Trudi Baldwin - Sammy Dick, PI 02 - Acid Test for Yellow Flower

by Trudi Baldwin

  As we reached the factory floor and headed toward the Yellow Flower line, I ventured a question to Carlita, “How many people work at this location, Carlita?”

  “Approximately a thousand, give or take.”

  One fucking thousand! I thought as I scanned around me. Literally hundreds of people scurried about, pushing metal carts laden with product, or measuring essence of flower or whatever the hell they were doing with vials and dials and rotating conveyer belts. All in anonymous white lab coats, their hair covered in white nets to further obscure their identities. Hundreds of busy bees buzzing about in their honey hive. How was I ever going to single out the perpetrator in the span of a week in this huge industrial complex? The enormity and hopelessness of what I was attempting to do temporarily squashed the breath right out of me. This was a fool’s plight.

  I hung my head for a moment. Then I sucked back in a big breath of air, laden with essence of flower, and thought, a fool’s plight is where I thrive. Buoyed by this questionable logic, I marched after Carlita the Cool one, off to learn my brand new job.

  Chapter Seven – The Yellow Flower Line

  Seven people, like the seven dwarfs, ran the Yellow Flower Line.

  I’d already concluded that the acid had to be inserted into the product after it left the Central Base Solution. Otherwise, it would have shown up in other product lines. Assessing the guilt of six people, since I knew I was innocent, seemed a lot less daunting than finding the bad bee among the thousand employees buzzing about the factory. Things were looking up. But getting to know even six people well enough in a week to sort the wheat from the chaff or the gold from the dross or the needle from the haystack or the bad bee from … okay, I was getting nervous and my mind kept spinning full tilt with the enormity of my task. Time to pay attention to the job. One problem with going in undercover is that you actually have to perform the job and catch a criminal at the same time. I calmed down and told myself NP for someone like me, as Carlita walked me over to introduce me to the supervisor. Her desk sign read: Line Leader.

  Carlita explained that each product arm was run by a Line Leader, and most Line Leaders supervised at least three product lines. The Line Leaders sometimes helped in production but also managed the workers and the flow of the product. Carlita walked me over to an employee suited up like everyone else on the floor and said, “Annie, this is Parker Bowe, the new employee for your Yellow Flower line.”

  When Annie turned to face me, I was in for a surprise. Her outfit might look like all the others, but she had a one-of-a-kind face. Quite memorable because it was etched with a million lines. Well, maybe that’s an exaggeration. Maybe more like five thousand lines. At any rate, a lot of lines. And her eyes were light blue, piercing, and watery as if half submerged in a swimming pool.

  “Welcome to the Yellow Flower line, Parker Bowe,” she cackled in a scratchy, ancient voice—all the while holding my gaze like a hammer pounding in a nail with absolute precision. She seemed to stare straight into my soul with those all-knowing, watery eyes. Yikes! Welcome to my new Line Leader. I already felt like she was on to me. It was going to be hard to pull off any kind of deception around this lady.

  What’s that fairy tale where the little kids wander too far into the deep, dark forest to some cute cottage, where they’re invited in, and the old woman eats them up? That was the door I was opening, or was I starting to get my fairy tales mixed up under all the pressure? Was it the Seven Dwarves or Hansel and Gretel? I gave up trying to figure it out as I reached my gloved hand out to grasp hers, dubbing her Ancient Annie in my ongoing mnemonic game, and sincerely hoping Ancient Annie wasn’t going to eat me alive.

  “I’ll take it from here,” Ancient Annie cackled again to Carlita.

  “Very well, Annie. Parker, you’ll be in the finest hands possible.” That said, Carlita the Cool One spun on her heel, exited the line area, and left me all alone with my new boss.

  Ancient Annie immediately became all business and began showing me how the line operated starting with the Mother Vat. Much of the line was automated and employees were in place more for overseeing the automation than conducting hands-on work, but there was a good deal of hands-on work too, she explained. Ancient Annie pointed out where the base lotion flowed down a fat plastic tube into what they called the Baby Vat. The Baby Vat resembled the Mother Vat, but it was covered. Ancient Annie explained how the essence of flower, an extract of marigold flown in from South America and the essence of the Summer Buckingham Squash blossom, grown organically in the USA, were inserted into the process just before reaching the smaller vat. She pointed to some glass tubes with precision measuring valves and controls as she explained the process.

