Sheer Gall

by Michael A. Kahn

  “Is there something wrong?” he asked with concern in his voice.

  “I’ll tell you at lunch.”

  I suspected that he might be disturbed to learn that I was back on the case again, and if he was, I didn’t want to conduct that discussion over the phone.

  My suspicions were correct, of course. He was quite upset.

  “Rachel,” he said, shaking his head in exasperation, “that’s a terrible idea. This isn’t your area of expertise in the first place. You were almost killed five days ago. That’s why you got out, remember? You need to stay out.”

  “I know, Jonathan.”

  I walked over to the window and looked down at the Mississippi River. A long string of barges was moving downriver, passing beneath the Eads Bridge. The Noonday Club is on the top floor of One Metropolitan Square, the tallest point in downtown St. Louis. We were above the Arch, which looked like a giant silver wicket from this height.

  I turned to face him. “I do want out. Believe me, Jonathan. I want out, and I want to stay out.” I paused, shaking my head. “But I can’t.” I came over to the table. “Look,” I said earnestly, “I’m not going to do anything crazy and I’m not going to do anything that you or your investigators can handle, but I’ve got to do whatever I can.”

  Jonathan was studying me, his face set in a scowl. He crossed his arms.

  I took a deep breath and exhaled. “That boy died, Jonathan,” I said quietly. “He died in my place. I can’t walk away from that. I can’t pretend it didn’t happen.” I took a seat facing him across the table. “So don’t start lecturing me, and please don’t start issuing orders. I didn’t come here for that, and I won’t put up with it. You’re not my commanding officer on this.”

  I stared at him, the corners of my mouth curling into a reluctant smile. “But I could sure use a partner.”

  He looked down at the white tablecloth, his arms still crossed. He seemed to be scrutinizing the weave of the linen. Eventually, he raised his eyes to mine. With a long-suffering sigh, he shook his head in resignation. “Okay,” he grumbled, “fill me in.”

  I grinned. “My pleasure, partner.”

  Despite himself, he smiled. It was a lovely smile.

  The waiter arrived to take our orders and to refill our glasses of iced tea. I waited until he closed the door behind him, and then I described the results of my three hours of wandering around inside the Tully, Crane & Leonard computer network yesterday afternoon.

  The computer’s search logic had been fairly easy to figure out. I started with a search for all documents concerning Douglas Beef involving environmental matters.

  “What did you find?” Jonathan asked.

  “Basically, a hodgepodge.”

  I pulled out my notes. The computer had located nineteen separate documents, including legal research memos, memos to file regarding telephone conversations, and letters to clients and to various governmental agencies. The subject matters ranged from applications for permits under the Clean Water Act to an Illinois EPA proceeding on alleged discharges of animal blood and body parts directly into an open creek.

  “Nothing specific to gallstones or Sally Wade,” I said.

  After that, I explained, I had expanded the search to anything having to do with Douglas Beef. That had turned up a variety of labor matters, including two charges of sexual harassment.

  I glanced up from my notes, reddening slightly. “In one, a woman claimed she found a severed bull’s penis in her locker.”

  Jonathan shook his head in disgust.

  “The other is more intriguing,” I said, “because it involves the plant manager, Brady Kane. The complainant is a woman in the accounting department named April Lindner. She claims he made obscene comments to her at work.”

  Jonathan looked up, intrigued. “What happened to the case?”

  I shrugged. “It settled, but the papers were drafted by the other side, so there was nothing in the computer about the settlement terms.”

  He nodded silently. “Anything else?”

  “Not on Douglas Beef. I found dozens and dozens of letters and memos by Bruce Napoli on other matters, but nothing that seemed relevant. I tried Swiss bank accounts and came up with zip. I even tried gallstones.”

  “And?” Jonathan asked.

  I smiled and shook my head. “I found the wrong kind. The firm is defending a medical malpractice case in Jefferson County over a bungled gallbladder operation.”

