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

by Trudi Baldwin

  I arrived back at my station and sat back down at the whirr, thunk, whirr, thunk machine debating whether to cry or scream. I wasn’t sure which. I just sat there shaking and hamstrung, vacillating between the two desires, unable to decide what to do, monotonously watching the capper machine. I’d missed morning break entirely during the escapade in the black van. Finally, a truly cogent thought wormed its way into my stymied mind. The thought should have wormed its way in a long time ago it was so obvious, but, hey, we get our worms when we get our worms, I congratulated myself obtusely. And when you get the worm, early or late, you’d better follow its squirmy lead.

  The thought that had finally wormed its way into my mind was this: since fifty percent of the product on that fateful Saturday had been contaminated, the contamination had to have occurred at lunch. Aha, there, I knew one small but critical element of this investigation. Too bad the week outlined in the contract was already past, but my discovery might be helpful even today as lunch was yet to come. Perhaps if I lurked behind the scenes, rather than go out to lunch with the team, I might catch someone in the act. A long, long, long—should I say long again—long shot, but luck was often on my side. Who knew what was in our futures? Later, I would come to realize that luck may not have been on my side, but who knew?

  Just then my phone rang. I slipped it covertly out of my gown pocket. Geo.

  “Waasup?” I responded, then added, “I have to talk while I hide myself from the Line Leader, who, by the way today is Marissa the Schizoid Admin, but today she’s Marissa the Schizoid Line Leader.”

  “Sammy, this is important. That’s who I’m calling about, Marissa, the Schizoid Whatever. I cracked the codes to hack into her e-mail. Actually hers, and everyone else’s e-mail at Glory’s Organic Lotions factory.”

  “No shit, Geo. What’d you find?”

  “Scary, weird stuff, Sammy. Be careful! Marissa’s completely bonkers, but here’s the scariest thing.”

  “What?”

  “I found unmistakable e-mail trails to hydrofluoric acid sites in her e-mail archive links, and worse yet, I found an invoice confirmation for buckets and buckets of the stuff, so you need to be extremely careful.”

  At the risk of outdoing myself for the maximum redundancies in a single day, I whispered, “Holy shit!” into the phone. “That won’t hold up in a court of law, though, Geo, because you hacked it.”

  “Right you are, Sammy. It’s more like I’ll get held up in a court of law.”

  “Hmm … that would not be good for the future of the Dick Agency.”

  “Sammy, my own future is more important than the future of the Dick Agency.”

  “Sort of.”

  “Whaddya mean, sort of? Of course it is.”

  “Well, the future of the Dick Agency is my future. So we’re just pitting my future versus your future here.”

  “My future in jail for the sake of the Dick Agency’s future? I don’t think so.”

  “You know you’d be hacking even if you weren’t in the Dick Agency. You’re fascinated with it. This just gives you a worthy, challenging motive for hacking.” Geo fell silent. The great BSer strikes again.

  After we’d both calmed down, I interjected, “I figured out the acid lacing had to have occurred at noon.”

  “I figured that out a long time ago, Sammy,” Geo retorted.

  “Well, why didn’t you tell me, Geo?”

  “Because I thought the math was so obvious it was self-evident.”

  “For fuck sakes, Geo, we aren’t writing the Declaration of Independence here where ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident.’ We’re trying to catch a fucking, crazed criminal! Let’s not take anything for granted!” I was yelling by now, way above a whisper, mainly because I was embarrassed that Geo had seen the half-day connection all along and I hadn’t seen it until today when we were already past the due date of our original contract.

  “Alrighty then. In that spirit of friendly cooperation, I found two other items of interest you may need to know which may or may not be self-evident,” Geo was talking to me like I was a two-year-old.

  “What are they, Mr. Sarcasm?” I shot back, sounding a lot like a two-year-old.

  “In Sally Snort’s e-mail archives, there are two invoices that I’m pulling up right now: one for a hydrofluoric acid spill kit for nearly four-hundred dollars and a second invoice for a five gallon can of hydrofluoric acid eater for two hundred and seventy-three dollars. Sally’s prepared to protect and serve should there be another acid incident. I’d say she’s one of the good guys, as you call them.”

