are they taking? The ones you don’t want. The ones that pay shit.

  I did a long, slow count to ten. Then twenty. Forced myself to breath deeply, in and out. I had enough problems without going off on a local redneck.

  “Stan, they aren’t all bad,” Flo replied. “Some of them work damned hard. They do work no one else will take. Construction, landscaping, poultry work, crab meat processing. Thankless stuff that doesn’t pay. God knows, I should know about that.”

  I looked up at Flo with new appreciation. She sauntered over, her coffee-pot appendage at the ready. “More?”

  I smiled. “No thanks. I think I’ve had enough.”

  I settled my bill with Flo who doubled as cashier, pressing a ten-dollar tip into her hand. She looked at me as if I’d lost my mind.

  “You obviously work very hard,” I said. “And you just made my morning. Thank you.”

  With that, I got up and walked away. But not before catching the smile on her face.

  *****

  With a full stomach, I couldn’t postpone the inevitable any longer. I had to make the call to Jamila about her car. I turned on my phone, expecting messages from her. None were there.

  I expected to reach an angry friend. She wasn’t. In fact, she took the news about her car with astonishing poise and grace, saying that she’d get in touch with her insurance company about securing a rental. Her comprehensive insurance would cover all of it, of course. I guess when you’re a murder suspect, having your car fucked with is pretty low on your list of concerns.

  She even forgave me for hanging up on her after I told her about my lovely evening—summoned by an anonymous call to another murder scene, arriving at Conroy’s house to find him in a mysterious meeting with someone or other, fleeing God knows who in an old Chevy during a high-speed chase down Coastal Highway.

  “I passed out in the car, and when I woke up, the sun was rising,” I explained.

  “Don’t worry about it. Sounds like you’ve been through hell.”

  Well, what about you?

  “Are you all right?”

  The breathy sound of a sigh. “Yeah, I’m okay.”

  “Any more media calls?”

  “A few.”

  Shit. I wondered how long we could hold off that pack of jackals. In fact, I wondered if any of them were exploring possible connections between last night’s murder at Bower Farms and Billy Ray’s unfortunate demise.

  “Sam, I should probably call the insurance company.”

  Jamila’s voice snapped me back to attention.

  “Right. Good idea.”

  “You’ll need a car, won’t you?”

  I looked up the street and spotted a scooter rental outfit. “Not necessarily.”

  *****

  Ocean City is two-wheeled rental central. You can find just about any kind of two-wheeled transportation you might desire for rent within the city limits. Scooters have become an extremely popular mode of transport in this town, given the high price of gas and the low availability of parking. Rather than risk Jamila’s wheels, I’d get my own. Why blow bucks on a car, if I could get by with less? The scooter was speedy and cheap. Highly maneuverable in traffic. I took it for a test ride on the straightaway of Coastal Highway. This baby could move. It maxed out at a blinding 45 miles per hour, though it felt like closer to 60. So, I backed her down quickly.

  As I played with my new toy, I pondered where to go next. If the police suspected Curtis Little of smuggling illegal workers, I wondered how much evidence they had. I also wondered if Little and Sutterman could have been smuggling people and drugs in a joint operation. How interesting would that be? And what proof did I have? None, of course. What else was new?

  Think, Sam. Where to start looking? How about Little’s trailer? Haven’t the cops been there? Perhaps not. Maybe they haven’t gotten a warrant yet. So what are you waiting for?

  I pulled the scooter over and called Amber’s cell number. She answered on the second ring.

  “Hi there,” I said. “I need a Spanish translator. How’d you like to do something a bit different this morning?”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  I’d managed to catch Amber before she left for work. Although she hadn’t planned on making a trip to Curtis Little’s trailer, I stressed that the cops could be obtaining a warrant as we spoke, making time a factor. I assumed they suspected Little of smuggling illegals based on evidence obtained at his workplace or around the crime scene. Invading his home would require probable cause, which I was pretty sure they were trying to establish with a judge at that very moment. Before they did, I wanted to take a look inside that trailer and see if anything connected Little’s death with Billy Ray’s. This meant, if I hoped to find anything, I needed to act fast.

  I made a quick stop at Jamila’s car to transfer a few personal belongings into the scooter’s storage compartment before taking off to meet Amber at a mutually convenient parking lot. We took her car to Little’s trailer. A knock at the door and Carmen answered.

  “Hola, Carmen,” I said. “Me llamo, Sam.”

  “Sí” She smiled and nodded. “Recuerdo.”

  “Carmen … uh …” I gestured back and forth between the two women. “Amber Moore.”

  Amber picked up the ball and started rattling off Spanish. Carmen responded in kind. I stood there, grinning. This went on for a bit. Carmen invited us in. Apparently. We went in. I kept grinning and nodding. Carmen took on a slightly alarmed look. Amber’s voice assumed a soothing quality. She placed a comforting hand on Carmen’s arm. The woman seemed somewhat appeased, but still wary. Amber paused and said, “I asked if the police have been here. She freaked a bit. She claims her work visa is valid, but I wonder, you know?”

