Just The Pits (Hetta Coffey Series)

by Schwartz, Jinx

  "What about Lady Gaga?"

  "Her you can call Lady, even if she ain't one. Just not us."

  Rosario's computer held a wealth of project-related information, which he transferred to both our PCs. He'd downloaded purchase orders, change orders, material takeoffs, and about anything else to do with equipment and material for the project. He didn't have all the financials, but it was pretty clear, after Jan and I spent several hours going over what he had, that at least payouts to the subcontractors were pretty straight forward. Not that there couldn't be ripoffs, but at least we could move the subs to our least likely suspect file.

  We knew, from the latest report to investors, that there were cost overruns in the hundreds of thousands, so either the original estimates sucked or something more sinister was afoot. Finding the fishy stuff wasn't going to be all that easy. Hell, auditors had spent weeks going over the financial reports and still came up puzzled. No one area raised a red flag as the cause of a budgetary deficit. Maybe, if Rosario had stumbled onto something, he'd told what he knew to the wrong men, and they tried to kill him because he was too close to the truth? Problem is, he had no idea what could have tipped him close enough to get him killed for his findings.

  Yep, we needed a plan.

  Jan had inspected Po Thang for fleas during his bath and found none, so he was deemed suitable for an inside dog. When he was dry enough, I brought him in, but didn't trust him yet with my decor so we kept him tied to a chair leg.

  "Hetta, do you make it a habit to tie both people and dogs to chairs?" Rosario asked in what he thought was an attempt at humor.

  "Only until we can trust them. Which, by the way, the jury is still out on you, so don't get cocky."

  All Po Thang wanted to do was eat and sleep, so didn't balk at being tethered. When I took him for a walk it was evident he'd been leash trained, once again confirming my suspicion that he was someone's pet.

  "Maybe he's got a chip," Jan speculated when I reported that he heeled on the leash.

  Rosario, who knew all about computer chips, wanted to know what a chip has to do with a dog. Jan explained the implanted chip was to ID lost dogs and Rosario thought that a great, if very un-Mexican idea. I had to keep reminding myself that even though he spoke English with an American accent because of his schooling, he had still never been outside of Mexico. I also didn't know if they chipped dogs in Mexico, but I'd find out.

  "My friend, Craig, who is a veterinarian in Arizona has invented a GPS tracking implant for finding animals who have strayed. He uses them on his cattle ranch to track his herd. Saves time and money. Also, if the cattle are stampeding because of a predator, an alarm goes off, alerting him to grab his rifle and take off on his four wheeler to save the day."

  Rosario grinned. "A modern day cowboy."

  "Oh, you have no idea," I told him, thinking of my friend, the gay caballero.

  Talking about Craig reminded me I should call him and see if he'd heard any more about that stupid lawsuit. I'd told the Cochise County authorities my side of the story by phone and Craig had a lawyer working the problem for me so maybe that was the end of if.

  Hope springs infernal.

  After dinner, which Jan had to fetch from the local Chinese restaurant because Po Thang had eaten us out of boat and home, we sat around the dining table and forged that much-needed plan. I had all the window blinds closed so no one could spot Rosario with us, even though Jan had disguised him pretty well.

  He now sported a bleached blonde buzz cut and was growing a beard. In a few days he would be barely recognizable as the mining nerd someone tried to off. I'd unearthed a Hawaiian shirt and shorts from Jenks's locker, along with a pair of wraparound sunglasses. Add sandals and a backpack and he fairly screamed Gringo tourist.

  Still though, he could not stay on the boat much longer, what with Safety popping by. No amount of peroxide would keep him from figuring out who Rosario was up close.

  Rosario, reunited with his computer, was happy as a tornado in a trailer park. While Jan and I cleaned up the galley after dinner and took our wine outside to the sundeck, he went online with his gaming buddies from around the planet and was soon lost in a world neither Jan nor I knew anything about.

  Jan nodded her head toward the main saloon. "He's a nice guy, just really naïve. We really ought to cut him some slack."

  I thought back to the couple of times we'd reprimanded him and agreed. "We keep forgetting he's not an American."

  "Yeah, but it's more than that. He told me today about how he grew up. The uncle in the States couldn't visit because he was an illegal alien and afraid he'd get caught trying to re-cross the border. His mother basically lived only for her son. Between his mom and uncle they sent him to a whole string of expensive schools, but his social life was nil to none when it came to the other students. He was basically a shut in. Home straight from school every day, he and his computer were best friends."

  "Didn't he say he was on a swim team?"

  "Yeah, for one year. Mom kept changing his schools, I think in a well-meaning attempt to protect him from being outed as a poor kid. The swim team was the only sport where they provided all his equipment and paid for trips to swim meets. When he attended a school that required a clean uniform each day, he came home, washed and dried and ironed it for the next day. His fellow students didn't know he only had one."

