by R. L. Perry
I didn’t think we were getting into fingerprints, either . . . but Blanch reviewed the latest fingerprint database “Prints are basically made up of whorls, loops, arches, and lines. Time was when we had to reach for certainty, but now we have to use computers to establish larger probabilities. So many prints, so little time. It’s dizzying.”
I sat back in the chair and finally interjected a thought. “I guess you’re telling me that without something more exact to go on, we’ve reached a dead end. You didn’t find anything in any of the food samples from the home.”
Blanch dropped the filter of an unlit cigarette onto the sticky, dry surface of her lower lip. It dangled as she talked. “I didn’t say that,” she added. “I’d say I found more than we’d bargained for.”
My eyes lit up. I rocked forward in my chair and waited for Blanch to continue down the road of analysis.
She held up one of the samples I had taken—a plastic vial filled with fruit cake. She held up another one sprinkled with cookie crumbs. “All of the food samples came up empty,” she said. “You told me there were a lot of cakes and pies in the home, but from what I can tell—at least from these samples—everything is clean. There’s plenty of sugar, and baking soda, and flour and salt in these things . . . but not much else. The Listeria and the mercury poisoning certainly hastened the deaths . . . but neither of the Carringtons died of a sugar high. The fruitcake didn’t do it, either. I think one of the cakes also contained a bit of rum . . . but nothing close to toxic.”
I must have looked disappointed. Blanch shot me an odd look, as if I were expecting bad news to confirm my suspicions. “Don’t look so down, Mary,” she said eventually. “That’s just the food portion. I’ve shared that with you.”
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I must look awful, sitting over here like the Grim Reaper, hoping that you’ll give me some bad news. I’m not happy. I’m really not.”
“Just trying to do your job,” Blanch said. “It’s always dirtier than you think. People never understand that part of it.”
“I’m not looking for validation . . . I just thought . . . “
“Well, let me tell you about that water sample, though.”
I perked again, having all but forgotten about the ice I had dropped into the larger vial. The Carrington freezer, oddly, had been stuffed full of it. “It wasn’t water when I found it,” I told her. “It was ice . . . from their factory.”
“That’s a problem,” Blanch blurted out. “That’s a problem.”
“Why?”
“Loaded with Listeria,” she said. “And if we could get a larger sample, I’m sure we’d find significant amounts of cinnabar. There was residue, tiny amounts of a fine powder in the sample you brought me.”
“Good Lord,” I said. “How could it have gotten into the ice?”
“It’s didn’t just fall in,” Blanch said. “As far as I know, no one used cinnabar in ice manufacturing.”
“Where is it used?”
Blanch pursed her lips, massaged the cigarette filter to the corner of her mouth where it dangled, precipitously, close to the edge. “You might want to check on that question,” she added. “But it’s odd that we found both of these elements in the Carringtons. And now I think we’ve located the source.”
“The ice factory,” I whispered.
“We could be facing an epidemic if the ice is tainted,” Blanch mouthed through her filter.
“Is there anything else?” I asked.
Blanch handed me a paper detailed the results of her work. I glanced at the facts and figures—noticed nothing that interested me—and placed the folded paper into my purse. I noticed the one of the photographs on the bulletin board was of a man who looked much like her—a brother, likely. Her computer screen saver, a dancing bear, jumped suddenly to life. I stood up, rocked on my heels. “I’ve got to go,” I said. “I’ve got to tell Lance. There’s got to be some precedence established here that would allow the detectives to get ice samples from the factory. Could be we’re looking at a recall.”
“Or it could be localized,” Blanch said.
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“Could be that the only tainted ice is the supply inside the Carringtons’ home freezer.”
I studied the outcome of that logic. “If that’s the case,” I said, “we’re playing a whole other ballgame.”
“Get those samples from the factory,” Blanch said. “We’ve got to compare.”
“I understand,” I said, steadying my fingers on my cell phone, eager to get a call to Lance as soon as I walked away.
I didn’t have the heart to tell Blanch what I was thinking—nor what my next actions were going to be. Of course I wanted the police to be involved, but I had an obligation, too. I wasn’t going to bury two people and also bury the evidence. I was intent on finding it.
“Thanks, Blanch,” I said, eager to exit the field of death.
“You’re welcome,” she said, staring hard at me, reading my mind.
“I’ve got to go,” I repeated.
“I know,” Blanch told me. “But Mary,” she added, “be careful out there.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
I jumped into the hearse but didn’t move right away. I dialed Lance.
When he picked up I didn’t waste time. “Lance,” I said, “I’ve just come out of the forensic lab. Blanch gave me the report. The ice is tainted.”
Lance was trying to follow my logic. “You mean . . . from the home?”
“Could be just the ice there,” I said. “Or we could be looking at a recall at the factory. What’s next?”
“Call the FDA?”
“That could take time,” I said. “I’m on my way over to the factory now. I have a meeting with the business lawyer—Milt. The one who spoke at the Carringtons’ funerals.”
“What does he think?” Lance wanted to know.
“He doesn’t know. Or at least . . . I don’t think he does.”
“Best you stay away from that factory,” Lance said. “Let us handle it. I can get a man over there.”