  “Yeah, I know.” I said, sotto voce. A bit louder, I added, “Excuse me, Carmen, dónde está, um, el baño?”

  Carmen pointed toward the other end of the double-wide. A bathroom door was on the right, next to a small room with a bed and dresser. A dresser full of drawers. “A la derecha,” she said.

  “To the right,” Amber translated.

  “Got it,” I said. “Can you, um, keep her occupied?”

  “Sam …”

  “I need to duck in there for a quick peek before the cops come in and scoop everything up.”

  Amber sucked in a quick breath. “Okay.” She turned toward Carmen and guided her toward a sofa, keeping her facing away from me. Together, they sat and gabbed about whatever. I sc
urried down the hall, bypassing the bathroom, slipping into the bedroom, and began rifling through the dresser drawers as fast as I possibly could.

  I pulled the first one open only to find socks and underwear. The second one revealed shirts and long johns. The third one contained some official-looking paperwork, but I didn’t have the time to sort it all out. The whole enterprise began to feel like an exercise in futility until I opened the bottom drawer. It was jammed with rows of Social Security cards and visas marked “H-2A.” I searched my memory. Hadn’t Amber mentioned something about these visas? I’d stake my next retainer that these allowed foreigners to do seasonal agricultural work in the United States.

  This was it. The first real lead I’d found. But to where? What did it signify? The Social Security cards and visas were obvious fakes. So this confirmed that Curtis Little was indeed involved in smuggling illegals into the country. But why was he killed? And what, if anything, did it have to do with Billy Ray’s death?

  My muddled thoughts were interrupted by pounding on the door.

  I heard it open.

  “Police,” a man said. “We have a warrant to search the premises.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  While Amber and Carmen distracted the cops, I slunk into the tiny bathroom. I flushed the toilet, ran the tap several seconds, then left and walked toward the visitors, slapping my hands against my jeans.

  And who led this contingent? The short craggy-faced cowboy with the calloused hands.

  “Good morning,” I said. “Detective Morgan, isn’t it?”

  “Amos Morgan, ma’am.” He delivered the line in a near monotone. “Funny you should be here.”

  I shrugged. “I was in the neighborhood. Carmen and I have met. You can ask her. Right, Carmen?”

  I gave Carmen my most disarming grin. She nodded and smiled brightly, clearly not understanding a word.

  “I take it you want to search the trailer?” I said. “I don’t want to get in your way.” I glanced at Amber, who grabbed her purse and joined me. “So unless you have further business with us, we’ll be going.”

  “What are you doing here?” Morgan dug in like a pit bull.

  “Paying our respects.”

  He scowled. “Sure you were.”

  “Detective, you have no cause to hold us.”

  Morgan said nothing. Our gazes, as they say, locked. I tore mine loose from his. “Let’s go,” I said, and ushered Amber out the door. As we hustled to the car, I noticed that one of the official vehicles bore an EPA logo. What’s that about? We beat feet out of there before you could say the words “Terry stop.”

  *****

  “Wow. That was close,” Amber said. We rolled down Route 50 toward the lot where I’d parked the scooter.

  “You bet.” Close in more ways than one. What if Morgan had decided the calls from Little’s phone to mine provided the specific and articulable facts needed to do a Terry stop? That is, what if he’d decided they gave him cause to hold me under Terry v. Ohio, the case every law student and criminal lawyer knows inside and out? A Terry stop is supposed to apply to stop-and-search cases for weaponry. But what comfort was that? These days, cops will try to bend the Fourth Amendment every which way. And case law can be modified. But I’d managed to get out of harm’s way. For the moment.

  “Now,” I said, parroting Mulrooney. “Did you notice one of the cars back there had an EPA logo? Clearly, they’re not interested in illegal immigrants. So, any idea why EPA would be involved?”

  Amber’s eyebrows did a brief mating dance. “Well, one of the things EPA has been doing is trying to get bigger companies like Perdue to make sure the farmers they work with maintain high environmental compliance standards.”

  “Okay. So how does this work?”

  “Years ago, Perdue signed a memorandum of understanding with EPA. It created the Perdue Clean Waters Environmental Initiative. The idea is that Perdue will help provide technical assistance and training, as well as monitoring and compliance, to make sure their poultry providers are doing business in an environmentally sound way.”

  I nodded. “But this doesn’t bind Bower Farms legally, does it?”

  Amber shook her head. “No, but it does provide a template for other socially conscious companies. And many companies have become interested in following Perdue’s example. It gives them a much better image, particularly among investors who care about environmental effects and corporate accountability. Not to mention creating goodwill with environmentalist groups and the public.”

  Hmm, I thought. I wondered how many smaller companies just pretend to be socially conscious and get away with it. All that paperwork stuck in the drawer. If only I’d had a chance to look it over.

  “Oh, by the way,” Amber said, interrupting my thoughts. “Carmen mentioned that Curtis often talked to a woman named Maria on the phone.”