  “How does the essence get mixed in?” I asked. Never too early to start investigating if we only had a week to solve this.

  A dinging alarm sounded. “Perfect timing,” Ancient Annie said. “That alarm signifies essence refill time and I can demonstrate the process to you right now.” She unscrewed the cap of one of the vials, walked over to a metal table where a large clear bottle marked Marigold was stored, pressed down on the spigot that protruded from the bottle, and measured out a precise amount of its golden liquid into a beaker. Then she stepped back over to the empty glass tube, poured the beaker in, screwed the top back on and pressed a plastic button that switched from a glowing red to a glowing green. Simple. Also simple to inject acid into the product line unnoticed.

  “We now have the process down to where essence refill time is simultaneous for all of our add-ins throughout the factory,” she informed me, not without some pride in her gravelly voice as she repeated the process, filling a beaker from an even larger bottle marked Buckingham Bloom, and pouring that essence into a large tube. After she screwed the cap back on, she turned back to me, “Do you want to smell it?”

  Because she was on the weird side, I was hoping it wasn’t pure hydrofluoric acid with a hint of yellow dye in it, but I looked into her watery blue eyes and accepted the challenge, “Sure. Why not? Always good to know how the product smells, no?”

  “It’s good to know every aspect of your product,” she said with a dead serious look as I reeled back from the odor in the beaker she’d shoved under my nose. Phew!

  Ancient Annie cackled and giggled happily, “Strong, huh?”

  Strong was right! A deep, earthy smell assaulted my nostrils that was only partially pleasant.

  “We have to mask some of the essences with other scents,” Ancient Annie explained. “Some flowers that smell good are unsafe, so we don’t use them at all, and other flowers that have an unpleasant smell or almost no scent do have healing, soothing powers. Go figure. We work hard here to get a mix that overall smells delectable and does good things for your skin.”

  She was so sincere about her product that I almost wanted to buy a bottle of Yellow Flower right there on the spot and start slathering it on my skin, if I weren’t all covered up with the damn lab coat, hair net and gloves. My intuition was telling me that Ancient Annie was an unlikely culprit in the acid lacing. Then again, she was kind of strange with her cackling laughter and offbeat humor. Was she weird enough to lace the product with acid? Maybe. She certainly had easy access to perform the deed.

  I’d keep my eye on her too. At any rate, she was now my boss. I’d have to humor her weirdness and follow her directions, regardless. Following her directions was next on the agenda as she walked me down the product line introducing me quickly to each member of my new team. Annie said, “You can get to know them during break. Right now we’ll concentrate on the steps it takes to do your job.”

  Ancient Annie showed me how the Yellow Flower Line split in two right after the Baby Vat and flowed down tubes to three different operations that were the same on each leg: Fill, Label, and then my role, Cap & Distribution. Each split line had one station per operation. We reached the end of one of the split lines where my new station was located.

  The end of the line was an appropriate location for me as
far as this case was concerned I thought as I glanced around me at all the busy bees scurrying by. The harsh reality was there were so many people with an opportunity to lace the product with acid that it was probably the end of the line for me with Gloria, and not performing well for Gloria would diminish my future credibility with Sylvester Swane, too, my number one benefactor. Oh well, all I can do is my best in the time I’m given I thought lamely. It sounded like an epitaph for my tombstone: “Here lies Sammy Dick. She did her best in the time she was given.”

  Suck it up I said to myself. I’ll apply every intuitive power I have and all the not-so-meager powers of the Dick Agency to attempt to solve this case. That’s all Geo and I can do.

