by S. J. Harris
I couldn’t believe I missed the chance to have dinner at the Seelbach. It’s a grand old turn-of-the-century hotel in the heart of downtown Louisville with hand-carved columns and marble floors and five-star dining in the “Oak Room.” Now we were going to have peanut butter and jelly sandwiches at my place. All because I overslept.
“I guess we could eat here,” I said. “But I really don’t have much.”
“Let me take a look.”
He opened the lovely green refrigerator. I keep supplies for salads and not much else.
“Perfect,” Jim said. “Got any kind of pasta?”
I looked in the pantry, pulled out a box of Kraft macaroni and cheese. I rattled it, looked at him with a question mark over my head.
“That’ll do,” he said.
I watched as Jim worked my ill-equipped kitchen, obviously improvising here and there. He set a pot of water to boil. He cut four tomatoes into small pieces, mixed them in a bowl with minced garlic and red onion slices. He tore some basil leaves, drizzled in some olive oil, sprinkled salt and pepper, stirred it all together and placed it in the fridge. He ripped open the macaroni and cheese box, tossed the packet of powdered instant cheese food product in the trash, dumped the noodles into the boiling water.
“Ten minutes and dinner will be served,” he said.
“I’ll put on some music.”
Jim and I ate from paper plates and drank Dom Perignon from plastic cups. A candle burned in the center of my glass and chrome dinette, casting a golden glow on Jim’s handsome face. Nat King Cole and his daughter Natalie sang “Unforgettable” in the background.
“This is great,” I said. “What’s it called?”
“Pasta alla checca,” Jim said.
“Where did you learn to cook like this?”
“Italy. I was stationed over there.”
“Navy?”
“Yeah. SEALs. That’s where I got my chopper-jockey training.”
“I bet you have some stories to tell, huh?”
“A few.”
Jim told me about some of his adventures while we ate. I’d met him two years ago at an assignment in Phoenix. I went there for three more thirteen-week stints, always hoping he would ask me out. This was the first time he’d opened up about his past. I sat there eating the meal he’d prepared and taking it all in and thinking again about what our child might look like.
Remembering the effect it had on Hercules, I saved my finger-in-the-can-of-dog-food story until after dinner. We sat on the couch and drank the remainder of the sparkling wine. I leaned against Jim’s shoulder as we talked.
“So you really think you might have found evidence from a murder?” Jim asked.
“Who knows? Something’s definitely not right about what I found, though.”
“I think you should tell the story to the police, let them handle it.”
“I did tell my story to the police.” I told him about being arrested that morning. What he said next hit me like a sledgehammer.
“I knew a nurse who lost her license a couple of years ago over something like that. She was accused of poisoning her neighbor’s cat with antifreeze. I don’t know if she did it or not, said she didn’t of course, but she was convicted and the board revoked her nursing license for good. She’s working as an aid in a nursing home now. She was a good flight nurse, too.”
“That scares me, Jim. Jesus Christ. Now I’m really scared.” I got up and started pacing. “If I lose my nursing license, I won’t be any good to anybody. They may as well strap me in the goddamn electric chair.”
Jim stood up and put his arms around me. He guided me back to the couch. “Try to calm down.” His pager rang. He apologized, stood up and made a call on his cell.
“I have to go,” he said. “Brian has a stomach virus or something, so I’m going to have to take the duty tonight.”
Brian Dawson was one of the other pilots at UMC. He seemed to get sick a lot.
Jim took my hand. He looked genuinely concerned. “Can I see you again before you leave for New York?” he asked.
I wasn’t even sure I would be going to New York now, with all that had happened, but I knew I would be going somewhere. I only had one more shift booked at UMC Louisville, and I’d already given notice to terminate the lease on my apartment. Two college students were set to move in over the weekend.
“I’m off Thursday night,” I said. “Want to come over and help me pack?”
“Love to. I’m free Thursday, not even on call. I’ll leave my pager at home.”