  The waiter arrived with our orders: grilled salmon and fresh broccoli for Jonathan, a fresh fruit plate with a cup of gazpacho for me.

  As we ate lunch, I described the rest of what I’d found in the Tully, Crane computer network. The most interesting had been the matches between Bruce Napoli and Marvin the mortician. On a hunch I had requested all documents that mentioned Marvin Vogelsang or Vogelsang Funeral Home. I turned up three fairly routine matters, all supervised by Bruce Napoli: an asbestos-removal problem involving old pipe wrap discovered during a remodeling; an issue as to whether a heating oil underground storage tank dating from the 1940s was exempt under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act; and a review of the funeral home’s procedures for the disposal of hazardous substances used to preserve bodies.

  “Any personal correspondence between Napoli and Vogelsang?” Jonathan asked.

  I shook my head. “At least not in the computer. But they definitely know each other.”

  I explained that I had been able to access the time records for all of the attorneys at Tully, Crane & Leonard. According to Napoli’s time sheets, he had had three meetings with Vogelsang over the last twelve months. I flipped through my stack of printouts.

  “Here,” I said, handing him one of the time-sheet entries:

  “That particular meeting,” I said, “took place on the Thursday before Sally was killed.”

  He studied it for a moment and looked up at me.

  I shrugged. “The entry says ‘various pending matters,’” I said, pointing. “As near as I can tell from the billing records, there were no pending matters.”

  “Can I have this?” Jonathan asked.

  “Sure.” I lifted up the rest of the stack of printouts. “Take it all. I have a copy at my office.”

  He took the documents from me and stuffed them into his briefcase. “I’ll study these tonight,” he said. “I may schedule interviews with both of these men.”

  I gave him the thumbs-up. “Go get ’em, partner.”

  He smiled. “What else?”

  I told him that the police detectives working on my case had interviewed Junior Dice twice in jail but had so far been unable to connect him to the car bomb. I also told the detectives about Officer Annie McCarthy and her incriminating connection to the chaser investigation, but they hadn’t seemed interested in that angle. Jonathan was, however, and said that he would add her to his list.

  Finally, I told him of my efforts to run down the gallstone numbers through my Chicago connection at the parent company of Douglas Beef.

  “I talked to Betsy again this morning,” I said. “I asked her to see if she could get a breakdown on the byproduct sales numbers directly from someone inside the accounting department at the Douglas Beef plant. That ought to tell us whether someone’s been stealing gallstones.”

  Jonathan shook his head with amusement.

  “What?” I asked.

  “Back in my days in the U.S. attorney’s office I prosecuted some peculiar embezzlements, including the theft of Civil War bearer bonds, but I must admit I never handled a gallstone swindle.”

  “Let me assure you,” I said with a smile, “there’s gold in them thar bladders.”

  After our lunch meeting, Jonathan rode the elevator with me down to the lobby even though his office was in the building just a few floors below the Noonday Club. It was a nice gesture, and I appreciated it. As he walked
with me to the parking garage elevator, he made me promise that I would call Walter Brunt if I wanted to do anything in the investigation that required me to leave the office.

  “Protection is what he does for a living, Rachel, and he’s the best in St. Louis.” He pushed the up button and turned to me. “So no heroics, okay?”

  “Okay.” The elevator door slid open and I got on. Turning to face him, I said, “Thank you for lunch, Jonathan.”

  He nodded in acknowledgment. As the doors started to close he stopped them with his hand. “Rachel,” he said seriously, “Neville already has him on retainer in the case. Let him earn his fee. Got it?”

  It was my turn to salute. “Yes, sir.”

  He gave me a droll look as the doors slid closed.