  With those buoying thoughts, I strode purposefully to the end of the line to start my brand new job. Ancient Annie showed me how to oversee the bottle capper machine and make sure it was properly loaded. It made a rhythmic thunking followed by a whirring sound that I figured would get old after about five seconds. The machine capped a hundred bottles in each pallet and auto-stacked the pallets on a tiered cart. The tiered cart could hold one hundred pallets. Annie explained that each split line manufactured one thousand bottles per hour, so that in an eight hour shift with two lines running, and leaving out an hour for lunch, fourteen thousand bottles of Yellow Flower reached Distribution on any given day.

  It was my job to oversee the capper, make sure the caps were always loaded, troubleshoot any issues, and then wheel the full cart to the Distribution Room. Annie pointed to a filled cart and suggested I push it as she walked with me to Distribution and showed me how to make sure the pallets were stored in the proper place. The cart was heavy and took some muscle to push it, but it was of sturdy design. Instead of following behind Ancient Annie, I pulled up alongside her. “So who did this job before I arrived?”

  “Trinity, in the Label operation just upstream from yours, has been covering both, since the person you are replacing quit three weeks ago. I’m sure Trinity is quite happy that we’ve finally filled your position,” cackled Ancient Annie.

  We were approaching some large, double doors with thick slabs of black rubber strategically placed where the door handles are usually located. Annie showed me how to aim the cart directly at the rubber slabs and blast my way through into the Distribution Room without having to use my hands to open the door, which would have been awkward, time consuming and dangerous. Annie pointed to a big sign above these double doors that read Entrance Only. A second set of doors further along had a similar sign printed with Exit Only. Annie expected strict adherence to the signs to avoid injury to anyone, since there was so much traffic in and out of Distribution. Gloria has a huge operation here I mused.

  Next Annie demonstrated how and where to leave my loaded cart, switch to an empty one and return to the line: blasting my way through the Exit doors on my way back. Annie also explained how in odd circumstances, such as a half-empty palette in Distribution, that I might have to lift palettes myself. Obviously where the fifty pound lifting requirement came in. At least I’d get some exercise during the day with all the walking and occasionally lifting. I glanced around the Distribution Room. Hundreds of people buzzed about here, too. Only most of them wore blue lab coats. My investigation was getting more and more hopeless by the minute. I tried not to focus on that.

  On the way back to the Yellow Flower line, with me wheeling the now empty cart, Annie explained that Break Time was staggered for the product lines, since everyone wouldn’t fit into the Break Room at once. All of the Yellow Flower Team shut down for fifteen minutes at exactly ten AM. Annie looked me straight in the eye and informed me that she had about a three minute tolerance for the team to get in and out of their lab coats and back on the job working. This time Ancient Annie wasn’t cackling or joking.

  I felt like saluting: aye, aye, but thought better of it and assumed my end-of-the-line role of setting up, trouble shooting and observing the antics of the capper machine which could be described in one word boring. When I was finally able to push a filled cart to the Distribution Room it was a welcome relief, and when Break Time arrived I was thrilled to dash over to the Break Room and get to know my new team members. At precisely ten AM six of the seven dwarves, minus Ancient Annie, stampeded like cattle back toward the lab coat room to strip off their coats, gloves and hair nets and speed out to the parking lot for a smoke.

  Chapter Eight – Break Time

  The only trouble with Break Time was that all of the team members smoked, with the exception of me. When we reached the Break Room, I watched the entire team storm right on through, hurriedly tossing their lab coats, hair nets and gloves aside to fling open the door to the outside, and gallop toward the designated smoking area, ripping open their packs of cigarettes as they loped along and whipping out their lighters to fire up their smokes just as soon as they hit the designated spot. How was I going to get to know the team if I didn’t smoke?

  I decided to saunter out, bum a cigarette and fake it. The good part about Break Time is that I no longer had to be concealed in a lab coat, hair net, and gloves—and neither did anyone else. I’d checked myself out in a mirror near my locker. My red spikes now kind of flopped over like the ears of a wet puppy dog, but I knew the Red Wand product glistened in the sun, so I sauntered toward the smokers using my best bad-girl moves, my hips swinging suggestively.

  “How y’all doin’?” I drawled, “My name’s Parker Bowe and I’m wondering if any of you’d let me bum a smoke off you today? I’m trying to quit, but I guess I’m nervous my first day on the job. I’m so-o-o-o hungry for a smoke, I can barely stand it.” I drawled out the o on so for an inordinately long time, Texas-style.