I started the engine and considered Lance’s authority. “Yes, but I think I can work with Milt,” I said. “Let me see what I can find out.”
Before Lance could protest, I said goodbye, blew him a kiss, and hung up. The car seemed a bit warmer from the talk and I was only minutes away from the ice factory. I slipped out of the lab parking lot, my memory full and mushy as I pictured Lance kneeling on the asphalt to propose to me just days before. I glanced at my engagement ring as I turned the steering wheel and headed for the ice factory. My diamond glinted against the gray sky, my heart racing toward some other rendezvous.
I always thought of Lance when I grew anxious. And I felt him near to me every time I went against my better judgment.
Just minutes away I phoned Milt and told him I was on my way. “Can you give me a tour of the plant?” I asked.
“Sure,” I heard him say.
“That would be wonderful,” I said. “I have a lot of questions about the ice.”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
The Clarity Ice Company was located in an old industrial section of Indianapolis, centrally located next to a tangle of railroad lines and switches. The roads leading to the factory were an amalgam of heavily repaired alleyways and freshly minted potholes and the telephone poles, all leaning westward as if being sucked toward the horizon, contributed to the confusion of the old warehouse district that overlooked blocks of abandoned shotgun houses and vacant lots. Only a small sign above the street address and the loading dock identified the dirty blue building as the Clarity Ice Company—the largest of its kind in the city.
Between cracks in the old architecture I could make out the looming roofline of the Lucas Oil stadium and the raised platform of I-70 interstate cutting through the city. And pressed up against two of the loading docks were delivery trucks, each readying to receive cargo—though probably meager—given that the temperature had taken yet another n
osedive into Siberia. Who would be buying Clarity Ice on such a winter day? I wondered. At that thought—my mind eased a bit on the horrid forecast that Blanch had first suggested after her analysis of the ice.
Still driving in the hearse, I noticed that I was drawing a few stares as I edged to the far end of the complex next to the office entrance. The clouds had cleared a bit, and, intermittently through gaps above, shafts of white sunlight filtered down like celestial haloes, illuminating bits and pieces of the city before darting to other venues, teasing our sensibilities and our yearning for warmth. I parked at the side of the building, pulled my overcoat tightly about my neck as I exited and stepped over melted and re-frozen crusts of snow. I hurried up the steps into the office foyer and rubbed my cheeks after closing the door behind me.
Milt was the first person—indeed, the only person I saw when I entered. He was sitting behind a square wooden desk a few feet down the hallway, his office door open. He looked up from his computer screen and waved to me. I said “hello” when I stepped over the threshold and found a seat among the unkempt assortment of three-ring binders and open cardboard boxes that were serving as a makeshift filing system.
“This is our slow period,” Milt said after I sat down. “Most of the office help is on vacation this time of the year. And there have been a lot of changes, too.”
“Oh? What kind of changes?” I asked. Milt’s company office was not much larger than his law firm space, but was equally meager in appearance and deportment. Nothing much to brag on by way of wall plaques or décor. The pine-colored paneling told me that the Clarity Ice Company was not concerned with keeping up appearances or making major improvements. Obviously, Phil Carrington had been more concerned with other company matters.
Milt shuffled a few papers on his desk, hit a key on his computer to close out a file. “You were asking me some questions on the way to the cemetery this morning,” he noted. “I gather you have some concerns about Phil’s death?”
“I do now,” I answered. “The follow-up analysis showed that both Phil and Sheila Carrington had listeria bacteria in their systems. It’s not necessarily deadly, but they were both compromised in other ways. We also found high levels of mercury in their bodies.”
“Mercury?”
“That’s why I was asking you about enemies. I’m sure the Carringtons were not universally loved. They might have had detractors, critics?”
“You’re saying the Phil and Sheila were murdered?”
“Not necessarily,” I answered. “But there are some questions I can’t answer. As coroner, I’m obliged to investigate when there are concerns.”
“I see,” said Milt. “No . . . I can’t think of anyone who would have a death wish for Phil and Sheila. They built this company. I’d say most people feel . . . well, grateful to be a part of it.”
“Most? Or all?”
Milt scratched under his nose. “Well, not everyone. Certainly most.”
Somewhere, deep in the bowels of the ice factory, I could hear machinery working—the movement of water, motors humming, metallic parts shifting. “A few minutes ago, you mentioned the company going through some changes. What kind of changes were you talking about?”
“Basically,” he answered, “modernization.”
“Oh?”
“Would you like to see the operations?”
I raised one corner of my mouth and Milt rose at his desk and said, “Let me show you the place.” He led me down the corridor, through a heavy steel door with a porthole window in it, and into the guts of the factory. There, in the middle of an expansive room of several thousand square feet, a majestic ice making machine formed the center piece of the operations.
Milt led me across a painted concrete floor until we were standing underneath the conveyor system. “Phil modernized the company about a year ago,” Milt said, pointing to the length of the giant machine. “Before this, we were using primarily ice block, crushing by machine and packaging a great deal by hand. A lot of traditional ice work. The factory has been here since the days of the old horse-drawn carriage when ice was delivered house-to-house.”