“If you don’t, I’ll make sure it somehow disappears,” I said.
We kissed at the door. A tingle surged through my body, something I hadn’t felt in a long time. We tasted like the world’s most expensive Champagne, with just a hint of garlic.
I went back to bed, tossed and turned and considered my predicament until I fell into a dark and dreamless sleep.
6
Monday morning I made a pot of coffee and called home to tell Mom I was sorry for hanging up on her. No answer. I left voice mail, gave her my love. We don’t see eye to eye on things sometimes, especially the Jenny issue, but she’s still my regular consult for Basic Life 101. I reminded myself that, yes, I lost a sister, but she lost her child and nothing could be harder than that. I guess I keep my parents’ wounds open and bleeding by refusing to believe Jenny is gone forever. They’ll see. When I bring Jenny home some day Mom and Dad will be happy again.
I went out to my car, opened the trunk and took out the GIANT-PUP can, still sealed in the red biohazard bag. I took it inside, put the bag in the sink and opened it. It smelled ghastly, like fermented Vienna sausages or something. I rinsed away the greasy film residue, careful not to damage the label. Pictured there was an attractive bowl of sliced meat smothered in brown gravy. Of course, the pretty packaging is for the benefit of the humans who shell out the dough. Dogs, who routinely drink from toilets and eat from trash cans, probably aren’t impressed with photographs that resemble grandma’s pot roast.
I read the ingredients: Water, beef, beef liver, wheat gluten, meat by-products and a list of chemicals that sounded more like the recipe for a bomb than for something to eat. What is titanium dioxide and why does a dog need it in his diet? Nowhere on the list of ingredients did I see girl’s pinky finger with gaudy purple polish.
I wondered if Blake Wales was still in the Private Investigations business. Mom and Dad hired him back when Jenny was kidnapped and he turned out to be a great guy, put a lot of hours in for free. We became good friends with Blake and his wife Greta. I thumbed through my old address book and found his name under the B’s. It had been ten years since we’d talked.
“Kim Journey,” he said. “It’s still Journey, huh? Not married yet?”
“It’s kind of hard to get seriously involved with anyone when I move every thirteen weeks.”
“You’re still young. Got plenty of time. Ever think about settling down, though?”
I had thought about it from time to time. In August I would turn twenty-eight, and twenty-eight is only two short of thirty. Thirty seems to be some magic number, an age you should have your shit together by. If Jim Higgins asked me to stay in Louisville with him...
“I’ll settle down when I find Jenny,” I said.
“I understand.”
“The reason I called is, you’re not going to believe this, but the other day I was on a Life Flight run and I stumbled across what I think might be evidence of a murder.”
“No kidding. What was it?”
I told him about the finger.
“My first guess,” he said, “would be industrial accident. It probably wasn’t a murder. It would be easy enough to find out.”
“How?”
“Do you still have the contents of the can?”
“The dog ate everything.” I felt as though I was making an excuse for not handing in my homework. I was too embarrassed to tell him I’d been arrested after performing a roadside autopsy.
I looked. “Yeah. An eight-hundred number.”
“Give them a call. See if they’ll tell where the meat originated and where it was canned. Try to get phone numbers for those two places. When you call the cannery and the meat processing plant, tell them you still have the contents of the can. Ask for the quality assurance supervisor. If they think you have the contents, they’ll have to admit if there was an accident. They’ll be very interested to talk to you.”
“Won’t they want to see everything?”
“Yeah. But once you find out it was an accident and not a murder, you’ll be done, right? Don’t give them your name or any other personal information. Make the calls from a pay phone or dial in star sixty-seven to block their caller ID. Better to use a pay phone. Call me back and let me know what you find out.”
“You still in the private investigating business, Blake?”
“I’m retired. The only thing I’m investigating now is the best spot to catch fish.”
“Thanks for your help. Talk to you later.”
