“So,” I continued, “I am contacting every tomato growers’ association in the country to see who might be able to provide us with the most favorable terms.”
He licked his lips. “Ms. Harper, I will get my people right on it. We’ll have a proposal to you by the end of the week. I can assure you that you will find it to be most attractive.”
“That’s lovely. Now, y’all understand, of course, that we must have strict assurance that your growing practices in no way endanger our natural environment, nor exploit any resources, be they animal, vegetable, mineral, or human. As I said, our customers are aesthetically aware, as well as environmentally enlightened. They simply will not abide any abusive business practices whatsoever.”
“Ms. Harper, we are a match made in heaven. Our affiliated growers are committed to the highest environmental and ethical standards in the tomato industry.”
Yeah, right.
“I’ll be happy to take you on a tour of our fields. You will find that our worker housing facilities are the best in the country—clean, modern, comfortable. We provide on-site recreational facilities, too. You see, it’s really very simple. We believe a happy worker is a productive worker.”
Just when you think you’ve heard it all. So Big Tomato had some bogus model housing someplace that they showed off to visitors, not letting them see the actual shacks they kept the slaves in.
“Why sure, Mr. Zachariah, I’ll have my assistant check my schedule and get back to you on that.”
“We can also supply you with all our environmental impact assessments that have been filed with the EPA. Of course, as you probably know, all that data is available through the Freedom of Information Act, but what with government bureaucracy being what it is, who has the time to jump through those hoops?”
Well, that was a smooth move. I had to give him credit for his preemptive strike. Big Tomato must have someone inside the EPA who fixed the reports. Probably the same person who had tipped them off about the impending EPA visit on the day of the truck accident.
Shit. I wasn’t making much headway here. If Big Tomato had silenced Gladys and if this guy knew about it, he sure wasn’t letting anything slip. And if I couldn’t get it from him, how could I get it? It wasn’t as if they would have left some tangible record of payoffs, bumpoffs, and whatever other nefarious activities they were engaged in. If they had really killed Gladys, it looked as if they’d committed the perfect murder.
“All right, Mr. Zachariah,” I said. “I look forward to receiving your proposal. And I’ll have my assistant get in touch about that field visit. So long now.”
I stood up and shook his hand. He walked me to the elevator, oozing false charm the whole way. It set my teeth on edge, like when you bite into a piece of aluminum.
At last the elevator came, and I made my escape. When the doors closed, I leaned back against the wall and let out a long breath.
This situation was reprehensible. These slimeball slave owners were polluting my beloved Florida, causing fatal accidents, dispensing hush money, and greasing palms, all with impunity. But what pissed me off more than anything was that I’d put on high heels and makeup for this.
The elevator doors opened, and I stepped out. I teetered back over to my Hog and pulled my clothes and a supersize bottle of Xtreme Makeup Remover out of the saddlebags. I reentered the Starbucks.
I reemerged as my true authentic self. Maybe Brenda the Southern belle was beat, but Dirty Harriet was unbeatable. I was back and badder than ever. There were still avenues to explore, leads to follow. I would nail Gladys’s killer yet.
I roared off in a cloud of dust.
Chapter 23
SATURDAY MORNING, I chilled out with a little motorcycle maintenance. As I was checking the air pressure on the tires, I got to thinking about what Lupe had said about my parental problem. Despite my earlier protests, her words kept gnawing at me. Could she be right? Was I an overbearing control freak when it came to Mom and her love life? Well . . . okay, maybe Lupe had a point.
I decided to back off and let Mom make her own romantic blunders. What could I really do besides make a fool of myself if I made a scene about Leonard Goldblatt? If I interfered, I would only alienate her. Was that what I really wanted? Once she was married to that weasel and realized that he was only after her money, that’s when she’d need me most. If I alienated her now, I’d be abandoning her in her time of need. So, I would grit my teeth and greet Mom as she came off the plank when the Merry Mermaid sailed into Fort Lauderdale Tuesday night. And I wouldn’t say a word about her fleecing future fiancé.