  Two hours later, I was fumbling through my purse looking for Walter Brunt’s business card, which had his telephone number. Betsy Dempsey had just called back with an unanticipated development. It seems that I now had an appointment at the slaughterhouse at seven o’clock that evening to discuss the sales numbers for cattle byproducts. The lateness of the hour was due to the fact that Douglas Beef was running overtime all week. The accounting people were staying late to get the quarterly figures compiled and shipped to Chicago by the close of business Friday. The meatcutters were staying late because this week’s herd included an unusually high number of pregnant cows, which meant that there would be an unusually heavy demand placed on one of the more lucrative but labor-intensive of the by-products harvesting operations, namely, the collection of fetal calf blood.

  All of which put an added, creepy twist on my meeting. For I was scheduled to meet not with one of the pocket protectors in accounting but with Brady Kane himself. Although Betsy had spoken directly to the head of accounting at the plant in an attempt to set up the meeting, Brady Kane had called her back twenty minutes later and asked if Rachel Gold was the person coming to the plant that night. Betsy was so rattled by the call and his point-blank question that she answered yes. Kane told her that was fine with him, since he’d rather meet with me himself. His accounting people had too much to do already without having to waste their time answering questions for some nosy damn lawyer who didn’t know shit from Shinola.

  “I feel terrible, Rachel,” Betsy had told me, her voice trembling with remorse. “That man is so—so coarse. I got so flustered.”

  I had told her it was okay, that it was probably better for me to ask Brady Kane direct. And maybe it was. In fact, having Betsy involved in setting up the meeting was like buying extra protection. Brady Kane now knew that Betsy knew that I was meeting with him tonight; moreover, in light of what had happened to me less than a week ago, he had to assume I would let others know of the meeting as well.

  Nevertheless, that didn’t make me any less anxious to get Walter Brunt involved. I found his card and dialed his number. He was out, but his answering service told me they would page him.

  As I leaned back in my chair, I thought over one of the more surprising things I had learned about Brady Kane from Betsy. Apparently, he had a special status among the upper echelon of Douglas Beef that made him virtually an untouchable, largely because of the fact that Kane ran the most profitable of the Douglas Beef meatpacking operations. For that reason, the top brass were reluctant to interfere in his internal operations. As long as he was sending all those revenues to Chicago, their attitude was leave him alone. It certainly explained what appeared to be a fairly minimal level of corporate control over the East St. Louis slaughterhouse.

  Jacki came in with some draft court papers as I waited for Walter Brunt’s call. We talked some about the investigation.

  I sat back and rubbed my chin pensively. “I can make connections, but I can’t find the motivation.”

  “What do you mean?” she asked.

  “Take Sally and Marvin and Bruce Napoli. Sally and Marvin were lovers, he takes pills made in Hong Kong that she must have bought him on one of her trips, and he’s Napoli’s client. That’s how they’re connected, but where’s the motivation to kill her? Or take Napoli and his wife and Neville McBride. McBride was Napoli’s law firm rival; worse, he had sex with Napoli’s wife. I could see where that might motivate Bruce Napoli to kill Neville McBride, but where’s the motivation to kill McBride’s ex-wife?”

  “Revenge?” Jacki said slowly, concentrating. “Sally’s death leads to McBride’s disgrace, which gets him pushed out of Napoli’s way at the law firm.”

  I shook my head dubiously. “That’s a roundabout way for Napoli to reach his goal.”

  We talked through other possible suspects, including Junior Dice, who didn’t have a known slaughterhouse connection but had an obvious Sally Wade connection and a girlfriend who could have collected the semen sample direct from the source. So, too, there was Officer Annie McCarthy, with a strategically placed boyfriend and plenty of motivation.

  When Walter Brunt called, I told him about my appointment at seven that night. He told me he’d meet me at my office at six sharp to go over security arrangements.

  Chapter Thirty-one

  There was a full moon suspended low over the slaughterhouse as I turned into the parking lot. I glanced in the rearview mirror. Right behind me were the wide headlights of Walter Brunt’s Oldsmobile 88. The asphalt lot was large enough to accommodate more than one hundred cars. It was about half full tonight, with cars scattered throughout. I pulled into an empty space in the fourth row.