  “Maria Benitez?

  “She didn’t know her last name.”

  Great. Maria was only among the most popular female Hispanic names out there. And Maria Benitez was almost as common as Mary Jones.

  “The only other lead I have is the name Maria Benitez. Any chance she might be a worker or related to someone who works for Bower?”

  Amber shrugged. “It’s a common name, but I know someone who might know.”

  She pulled the car over to the shoulder and dug her cell phone out of her shoulder bag. “Let me make a call and see if my source is okay with talking to you.”

  *****

  Two minutes of fast-talking Spanish later, we were back on the road. “It’s fine,” Amber said. “As long as you’re not with immigration or the cops, they’ll answer questions.”

  Ten minutes after that, we pulled up before a tiny house that would have accommodated Little’s double-wide, if you knocked down the inner walls. The dying lawn stretched roughly twenty feet from the house and clung to the curb. Toys were strewn about here and there. Off to the side, a rusty bicycle leaned against a trash can.

  Amber put the car in park, gathered her things, and exited the vehicle. I got out and eyed the place. Where were the kids? The place looked deserted. How much worse could it be than the ghettos of Bed-Stuy, where I grew up? Or the ones where I’d spent time searching for evidence in a haunting case I’d handled only last fall.

  We negotiated the buckled concrete walkway to the front door. Amber knocked three times. Birds sang cheerful morning songs. Strange muzak. After a lengthy wait, the door creaked open. A short, brown man around forty or so, wearing faded jeans and a white wife-beater shirt, stood in the doorway. He leaned on a set of crutches, his right foot encased in plaster.

  “Can you tell him who I am?” I asked Amber.

  Amber leaned toward me. “I know. I’ll make the introductions, tell him who you represent, then ask him if he’s ever heard of Maria Benitez. Okay?”

  That seemed simple enough, so I nodded.

  Amber turned toward the man and engaged him in conversation in Spanish. He nodded. I heard her mention Maria’s name. He nodded some more. Interesting. But then he shook his head.

  “Gracias,” Amber said. She turned to me. “He says that one of the women living here has mentioned the name Maria Benitez on occasion. However, he doesn’t know anything else about her.”

  “Okay. Could you ask him, who lives here and where are they? Who is the woman who mentioned Maria and where is she?”

  Amber relayed my questions to him in Spanish. He responded.

  “They’re all working right now,” she said. “Luisa works as a crab picker. You’ll find her at the processing plant about half a mile from here.”

  “Is Luisa his wife?”

  “No, she’s his cousin.” Amber turned to face me directly. “He says five families live here. That’s pretty typical. And I’ve seen much worse.”

  *****

  When Amber and I reached the processing plant, she said, “Why don’t I go in and see if I can find Luisa and sn
eak her out here? She may feel uncomfortable being asked questions in the presence of her coworkers.”

  “Sure,” I said.

  She left the car and entered the building.

  I sat alone, glancing from side to side. Just how big was this operation we were unearthing, anyway?

  Was the CIA going to swoop in at any moment?

  I laughed. “Good God, Sam. Don’t be ridiculous.” I said out loud.

  Then, I heard the gunshot and flung myself down on the front seat.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  I pulled myself upright in the seat, feeling like an idiot.

  I’d been so wrapped up in my thoughts, I hadn’t noticed the truck pull up to the loading dock only about fifty feet away. And when the damn thing backfired, I could’ve sworn it was a gunshot.

  I had just collected my wits, when Amber emerged from the building with a stocky brown woman in tow. The woman’s hair was pulled back and tucked under a ball cap. She wore a striped T-shirt, jeans, and a worried look.

  Amber hustled Luisa into the car’s back seat, murmuring in Spanish. Luisa looked from Amber to me, brown eyes growing wider by the second.

  “I’ve explained who you are and that you need to know about Maria Benitez. Do you have more specific questions?” Amber asked.

  “Luisa, what have you heard about Maria and Bower Farms?”

  Amber translated. Luisa shook her head. “Nada,” she said. Amber shrugged.

  “What about Maria and Dwayne Sutterman?”

  Amber started to translate, but Luisa said, “Doo-ah-ee-nay? He no good.”

  “Why do you say that?” I persisted. “¿Porqué?”

  Amber rattled off the translation. Luisa responded.

  Amber said, “She says that Dwayne is a drug dealer who uses her people to buy or distribute for him. She thinks Maria Benitez is his supplier.”

  *****

  In the ten minutes I got with Luisa, I gleaned more information from her. Apart from the fact that Dwayne Sutterman was more than the occasional user, that is. For starters, she was lucky to be living in a one-bedroom dump with four other families instead of a company-owned trailer with a nonworking sewage system and other delightful perks that she couldn’t complain about for fear of incurring her employer’s wrath and the government’s scrutiny of her legal status. Further, her kids were, in fact, working by her side today. Well, the family that picks together sticks together, right?