  I kid you not, every guy there whipped out a cigarette and proffered it to me. Eight guys! Everyone looked around at all the extended cigs. A beat passed. Then the whole group burst out laughing.

  “Well, it’s goin’ to be awfully hard to quit smokin’ with this much friendliness goin’on!” I drawled some more. I wasn’t sure why I’d adopted the southern twang nor if I could keep it up, but I had the crowd mesmerized. All except one heavily tattooed, blonde girl who peered in at me from the outer circle. She was singularly beautiful, except sullenness poured off her in waves. She was either jealous or unimpressed. Or maybe she was just your basic cranky pants.

  The tallest guy took a step in closer, crowding into my personal space, and quipped, “Let me be the first to encourage your bad habits,” handing his cigarette to me. I noticed the other guys backed off and let him do his thing. The leader of the pack? I placed the proffered cigarette between my lips as he lit it up. Then I sucked in a small amount of smoke, praying that I wouldn’t choke or cough. Oooh, it burned, with a sour taste! I could never figure out how people learned to smoke in the first place.

  While I concentrated on inhaling and exhaling smoothly, I sized the dude up. He was about six feet two inches or so tall, very slender, the way smokers often are. He wore skin-tight jeans, high-top gray tennis shoes without laces, and a small chain hung down from his belt that slid into his pocket in a sexy way. Enough to make me wonder what hung on the end. He had that hip, European or perhaps Middle-Eastern look with dark eyes and hair, and some sexy stubble on his chin.

  “My name’s Hayden. Hayden Malouf, at your service,” he bowed after lighting my cigarette. He smiled, flashing me with surprisingly white teeth for a smoker.

  Ah, a middle-eastern name. Maybe the acid lacing was a terrorist plot in the making? I hadn’t even considered that. I dubbed him Hayden the Hipster or maybe Handsome Hayden. Perhaps he’d earn one name or the other over time.

  “I’m pleased to meet you, Hayden, and would ya’ll be so kind as to introduce me to everyone else? I’d be so much obliged.” I stretched out the “i” in obliged, batting my eyes at him.

  Hayden was practically falling all over himself to oblige me. He seemed to be the informal leader of the group. He draped his arm around the man standing next to him. “This is Larry, the number one
hardest working member on the team.” Everyone laughed, which made me think that Larry might be the least hard working member on the team, but they all seemed to like him.

  Larry stepped forward briefly and shook my hand, “It’s easy to outwork all of you slackers,” he said smiling and pointing around to the crowd with his cigarette clutched between his index and middle finger that was raised at everyone in the classic “fuck you” finger sign. They all laughed again.

  Hayden introduced the people in the smokers’ community. Six of them, including himself, were from our line and a few more, who weren’t from our line, but shared the same break time. Eight guys total and three females, not counting me. As each was introduced, I tried to quickly size them up as to their potential for engaging in criminal acts. Most didn’t leave an immediate impression on me, other than Handsome Hayden and Larry, already dubbed “Lazy Larry” in my mind, and two of the women. One, of course, had already seized my attention: the sullen, heavily tattooed female on the outskirts of the group. It turned out her name was Tanya. Her arms were covered with writhing snakes, skulls, bleeding roses and a few ornate crosses etched with barbed wire. Expensive, high-end tat designs. Quite beautiful, actually. She wore a spaghetti strap t-shirt, clearly proud of her tats, but shivering a little on the November day. I could see goose bumps popping up under the barbed wire and the bloody roses. The skulls were sprouting pimples. When Hayden introduced her, she didn’t even bother to get up or shake my hand. Just dipped her head briefly.

  Hayden quipped, “Don’t worry, Tanya’s bite is much worse than her bark.” Everyone laughed at this remark too. Tanya’s lip twitched slightly upward on that comment, making me think that she, too, liked Hayden. Or maybe she had the hots for Handsome Hayden. Who knew? And I only had a week, well, more like four and a half working days to find out now.