  I checked my watch before I turned off the engine. Five minutes to seven. Right on time.

  I had a clear view of the front of the building, which housed the administrative offices. The lights were all on. From the outside, it looked like an entirely ordinary two-story brick office building dating from the 1930s. There was nothing about the building facade or the administrative office area, where I had met Brady Kane several days ago, to hint at the methodical carnage that took place in the back end of the building five days a week. Nothing architecturally, that is. Even though my windows were up, the odor made me gag.

  As I got out of the car, I strained my ears, but I couldn’t hear the animals. There were holding pens behind the building where this week’s quota waited. Benny and I had seen those pens from the observation deck in the Arch. To say that they were animals made it no less a death camp and made me no less uneasy about the red meat I occasionally consumed.

  Walter Brunt had parked two rows back. I waited for him and then we walked together toward the building. To the left of the entrance in the first row was a shiny black Dodge Ram pickup with a RUSH IS RIGHT bumper sticker. A little sign at the head of that space read RESERVED FOR PLANT MANAGER.

  I patted the beeper hooked to the waist of my skirt. There was a spare one in my purse, just in case. Walter had trained me in its use before we drove over. Depending upon the button I pushed, the pager became a walkie-talkie (with Walter on the other end), a homing device, or an emergency alarm.

  One of the accounting drones—a slight, middle-aged man with a crew cut and wire-rim glasses—met us in the tiny reception area. He said that Mr. Kane would be detained back in the bleeding facility for at least another thirty minutes. He would be pleased to escort me back there, however, if I didn’t want to wait. I glanced at Walter and told the man that would be fine. Walter and I had already agreed that while I talked to Brady Kane he would try to locate April Lindner, the woman in accounting who had filed the sexual harassment charge.

  I followed the accountant down the hall to a security checkpoint just outside a large set of double doors. The accountant turned me over to a uniformed guard, who issued me a hard hat with the DBP logo, a white smock, protective goggles, and yellow rubber boots. Once I had on my gear, the guard led me through the double doors, down a short hall, and through another set of double doors that opened into a large area the size of a warehouse.

  The stench was overwhelming. For a brief moment, the scene reminded me of the C
hrysler assembly line we had visited on a field trip in elementary school. But only for a brief moment. Here, the swaying hulks suspended from cables and moving slowly down the line were made not of steel but flesh.

  I averted my eyes, determined not to get sick, as I followed the guard down a yellow path that was painted on the cement floor of the slaughterhouse. The path curved around the circumference of the work area until we stopped by a glassed-in area. The guard told me to wait there a moment.

  I peered through the glass. It looked like an army field hospital. There were about a dozen operating tables, and technicians were moving around in green hospital gowns and matching booties. I looked closer. The “patients” on the tables were dead unborn calves. Each fetus had a pair of rubber IV tubes leading from its body into glass jars that were suspended from metal stands on rollers, just as in a hospital, except that here the bottles were at a lower elevation than the “patients” and they were gradually filling with bright red blood.

  I turned away, only to find myself facing something just as bad. Across the way was a long line of headless, legless cattle carcasses hanging from meat hooks. One of the workers turned from his carcass and shouted something. He was wearing a blood-smeared rubber smock and holding a large carving knife. From a distance, another man acknowledged the shout and started approaching, pushing a low metal gurney. As I watched, the first man turned back to his carcass and stabbed the knife high into the flesh. In one downward motion, he sliced from neck to crotch and then backed away. As the carcass swayed from side to side, the long gash slowly bulged and spread open, and then the intestines and organs came sliding out with a wet sucking noise.

  The guy with the gurney arrived just as the guts flopped onto the concrete. The two men reached down and lifted up a large bloody sac that I suddenly realized contained a fetus. I turned my head as they heaved it onto the gurney.