Feeling pretty virtuous, I headed out to the beach party. It was to be an all-day affair with a barbecue, swimming, and beach games. Of course, there was no way I’d last that long. A couple hours of socializing was about all I could take before my need for solitude reasserted itself with a vengeance.
I arrived at the beachfront park and parked my Hog in a secluded corner of the lot underneath a sprawling banyan tree. I didn’t want to attract a throng of gawking beachgoers oohing and aahing over the bike. My Hog doesn’t have any customized touches. It’s just your basic no-frills, clean-lined Hugger, meaning it hugs the ground. A classic Harley. And that draws attention. That day, I didn’t want to keep an eye on it, and I didn’t want to be distracted from my intended task of interviewing Gladys’s women friends.
With Lupe’s help, I tried to talk to several of the Mayan women, but they consistently denied knowing anything that could shed light on the murder. I was starting to think that there was a conspiracy of silence. No one ever gets killed without somebody somewhere knowing something, and of course that somebody is often a close associate of the victim. What were these women hiding? And how could I get them to give it up?
Lacking any plan of action at the moment, I decided I might as well enjoy the beach, having gone through the waxing ordeal just so I could put on my swimsuit. After all, when would that happen again? So I took off my shorts and tank top, revealing my black bikini and the rose tattoo on my left boob. The tattoo actually predates my biking days. I’d gotten it around the time it started to dawn on me that my marriage itself wasn’t coming up roses. They say there’s a hidden Harley gene inside everyone, and I guess that tattoo was an early sign that my recessive trait was ready to break out and become dominant.
I waded into the ocean and swam out fifty yards or so, then turned and stroked parallel to the shore for about a half mile and back. I emerged just as preparations were underway for a picnic lunch. Lupe was grilling some jalapeño burgers. She pulled a small purple velvet bag out of her cleavage, opened it, and tossed the contents onto the coals.
“What’s that?” I asked.
“Juniper berries. They bring protection and health.” Then she intoned, “With this seasoning I empower the energy of this glorious hour. As we eat this magic meal, the power of this spell will heal.”
Then the entertainment commenced in the form of the Three Wise Men—Lupe’s brothers. Balthasar, Gaspar and Melchior—who, as it happened, comprised a band of strolling mariachi singers. I will say that the sight and sound of three hulking hombres dressed like matadors, wearing black sombreros and standing barefoot in the surf while playing a violin, a guitar, and a trumpet, was a little unusual.
The bizarro effect was heightened by the appearance of the contessa, who showed up dragging along her own custom lounge chair, umbrella, and a little doggie tent for Coco. She sat there, looking out to sea and sipping a Long Island iced tea.
Lupe and I laid out a blanket beside her and sat down to eat. Just as we were finishing a dessert of tres leches, I noticed a latecomer to the group. It was Eulalia. She was staying off to the side, away from the others. She had her arms clasped around herself as if she were cold. She wasn’t eating, and she looked kind of pale.
“Look at Eulalia,” I said.
“Yeah,
she doesn’t look well,” Lupe said. “Let’s go see if she’s all right.”
We walked over and sat down on either side of her. Up close, she looked even worse. Her skin was clammy, and her eyes were glassy. Lupe spoke to her, but Eulalia kept throwing nervous glances at the Mayan men, who were tossing a ball around nearby. A couple times she opened her mouth as if she were on the verge of saying something, but then apparently she changed her mind. Lupe and I looked at each other in frustration. Here was a sick woman who obviously wanted to tell us something.
Well, there was no way to shake it out of her. Damn it, this case was really exasperating.
By then, I’d surpassed my two-hour socialization-tolerance limit, so it was time for me to retreat back to my hermitage. I said my goodbyes and walked back to my bike to the strains of “La Cucaracha.”