  “I’d say she is too,” I added.

  “How would you know that?” Geo queried.

  “Too long a story to tell you right now, Geo. What was your other finding? And, then I’d better go.”

  “Regarding those vituperous e-mails Marissa was writing …”

  I jumped right in and stopped him dead in his tracks. “What the hell does vituperous mean, Geo? I have a huge vocabulary and I don’t think it’s even a real word. I’ve never heard of it. You’re just trying to sound all professor-like with me, so you can gain the upper hand, and I’ve caught you in the act.”

  “Okay, Sammy, while you were spitting all that out, I looked it up online. Synonyms are indecent, abusive, abrasive, coarse, lewd, filthy, smutty, salacious, defamatory etc. Look it up for yourself. It’s a real word. Further, it’s a perfect description of the kinds of e-mails Marissa’s sending out, primarily to a single recipient, and if you apologize for questioning my vocabulary choices, I’ll tell you who that single recipient is.”

  He had me. I was too interested. I hated apologizing though. I tapped my foot for a few beats struggling internally. Finally I said, “I already know who it is.”

  “You do?”

  “Of course, I do. Some truths appear self-evident, Geo, and I can guess who she’s writing to. Talk to you later, alligator.” I smiled in smug satisfaction I was so pleased with my coy good-bye, hung up my phone, slipped it back into my pocket and shifted up the line to TMI Trinity’s station, all the while sincerely hoping my guess wasn’t dead wrong as my life and the lives of others depended upon it.

  Chapter Twenty – The Acid Test

  “We missed you at break, Parker …” Trinity let that hang in the air.

  Time to BS and then BS some more—luckily it’s one of my signature strengths. “Trinity, you know how you are bettering yourself by finishing your communications degree in the evenings?”

  “Sure, Parker, it’s my dream and I’m following it, no matter what.”

  “Well, you inspired me. After talking to you, I decided to pursue my own dream to finally finish my online degree in criminology. So now, instead of smoking during break, I’m studying. In fact, I can’t even go out to lunch today with everyone because I have a big test coming up, and I’m going to stay here and study.”

  “Wow, Parker, you did get inspired! Okay, I’ll let the others know, but we’ll miss you. You’re a lot of fun.”

  I’ll miss y’all too, I thought. Yikes, I’m even thinking in a Texan drawl now. “A girl’s gotta follow her dream, though, right, Trinity? I’m sure y’all understand.”

  “Right. Talk to you soon, Parker. Have fun studying. If you can call it fun.” Trinity smiled her cute smile, and I headed back to my station.

  I delivered another load to Distribution and scouted around for Sally Snort who was nowhere to be found. Maybe she and Mountain were locked together in the van with the door stuck? It’d serve ‘em both right I thought as I bammed back out the doors with my now-empty cart.

  Lunch time rapidly approached. My adrenaline began to spike. The closer the clock ticked to noon, the more the jitters plagued me, until I could barely sit still and do my job. To calm down, I reminded myself that the chances of anything happening at noon in the exact same pattern as before were minimal at best. That thought was so depressing, though, I became even more on edge. I decided to take proactive action just to give myself
something to do.

  Employing this proactive stratagem, I pulled my phone out of my pocket and prepared two draft messages. One to Hayden and one to Mountain. They both said the same thing “911 on the factory floor. Need help ASAP!” I also put my phone on vibrate mode, so it wouldn’t ring unexpectedly and give my presence away to Marissa.

  I wasn’t really sure I could trust Hayden, but since he supposedly wanted to be in law enforcement and since he was the undisputed informal leader of the team, I thought he could assemble forces to help me faster than anyone else, should the need arise. Besides, I was a little worried about Mountain’s ability to help. If Mountain could get out of the van fast enough and if he could find his way around the factory floor and if he had true and legal jurisdiction to help me, then that would work out, but those were a lot of ifs.