  I could relate, in a small way. We moved around so much I barely got to know my classmates before we took off, usually for another country. Still, I did make friends in each place. Didn't keep them over the years, except a couple from my senior year in Texas, but I wasn't a hermit. Hell, I was even a cheerleader one year.

  "I know what you're thinking, Hetta, but you have an outgoing, if sometimes annoying, personality. Rosario doesn't. Your privileged childhood went way beyond the classroom. When he left the school each day, he became a lower-class Mexican. He lived a charade. It's a miracle he isn't bitter."

  "Yeah. We have to find his father, you know. We have to help him out."

  "Agreed. Let's get to it."

  15

  The key for us, number one, has always been hiring very smart people.— Bill Gates

  It was a cozy cyber-world-century family scene in the main saloon after a dinner of order-out Chinese.

  Rosario gamed on his computer, Jan and I researched on ours. Whatever happened to being perfectly good couch potatoes? Watching mindless sitcoms and game shows? At least then kids talked to each other, even if it was to say something like, "Oh, that Fonz." Even though Happy Days went off the air when I was ten, I still wondered if my fascination with The Fonz didn't lead to a later penchant for bad boys.

  Jan took the genealogy route via Ancestry.com and I hit the social media. I was tired and wanted nothing more than to crawl into bed, but I am a research junkie. My dad says I'm part bloodhound; point me at a problem and I'll run it to ground.

  My search paid off fast. "Bingo," I said fifteen minutes later.

  Jan came around to my side of the table. "What?"

  I put my finger to my lips. I didn't want Rosario to know we were looking for his dad, just in case we came up cold. Jan squinted at the screen. "Send it to me," she said and returned to her own PC.

  A minute later we were only three feet apart, chatting online. And they say the art of conversation is dead.

  Jan: Looks like you are onto something. Age is right.

  Me: Let's see if we can find him on Facebook.

  Jan: Roger that.

  Another minute or two went by.

  Me: Bingo again.

  Jan: For sure. I mean, look at him. Rosario is a dead ringer.

  Me: What should we do?

  Jan: Let's Friend him.

  Me: You Friend him, I'm going fishing on LinkedIn and Pinterest.

  Jan: You're afraid you'll land in Facebook jail again for pestering people.

  Me: Yeah, well, you ended up in Twitmo more than once.

  Jan: That was before I learned how to stay out
of trouble with those Twitter cops. Let's both send a Friend request to this dude.

  Me: Oh, all right. I hope he doesn't think I'm some kind of stalker like that last guy.

  I was pretty sure we had our man.

  Forty-two years old, divorced, no kids mentioned, loves surfing (which is why we have little Rosario sitting nearby right now), Software Engineer (of course) in the San Francisco Bay Area. I even snagged his resume off LinkedIn.

  Jan: Should we show Rosario?

  Me: Not yet. What if this Russell character doesn’t care if he has a son?

  Jan: Yeah, you're probably right, although I really hate it when that happens.

  Me: What with Rosario being so computer literate, and a hacker to boot, wouldn't you think he'd have found this guy himself?

  Jan: That is odd. Maybe he has?

  Me: Feel him out tomorrow. You know, you and Chino have to take him with you to the whale camp. He can't stay here.

  Jan: Right you are.

  Me: Uh, why are we sending each other messages on the computer when we could be talking?

  Jan: B/C TLK2U is a PITA

  I hugged Jan, Rosario and Po Thang, before leaving for the mine the next morning. I wasn't sure who I was going to miss the most when I returned to an empty boat later that day. But since it was already Wednesday and I planned on heading for Camp Chino on Friday, I wasn't all that sad to have a couple of days of solitude.

  And, of course, there's the Internet. What on earth did we do without it? Oh, now I remember: We read paper books, played cards with actual physical cards, wrote letters in longhand, took walks, and had meaningful conversations with people we actually knew. Or not. I spent a lot of time in bars having meaningful conversations with total strangers.

  Well, at least I no longer watched television, and a side bonus is that stuffing one's self with after-dinner snacks is harder when you have your fingers on the keys instead of a channel changer. So why can't I dump that pesky ten pounds? Okay, fifteen.

  Safety, by rescuing Po Thang, had redeemed himself in my mind. I found it hard to believe he was a killer after that pooch cottoned to him so, but then again, dogs are not always the best judge of character.

  However, I consider myself a brilliant judge of others. Matter of fact, being judgmental is a Texan birthright. Others may find my opinions somewhat harsh at times, but I'm usually pretty good at sniffing out nefariousness. Unfortunately, I have been attracted to some fairly villainous characters in my past, but that didn't mean I didn't know them when I sniffed them out, so to speak.

  I was reminded of an old song, "The Snake" by Al Wilson. Like the woman in the song, I knew a snake when I saw one, but sometimes took them in anyhow. I'd gotten a vicious bite or two for my efforts, but until very recently I had still managed to be mesmerized under the s-s-spell of a charming snake or two.