As I rode out of the park, I found Eulalia’s demeanor still bothering me. Now I was sure that she and the other Mayan women were hiding something, and the men were the reason for their silence. Besides that, I was really worried about her health.
I was consumed with these thoughts as I slowly drove west, away from the beach. Just a couple blocks from the ocean, traffic piled up. Great. I was stuck in a traffic jam. We crawled along at a stop-and-go pace.
I sat there for a good twenty minutes, alternating between idling and creeping. Needless to say, several morons thought that things would speed up if they honked their horns, all together at once, of course.
Okay, beam me up, Scotty, Hog and all.
Finally, we reached the cause of the backup. A minor fender bender on the side of the road. As I passed by, I felt a wave of irritation. After all, if you’re going to be stuck in traffic for so long, you want at least a spectacular sight of mangled and twisted metal to gape at as the payoff for the wait.
Immediately past the accident site, the traffic lightened up. At last! I opened up the throttle and accelerated.
Suddenly, there was a horrible grinding and clashing noise. What the hell?
The Hog started skidding. Something was seriously wrong.
I pulled in on the clutch to disengage the gears. That didn’t help. I was still skidding. Shit! The wheels were locked up. What was going on?
The bike was now sliding out from under me. I shifted my weight to correct for the imbalance, but it was no use. I was down.
I hit the ground on my right side and was dragged along a few feet by the momentum. I could feel the asphalt trying to burn through my leathers. My helmet scraped along. It sounded like thunder.
After what seemed like hours, the bike and I finally came to a stop.
I heard screeching brakes behind me, and then I was surrounded by faces peering down at me. Voices assailed me from all sides.
“Are you all right?”
“Take it easy.”
“Don’t get up too fast.”
I took off my helmet and looked around, dazed. After a while, things came into focus. I mentally went through an inventory of my limbs. I could feel them all. Okay, I was still in one piece. Nothing seemed to be severed, broken, or punctured.
I got up slowly, then walked over to the bike, which had come to rest a few feet away from me. I looked down and saw what had happened: most of the spokes on both wheels had come loose, lodging in the wheel rims, the frame, and the engine.
I knew immediately there was only one way this could have happened: sabotage. Chuck had been right—someone was out to get me.
Chapter 24
THE POLICE CAME and took an accident report. When they saw that it was a crime scene, a whole new set of paperwork was required. They promised to investigate, but I wasn’t holding my breath that they would nail the perp. I’d learned long ago that I was on my own when it came to assaults on me.
The paramedics arrived, determined that I had no obvious signs of injury, then argued with me over whether I should go to the hospital. In the end, I won with a promise to get myself checked out if I began to feel worse. I don’t think they were holding their breaths, either.
Then I had to do it again—call Chuck to come rescue my ass.
“Chuckles!” I yelled into the phone. “I rode to the coast, and now I’m toast! My spokes are smoked! My ride is fried!”
“What in hell do you think you are, a rap artist?” he snorted. “Darlin’, bag the rhymes. You’re wastin’ your time. You ain’t no poet, and you know it. Now, where are you?”
I told him and twenty minutes later he pulled up in the flatbed.
“We gotta stop meeting like this,” he said.
“Yeah, tongues might start wagging,” I agreed.
We went through the routine again, loading the bike onto the flatbed, Chuck warning me to be on guard, urging me to come stay with him and Enrique that night, and me insisting that I just wanted to be home alone. So again he dropped me off at the edge of the swamp.
He headed back on solid ground, and I hovered off into the quagmire.
I arrived at the cabin, docked the boat, and went in. Man, this was one time I wished I had a bathtub. A long hot soak would be just the ticket right now. Maybe I could get a Jacuzzi installed out here one of these days.
Oh, shit! That kind of thinking was a warning sign of potential relapse into Babeness. “Stinkin’ Thinkin”’ as AA calls it. I needed to nip this in the bud, right here and now. It was time for some relapse prevention, and, of course, a substitute vice was the solution.