Written below the list of ingredients on the can was a statement regarding some organization called AAFCO. I had no idea what AAFCO was, but when I dialed the eight-hundred number, followed the menu maze and finally got a human being on the line, I told her I was an AAFCO inspector and that I needed the origin of the meat in a particular can of dog food and where it was canned. She asked for the serial number, which I found on the can’s bottom. She gave me the numbers to Greenfield Industries in Seattle, the cannery, and Kessler’s Meats in Hallows Cove, Florida.
I showered and dressed and drove to a nearby Swifty store to use the pay phone. I called Greenfield Industries first. The QA manager had called in sick, so the receptionist switched me over to a man named Kendall Brooks in the Public Relations department. He assured me that the cannery had been accident-free for over five years and that, to his knowledge, they had never had anything as serious as an amputation. Certainly no fatalities. Out of curiosity, I asked him how meat from Florida, from Kessler’s in Hallows Cove, ended up clear across the country in Washington State.
“We have sources all over the country. When a certain facility is burdened with a surplus, they might lower their prices enough to offset the shipping charges. It’s simple supply and demand.”
He told me that the meat in my can of GIANT-PUP had been shipped from Hallows Cove on April fourth.
I thanked him and hung up. Before I punched in the number for Kessler’s Meats, I noticed a group of teenage boys standing on the sidewalk outside the store. One of the boys opened a two-liter bottle of soda, poured some out and replenished it with a pint of vodka. The boys passed the communal cocktail, joked and laughed and smoked cigarettes. Three of them sported black bandanas and they all wore baggy shorts that hung almost to their ankles. I wondered if they were gang members, passing around a bottle of courage and planning to rob the store.
I called Kessler’s and the operator switched me to Lori Barbera’s office.
“Quality Control this Lori speaking may I help you,” she mechanically said. Her voice sounded distant, and I heard papers shuffling in the background. Speaker phone.
“Yes. I recently purchased a can of dog food and it appears that the meat originated at your facility. Could you tell me if there have been any serious accidents there lately?”
“Why do you ask?”
I told her.
I heard what sounded like a pencil drumming on the edge of a ceramic coffee mug. Her voice raised in pitch.
“That’s impossible. Are you an attorney? Who are you working for? What’s your name?”
“I’m not an attorney and I’m not a competitor trying to fabricate bad press. I’m just a consumer who wants to know how a human finger ended up in a can of pet food.”
“Can you hold for a minute?”
“Okay.”
On hold I listened to an uninspired orchestral arrangement of The Beatles’ “Revolution.” The five vodka-guzzling punks had congregated behind me and apparently were waiting for the phone. None of them said anything to me directly, but I heard one grumble bitch gonna stay on the phone all day? I figured I better expedite my conversation with Lori Barbera before they got any cute ideas.
The pseudo-Beatles song came to an abrupt and merciful stop when Lori clicked back on.
“I can’t make any comments over the phone,” she said. “To initiate an investigation we’ll need the entire contents of the can you bought. Or, if you’ll give me your name and address, we’ll be happy to reimburse you for the cost of the product and send you some valuable coupons toward future purchases.”
I took Blake’s advice about personal info and hung up on her. I wasn’t satisfied with the lack of information she’d given me, but I wasn’t about to give her my name. If foul play was involved, I didn’t want a couple of meatheads from the meat plant showing up at my door.
I turned and walked toward my car, heard one of the loiterers say “about fucking time,” and another one say “unbefuckinglievable.”
As is the case too often, I wasn’t in the mood to keep my mouth shut. I did an about face.
“You know what’s unbefuckinglievable?” I said. “Five perfectly healthy and intelligent teenage boys wasting their day, hanging out at a gas station drinking vodka at eleven o’clock in the morning and smoking cigarettes like there’s no tomorrow. Go read a book or play in the park. Anything. Go on. Scram, before I call the cops and have you, and the idiot inside who sold you the smokes, arrested.”