  Besides all of those ifs surrounding Mountain, I had another major problem in the event that I wanted to secure alternative help from Hayden in that Hayden and company would be at MacDonald’s jawing down on Big Macs, too far away to provide any immediate assistance.

  Finally, I wasn’t sure either man would be interested in helping me, since my relationship with both of them was pretty much on the outs. Basically, I’m screwed, I thought just as the clock struck twelve.

  The whirr, thunk machine stopped and I watched as the team members I could see from my station rushed out to smoke cigarettes and zoom over to McDonald’s to have lunch together. All of my team vanished off the floor, that is, except Marissa, the Schizoid Admin also known as my Schizoid Line Leader. I’d sneaked around the machines to get an eye on her and, sure enough, she was still pounding away vituperously, according to Geo, on the keyboard. Interesting.

  Now what to do? I really didn’t want her to know I’d stayed behind, but how could I watch her without being seen? The factory floor was usually quite loud, but since the Yellow Flower line was the only line working overtime Saturday, the machines were ghostly quiet now, and all I could hear was the rapid tap, tap, tapping of Marissa’s typing. That single, eerie sound in the vast interior of the silent factory suddenly cast a horrible image in my mind that I couldn’t shake off.

  I used to have a recurring nightmare as a child of an evil blind man tap, tap, tapping his cane down our pitch black hallway in the night, coming closer and closer to my bedroom to murder me. That image popped forcefully into my mind and I gasped for breath just as I used to do as a child when the nightmare occurred—I’d sit bolt upright in my bed sweating, gasping for air and trembling. Then I’d quiet myself so I could listen for the tap, tap, tapping coming down the hall, closer and closer to my door—the murderer coming to get me.

  My adrenaline had been spiraling higher and higher before noon time, but with the striking of twelve, and this ghastly memory shooting through my mind unbidden, my nervous system rocked off the charts and my adrenaline spiked out of control. All I really wanted to do was drive home, throw on my running shoes, and take off at a sprint-level clip until all of this extra adrenaline pumped out of my system. Instead, I was going to have to remain invisible and silent for an hour watching Marissa type like a mad woman on the keys and, in all likelihood, absolutely nothing would happen during that entire time. OMG! The very worst thing about private investigating was the wait-and-see time.

  But that’s what time it was now, wait-and-see. There was no avoiding it. I surveyed my surroundings and decided the best place to observe Marissa unseen was from behind the Mother Vat. It was the only thing big enough on the floor to provide coverage and still give me a good vantage point to keep my eye on Marissa. But how to get there without being seen? I decided to take a circuitous back route through a variety of machines and other product line stations staying well to the rear of Marissa’s vision. So far she hadn’t even looked up once, she was so engrossed in what she was typing. That helped.

  I sneaked along, gliding from machine to machine, each only providing minimal cover, but so far she hadn’t looked up. Keeping my progress invisible got a little trickier once I reached the part of the factory that would be in Marissa’s direct line of sight should she look up. Even if she just glanced up to take a breath, I’d be right in plain sight. I tiptoed from machine to machine, sometimes crouching behind the machine while I watched her, and finally, I arrived at my destination, the huge Mother Vat.

  My adrenaline was rolling and rolling in tsunami waves through my system and now all I could do was wait where I was, for an entire hour, and keep my eyes glued on Marissa. I’d almost rather do anything on the planet.

  Tick, tick, tick. Time went by. Tap, tap, tap. Marissa kept typing. Time passed like a dead slug trying to roll over in molasses. I gulped in deep breaths attempting to achieve my Buddha state that I’d achieved once last year for about five minutes before it vanished, but now was as good a time as any to practice. Ohmmmmmm, breathe, breathe, breathe. Ohmmmmmm, breathe, breathe, breathe. Ohmmmmmm, breathe, breathe, breathe.

  I was bored out of my friggin’ mind! This wasn’t working for me. Then brrr my phone vibrated. Hopefully softly enough so Marissa didn’t hear it. I glanced her way. No change. Tap, tap, tap.

  I pulled the phone out of my gown. Yay! Something to do. I read a text from Geo: “Forgot to say. This was second acid order. Much larger than first one. BE CAREFUL!”