I took a quick shower, then poured three fingers of Hennessy into my crystal glass and sat in my rocking chair. I looked around for my recovery sponsor, Lana. There she was, hind legs and tail submerged, front legs and snout resting on a piece of driftwood.
“I want my Jacuzzi!” I whined.
“Yeah, and I want my MTV,” she replied in my mind. “You know it starts with just that one slip,” she went on. “First it’s the Jacuzzi, then it’s the swimming pool, then it’s the home theater . . . before you know it, you’re back in the Babe Badlands. You don’t wanna go there.”
“You’re right, I don’t. But I’m so tempted. I’ve had one shitty day,”
“Would you rather have a shitty day as a free woman, or would you rather sell your soul to the devil to have a so-called life in Babeville?”
Okay, she had a point there.
“For that matter, would you rather live free or die?”
What was she talking about? She’d made her point. I got it, already.
But wait a minute—I could well be dead now. If it hadn’t been for that earlier traffic jam, I would actually have been traveling a whole lot faster when the wheel spokes came loose and caused the bike to seize up. Under those conditions I’d have been roadkill. Someone was not just trying to scare me; they were trying to take me out.
There was only one logical conclusion. I had to be getting close to the truth of Gladys’s murder. Someone clearly was feeling threatened.
But who?
Obviously the person had messed with my bike while it was parked out of sight under that banyan tree. Could it have been one of the Mayans who had been at the party? Or had someone followed me to the beach, then seized the opportunity when the bike was obscured from view? If so, had that someone been following me for a while, just waiting for the right moment? If I was being followed, since when? Where had been the turning point in my investigation that made the killer feel the heat?
I went over the whole case step by step in my mind. I still didn’t have the key. But I knew who did. Eulalia. She was obviously terrified, and there had to be a good reason.
Suddenly my Stinkin’ Thinkin’ dissolved, and I resolved to talk to Eulalia tomorrow. There had to be a way to get her to open up, even if it meant giving her safe haven right here in my own home.
Besides, this had become personal. Nobody takes down Dirty Harriet and gets awa
y with it.
Lana flipped her tail back and forth in approval.
“Now you’re talkin’, sista!” she said in my mind. “The Equivocator is out, and the Equalizer is back.”
Chapter 25
THE NEXT MORNING I woke up feeling like I’d been run over by a steamroller. However, I sensed that the resolution of the case was close at hand. I felt that I was now on a fateful path, and I needed to forge ahead.
I knew I’d be without my ride for a while, and I’d have to depend on my friends for logistical support. It went against my grain as a Lone Ranger, but after all, he had Tonto, didn’t he? I had to admit that no woman was an island. An islet in an archipelago, maybe.
I called Lupe and gave her the lowdown on yesterday’s events following my departure from the beach party. After assuring her I was basically okay but majorly pissed, I told her I’d like to talk to Eulalia again.
“You read my mind,” she said. “I was up all night worrying about her.”
“Okay,” I said. “Can you pick me up at my boat, and we’ll head up to the fields?”
“I’m there,” she said, and in an hour she was.
We drove out to the tomato fields. The morning fog had burned off and the day was shaping up to be unusually hot for February. Arriving at the worksite, we pulled off the blacktop onto the dirt road. We drove for a while till we spotted the workers in a far row. They were stooping and straightening, stooping and straightening. Bet they could use a Jacuzzi at the end of the day.
We approached. Eulalia wasn’t among the group. Lupe spoke to them, presumably asking about her. The women shook their heads and looked to the ground. The men grunted, shoved past us, and kept working. Then a voice came from behind us.
“Well, if it isn’t the two meddling missies. I’m going to have to ask you little ladies to kindly get off this property.”
We turned. It was Jake, the crew boss. His dirty Skoal baseball cap drooped over his beady eyes, his beer belly spilled over his low-slung jeans, and his massive arms held a shotgun, aimed straight at us. The workers stopped their picking to stare.
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