  So, if S-S-Safety was involved in Rosario's boating "accident" and an ensuing cover-up, then while not exactly innocent, he was at least not guilty of participating in an intentional attempted murder. On the other hand, maybe there was a vast conspiracy on site and I was gonna have a hell of a time finding the culprits if more than a couple were involved.

  My investigation was going to have to start with the first piece of paper ever generated that had anything to do with costs and the idea of starting at the beginning made me groan.

  For years before the project ever broke ground, a lengthy feasibility study was made. For starters, a team of Canadian geologists, one of whom was the now project manager, Bert Melton, literally unearthed evidence that the old mine might be profitable using new technology. Copper deposits were left untapped when, using the old techniques, Lucifer's ore plumb petered out.

  I'm certain there is some profound life lesson here, but it escapes me.

  However, this team of scientists also knew there was a possibility of rich cobalt deposits, and that is a game changer. Cobalt has been, in the western hemisphere, a byproduct of copper mining in the past, but demand in high-tech applications and the aircraft industry has made it more important.

  Lucifer is primarily a copper mining facility, but it is the cobalt that will make it so valuable. The cobalt supply coming from the Congo is threatened by political unrest and the other sources, namely China and Russia, are also open to shaky politics at times. Canada and the United States are looking to cut back their reliance on overseas sources, and Mexico is not, technically, overseas.

  Hopefully I wasn't taking part in another Blackbird mine fiasco, but since there is going to be a cobalt mining facility opening in Idaho near that disaster, maybe history has taught us a lesson.

  Blackbird left almost four-million tons of waste rock, a ten-acre open pit and tons of tailings that contaminated the soil before it was shut down in the nineteen eighties.

  Anyhow, once cobalt was deemed viable to extract as a new product from Lucifer, the pencil pushers moved in to estimate the financial possibilities, or lack thereof. If what I'd learned was true about extensive cost overruns, then the estimating team was either incompetent or someone had their hand in the till. I suspected the latter, but now I had to prove it.

  Rosario had done some of the work for me. Payroll costs appeared consistent with what they should be, as well as the expense of housing and feeding so many workers. Well, until they get my bill.

  Using a tried and almost true formula or two I'd learned when doing ball park estimates of my own on former projects, the quantity of purchase orders issues seemed slightly high, but not terribly out of line. I couldn't find what I called double-dip vendors; these are phantom purveyors, usually of something like tortillas. In that case, Vendor Jose would actually supply tortillas to the jobsite, and get paid for them. Jose's phantom brother, Vendor Jorge, gets paid off the same Material Receiving Report.

  One of the problems of doing business in Mexico is that there are so many agencias, which are basically middlemen for products ranging from design services to equipment. I read somewhere that the drug cartels had wormed their way into legitimate business by acquiring agencies for high-end vehicles such as Jaguars, and I sincerely hoped I wasn't headed for another showdown with those guys.

  At any rate, the agencia middlemen gave much opportunity for kickbacks and the like.

  The Trob sent me a program I downloaded that would allow me to enter a key word, like tortilla, and a search would ensue throughout the system for duplicates. None of that showed up.

  After a frustrating few hours, I emailed the Trob that I needed help and wanted Jan on the payroll.

  His answer came back almost immediately: Whatever.

  I love a man of few words. Gives me more time to talk.

  Putting Jan to work would solve a couple of problems. First off she wouldn't have time to make poor Chino miserable, and I'd have a cohort since I planned to have her work from the boat. I'd also glean a dog sitter for Po Thang and we could delay sending Rosario away. Although I gave it long and hard thought, I couldn't figure out how to get a dead man back on the mine's payroll, but figured I'd pad my expense account to make up for feeding both him and Po Thang.

  I emailed Jan, hoping to catch her before Chino picked her up. She had not been looking forward to returning to Camp Chino so soon and now, when Chino showed up to take her back home to her rivals, the whales, she had a legitimate reason to stay on with me. And if she was busily employed, Chino didn't have to worry about her taking off, as she does on occasion.

  I should hire myself out as a problem solver, extraordinaire.

  Oh, wait, I already do that.

  Less than an hour after the Trob approved the hiring of Jan, one pissed off Chicano stormed my closet waving a sheet of paper. "CPA? CPA? We are in Mexico! What is this all about?"

  "A CPA," I said with a smile, "means Certified Public Accountant."

  Ozzie's face turned an alarming shade of purple, which isn't all that easy when one is of Hispanic descent. "I am aware of what it means, Miss Coffey. I simply don't understand why on earth we
need one on a project in Mexico! And where will we put another person? This office is already overcrowded. I knew you were trouble from the first day, and –"

  I cut him off before he imploded. "You do realize this CPA is my friend, the lovely Jan, don't you?"

  His anger dissipated as fast as you can say tall hot blonde. "Oh. Well. I, uh, in that case—"

  "Yeah, I get that a lot."

  16

  No good deed goes unpunished.