  Gee, thanks, Geo, that really helped me in achieving my Buddha state. Geo never used capital letters while texting. Only I used caps. Lots of them with lots and lots of exclamation points. When Geo used caps, things were getting quite serious. I decided to try harder to reach nirvana. I’d add two more breaths and count. Ohmmmmmm, breathe one, breathe two, breathe three, breathe four, breathe five. Ohmmmmmm, breathe one, breathe two, breathe three, breathe four, breathe five. Ohmmmmmm, breathe one, breathe two, breathe three, breathe four, breathe five.

  I began to make a little headway on the arduous journey toward nirvana. I kept up this slow, concentrated breathing pattern for at least two minutes, maybe longer. Who knew how much time had passed when one was creeping toward nirvana on this incredibly slow, bumper-to-bumper turnpike?

  I could have sped up, but impeding my forward progress were some niggling little thoughts that I just couldn’t seem to let go. The niggling little thoughts kept chewing into my mind and into my breathing pattern like little worms munching their way into the heart of a rotten apple. These worms kept seriously impeding me with circuit-breaking, very ugly thoughts—and those ugly thoughts were all about the research Geo had forced me to read on the physical effects of hydrofluoric acid on human beings.

  Just as I’d settle down, relax and breathe, one of the niggling little thoughts would worm its way in, playing havoc with my Buddha state. It’s corrosive. Breathe. A corrosive poison. Breathe. That penetrates tissue rapidly. Breathe twice. Poison can occur readily through the skin or the eyes. Breathe twice more. Deeply. Deeply. Once absorbed into blood through the skin, it can create cardiac arrest. Breathe three more times. Something, something, something I couldn’t remember exactly about intra-arterial infusions. Breathe, breathe, ohmmmm. I couldn’t turn my mind off. Then I remembered the YouTube video Geo had made me watch where the guy pours the hydrofluoric acid into a glass vial and you watch the vial disintegrate right before your eyes with smoke and a sizzling sound!

  No way! That was it. I gave up. No more nirvana even possible. Besides, I was seriously hyperventilating and feeling woozy. If I kept it up, I’d be no good at all if anything physical or mental were required of me.

  I glanced up at Marissa. Tap, tap, tap. The blind man in the dark was still making his way down the hall to get me. Nothing had changed. Only this time, he was coming to kill my business, not me. It didn’t matter, it was almost the same thing. Plus, I realized I was starting to mix up all my metaphors. A sure sign that I was nervous and bored at the same time: turnpikes, rotten apples, blind men, worms, slugs, molasses, YouTube! What next? I was going crazy with boredom.

  I glanced at my watch: twelve forty-five. The team would be h
eading back and arriving soon. Production would commence as usual. Nothing, nada, zilch had happened, except that I didn’t achieve nirvana and now I was hyperventilating and the Dick Agency would be heading for bankruptcy if this kept up. Geo and I were shit out of luck!

  Chapter Twenty One – A Change of Luck

  Then, just like that, my luck changed. A very strange thing happened. Marissa arose from her chair and began walking toward the gowning room, but she did not look normal. Well, I take that back. Marissa never looked normal, but right now she looked even more abnormal than ever. She looked like she was sleepwalking. Even her hands sort of hung out in front of her like a ghost floating along and her eyes were completely unfocused as if she were blind or controlled by another source. I take that back too, since I could only see one of her eyes, and that one looked unfocused and blind. Her other eye was obscured by her Frenchie haircut blocking the right-side of her vision. One half of her face was white skin and the other half black hair making her face look like some kind of a ghostly yin-yang sign. She didn’t even toss her head back angrily to regain her vision as she usually did. Some kind of inner navigation system seemed to be propelling her across the floor. She just kept floating along in this otherworldly way as if she already knew where she was going.

  Holy shit! Something was up. My luck might be changing.

  As I watched Marissa float blindly along in the direction of the front office I couldn’t decide whether to follow her or not. I knew from Geo she’d ordered large amounts of hydrofluoric acid. Should I stay where I was or follow her and risk being seen?