Milt pointed to another portion of the monstrosity—a hopper that, even from a distance, was generating enough super-cooled air to send a shiver down my spine. Milt talked on, explaining the inner-workings. “This machine uses super-cooled water, filtered for purity, and the ice forms almost instantaneously on stainless steel rods. The pellets freeze and drop off into a hopper and are loaded directly into the bags, conveyed down the line without ever being touched, and loaded onto the trucks for shipment around the city.”
“Sounds efficient,” I said, amazed by the technology that produced such a ubiquitous product.
“Very efficient,” Milt said, reaching up to press a button. The system leapt into motion, not as loud as I had imagined, and I could hear a fresh rush of water through pipes, could see a clear river forming on the stainless steel nubs that Milt had pointed out. The water, dripping down the nubs, appeared to freeze instantaneously and then, moments later, drop off onto the conveyer—perfectly formed cubes of crystal clear ice.
“No one touches the ice then?” I asked.
“Shouldn’t be any need for handling,” Milt told me. “And trying to do so could even be dangerous. There are safety standards in all businesses, standards we have to keep, safety benchmarks we have to meet. Frostbite is near the top of the list of things we like to avoid around here. And then, we are the Clarity Ice Company. We pride ourselves on purity.”
“Is there always supervision?” I wondered, looking over the various pieces to the production line, wondering, in fact, if all of it couldn’t be produced by a single person.
“There are foremen on each shift,” Milt said. “But I don’t have access to a work schedule, that’s not my department. But as you can see . . . “
I could see plenty. Ice forming in seconds, dropping into the hopper, the pellets being conveyed down the line into the waiting plastic bags. It all looked so efficient, and quite robotic. “It looks like it could be a one-man operation,” I said eventually.
“Essentially,” Milt answered with a shrug. “But we still have to have maintenance staff on site, handling at the end of the line to put the bags on the pallets. The truck drivers carry the bulk of the load now days.”
“I know Clarity delivers all over the city. I’ve used a lot of your ice,” I admitted.
High above the monstrous machine, a row of windows allowed some natural light into the expanse of concrete walls and flooring. A couple of the windows were open, exposing the interior to the extremes of winter—but in an ice factory, the winter freeze was coming in handy, maybe even saving energy. Otherwise well-lit, fluorescent fixtures hummed above us, the rush of water through the tubes a rather soothing sound.
I also noted an assembly of chains and pulleys in the rafters—and a few sinister-looking hooks and tongs. The chain, coated in a layer of rust and patina, belied its age. “What’s that up there?” I asked.
Milt cast his gaze upward and smiled. “Oh,” he said, “that’s the last of the old block ice conveyor. Phil didn’t want it removed—liked the history of it. That was the way they used to move block ice across the warehouse into the carriages, when ice was delivered house to house in sawdust. Goes way back. Before our time.”
“Looks precarious,” I noted.
“Well, it’s seen better days. But I don’t think anyone misses tuberculosis or polio either. Some things . . . you just have to let them die.”
I nodded, knowing full well what he was talking about.
But I did admire the new technology. It was stirring in its own way—and quite beautiful both in design and scope. I was impressed by the new conveyor system of moving ice bullets from the production tank, down the system, and immediately into the bags. It all had a precision and immediacy that was truly remarkable.
At the end of the line, an enormous stainless steel freezer hunkered in one corner of the warehouse near the lo
ading docks. Milt explained that the company’s inventory often necessitated storage, perhaps as many as a thousand bags of ice. All told, the factory was a production marvel, and the new technology kept the water flowing, the ice forming, the trucks delivering.
I glanced down the entire length of the assembly.
“Mind if I have a closer look?” I asked.
Milt smiled and pushed me forward with his invitation. I stepped across the length of concrete floor, the structure brushed and burnished to a high gloss of cleanliness. I sidled up next to production hopper, peered in, careful to keep a safe distance with my scarf in tow. I watched the ice as it formed on the nubs.
Stepping around toward the conveyer, I reached into my pocket and produced one of the small plastic vials I’d grabbed on the way out the door. I dipped it quickly into the ice mix and pulled out a sample, screwed the lid on and stuffed it into my coat pocket. I stepped to the end of the line and watched the ice as it was being dumped into the bags, the small batch coming to a close as Milt threw a switch and turned off the stainless steel giant.
“What do you think?” Milt asked. “Quite a beast, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” I admitted. “I didn’t think that anything so elementary as ice could command so much sophistication and technology.”
“There are thousands of moving parts,” Milt added. “But the outcome is the same as it was a hundred years ago. It’s all about getting ice into homes. Pure ice.”
The machine grew dumb again, mute to our voices and the hum of the overhead fluorescents. We were walking back toward Milt’s office when I happened to notice that some of the drivers and other workers were showing up for their shift. The beautiful woman I’d seen at the Carrington funerals stepped through the side door of the factory and made her way toward the front offices, her coat opening as she walked, her eyebrows tall and painted. I also recognized a couple of the truckers, and the young man in the Clarity logo coat was back, too. They nodded, each in succession, as they went about their paces and watched as Milt and I headed back toward his office.