They sauntered away from the store, mumbling a variety of expletives. I thought I heard one say kill the bitch, but I didn’t stick around to find out if he meant it.
***
I drove to Masterson’s for lunch. It’s a fancy place, expensive for dinner, but the lunch buffet is reasonable and it rocks. I bought a newspaper, sat alone at a table for two and called Blake Wales on my cell.
“It’s me again, Blake.”
“Find anything out?”
“No accidents at the cannery, but I couldn’t get a definitive answer from the meat place. They wanted to send me coupons.”
“So what are you going to do?”
“I don’t know. I’m supposed to start work up in New York next week. I have tickets to the Open. But I can’t just forget about something this horrendous. You think they’re trying to hide something?”
“It’s possible. But it’s really not your problem. I don’t see why you would want to get involved in something like this.”
“Because of Jen,” I said. “If the right person had gotten involved, maybe we would have gotten her back. I have a passion for missing girls, a very personal interest. Other than the dog’s owner, who’s dead now, I was the only person on Earth who saw those body parts. How can I just forget about it?”
“Understandable, but...”
“And, I didn’t tell you this earlier because I’m sort of embarrassed about it. I found the dog dead on the roadside, and I cut him open hoping to find evidence of what I’d seen. I was arrested, Blake. I was accused of killing and mutilating the dog. I could lose my nursing license over this shit. Do you have any idea where Hallows Cove, Florida is?”
Blake’s voice deepened. “No, but I’m at my computer desk if you want me to look it up for you.”
“I’d appreciate that.”
I heard the keyboard clicking under Blake’s fingers. A waitress came by and filled my water glass. Maybe I could talk Blake into coming out of retirement for a couple months to help me investigate this thing.
“Got it,” he said. “Hallows Cove is on the St. John’s river, just south of Jacksonville. Right across the river from Green Cove Springs. You know where Jacksonville is, right? Northeast Florida.”
“I was just there, back in the winter. I did thirteen weeks at a big hospital in downtown Jax. They have a LifeFlight. And, I went to the Super Bowl while I was down there.”
“No kid
ding. How was the Super Bowl?”
“Amazing.”
“I have to tell you,” he said, “you might be getting into something over your head here. It might be dangerous for you to go down there and start snooping around.”
“I have to try. I can’t just sit back and allow these circumstances to ruin my life. I’m a flight nurse and a trauma nurse. I love my work, and it enables me to travel and keep looking for Jenny. I have licenses in twenty-four different states so far. If I lose my license in Kentucky, all the others will follow. It’ll kill me. You want to go down to Florida with me? I’ll pay you, of course.”
“I wish I could. Greta’s been sick. She’s dying, Kim. The big C. I can’t leave her.”
“I’m so sorry to hear that. How long have you and Greta been married?”
“Going on forty years. Three kids, eight grands. Cancer is a son of a bitch. It’s kicking all our asses.”
I didn’t know what to say to him. As a nurse I’ve dealt with death on many levels, consoled a lot of families. But it’s different when it’s someone you know. Blake was right. Cancer is one mean son of a whore. It slowly gnaws away body and spirit, not only of the person afflicted but of all those who care about that person. Sometimes the pain and suffering linger for what seems like an eternity. I admire oncology nurses. I don’t think I could be one.
“You have my deepest sympathy,” I said.
“Thank you. Listen, don’t hesitate to call me if you need some advice or whatever. I’ll do what I can to help you.”
“You’re a saint, Blake. I might need some help. I’m a nurse, not a detective. But I guess nurses are sort of like detectives. We do assessments on patients, rule certain things out, narrow things down to logical conclusions, try to find the truth.”
“You’re a smart girl. Just be careful. If nothing else, remember that a wise detective always knows when to get the hell out of Dodge.”
I thanked Blake again and we said goodbye.
I called Orion, the nursing agency I work for, and told them I needed to change my assignment from New York to Jacksonville.