by Janet Dawson
“Thanks. What did she look like?”
“She was Asian,” Sally Morgan said. “Chin-length black hair with lots of gray streaks, brown eyes. Round face with a little mole just to the left of her mouth. Mid-forties, I’d guess, about five foot three.”
I dropped the pencil onto the pad. I didn’t need to write down the particulars. The woman Sally Morgan had just described had to be Nancy Fong, who was supposedly home sick with one of her migraines.
What was she doing over at Rob’s apartment? And what was she after?
Twenty-six
IT WAS NEARING EIGHT O’CLOCK WHEN I DECIDED TO call it a day. A long one, considering the time I’d spent at Bates and here at my own office.
My stomach rumbled and growled as I turned off the computer. What did I have in the refrigerator, I wondered, that didn’t require much more than a can opener or a quick pass through the microwave? Or maybe I should stop at the Chinese restaurant down the street and grab some take-out before going home.
The phone rang, and I sighed wearily. Should I pick it up, or let the machine take it? I opted for the latter. But when I heard Robin Hartzell’s voice, I quickly snatched up the receiver.
“I’m here,” I told her.
“Mom and Leon went out to dinner,” she said without preamble. “They just left, and they won’t be back for an hour or so. Doug’s over at a friend’s house, supposedly studying. Now’s your chance to look through Rob’s stuff.”
“I’ll be there in twenty minutes.”
I pushed aside my hunger pangs and all thoughts of dinner, heading for my car and the Nimitz Freeway. Fortunately the evening rush hour was over, and I made good time as I headed south. I took the Davis Street exit and headed east toward downtown San Leandro. I parked the Toyota around the corner on Parrott Street and walked quickly to the Hartzells’ house on Clarke. Robin had the front door open as I came up the walk.
“It’s all in the garage,” she said, her voice conspiratorially low.
She led the way through the living room and kitchen to a side door. The double garage was dim, even after Robin switched on the overhead light. Immediately to my left, I saw a washer and dryer against the back wall, with a red plastic basket full of sheets and towels resting on the concrete floor in front of the washer. Next to these appliances, another door led to the backyard. Two tall metal shelves stood against the opposite wall, crowded with tools and equipment, boxes of Christmas decorations, and several suitcases.
Rob’s possessions took up about half the space in the garage. The furniture was stacked in the far corner, next to the metal shelves. Boxes were piled in the middle of the oil-stained floor. I walked toward them, wondering where to start. The carton on top of the nearest stack had “KITCHEN” written on the side in black letters. Beyond that I saw several more, labeled “BEDROOM” and “LIVING ROOM.”
“I don’t know where anything is,” Robin told me. “Since Leon and his buddies packed all of it. Looks like they went room by room; at least they labeled the boxes.”
“The things from his apartment can wait, for now. What I’d really like to look at is the box that came from his office at work. One of the secretaries, Nancy Fong, brought it to your mother last week.”
“Oh, that one.” Robin crossed to the shelves. “Mom didn’t even look through it. Said she couldn’t deal with it right now. So she stuck it up here with the Christmas stuff.”
She pulled down a medium-sized cardboard box that had once held reams of copy paper, set it on the floor, and pulled off the lid. I peered inside, then reached for a spiral-bound Sierra Club calendar, about five by seven inches. In addition to keeping track of appointments, people frequently jot down important information on their calendars. In more than one case, notes have led me in the right direction.
“May I keep this for awhile?” I asked Robin.
“Sure. Take anything, if you think it will help.”
I tucked the calendar into my purse, then knelt to examine the other contents of the box. There were a couple of books, one a dictionary of legal terms and the other a paralegal handbook. Beneath these was a neatly folded cardigan sweater, tan with leather patches at the elbows and pockets at the front. I checked the pockets, finding only lint and a receipt from the same deli where I’d had lunch with Gladys.
Next I saw a knit muffler, black wool with white diamonds, and a pair of brown leather gloves. I stuck my hands into the gloves. My fingers encountered something in the index finger of the left glove. I pulled out a rolled-up bit of lined yellow paper. Since it wasn’t the sort of thing Rob would have left in a glove accidentally, I assumed he’d hidden it there. When I unrolled it, I saw some scribbled notes. There didn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason to them, but I saw the date “1985” and the word “listeria.” I’d have to figure that one out when I had more time, so I tucked the paper into my purse next to Rob’s calendar.
Several small items rattled inside a letter-sized envelope with a Bates Inc. return address. Inside I found a gold Cross pen-and-pencil set with Rob’s initials engraved on each piece and a silver bookmark with a red ribbon tassel. The other items in the box included a small square Sony clock radio, a blue ceramic coffee mug, a small tin box with a geometric pattern that contained several bags of herbal tea, and a glass paperweight with seashells embedded inside.
At the bottom of the box were a manila file folder and three family photographs, all five by seven inches. The picture frames were inexpensive, plain wood and glass. I picked up each one and examined the photographs. The first was a formal shot of Rob’s sister, looking as though it had been taken in a studio several years ago. In this shot, Carol Hartzell seemed to be less beaten down by life than the woman I’d met on my first visit to this house. The second photo was more relaxed, a current Christmas picture showing Carol with both her children, seated on a sofa I recognized as the one in the living room.
The third photo had been taken outdoors in a place where there were windswept golden dunes and blue waves crashing against the shore. It showed Robin and her brother Doug, both smiling and relaxed, their hair blowing in the breeze.
“This was taken at Point Reyes,” Robin said, her voice wistful as she fingered the edge of the frame. “Last spring.”
I glanced at the photo, then picked up the file folder. I opened it and leafed through the contents. Here were some Bates Inc. forms concerning Rob’s medical and dental benefits, and a photocopy of his W-4, several statements from the Bates 401 (k) plan, and an outdated flyer about an earthquake preparedness meeting. At the bottom of the stack I found three photocopies, all appearing to be work related.
The first was a printout from the Food and Drug Administration’s “Bad Bug Book” Web site. It concerned foodborne pathogens on produce from countries outside the United States, including hepatitis A on strawberries from Mexico and cyclospora on raspberries from Guatemala. The second printout, from the same source, dealt with the rise in salmonella cases in the United States. The third item was a long article from a medical journal. In addition to hepatitis A and cyclospora, it mentioned E. coli, as well as salmonella, botulism, Campylobacter, Cryptosporidium, and listeria. The latter was the same word written on the bit of yellow paper. I was skimming through the first paragraph of the article when the sound of an engine vibrated through the closed garage door, signaling that a vehicle had turned into the driveway.
“They’re home.” Robin’s whisper was urgent. “You gotta get out of here.” She waved toward the door that led out to the backyard. “Through there, then around the garage. There’s a gate by the trash cans, but it’s unlocked.”
I folded the copies and tucked them into my purse, moving toward the door. Robin followed, then realized she was still holding the photograph. She turned to put it back into the box, but it slipped from her fingers and fell to the floor. I heard the tinkle of glass breaking on the concrete.
“Damn,” she said again, her voice sounding loud as the vehicle in the driveway cut its engine.
I heard voices, Carol’s and Leon’s, and the hard metallic slam of a door.
Robin squatted on her haunches to retrieve the frame, her hands carefully picking through the broken glass. Then I spotted something white that had slipped from behind the photo.
“Wait a minute.” I quickly tugged the corner and removed a rectangle that turned out to be three sheets of letter-sized paper, folded together in quarters.
“Take it and go,” Robin ordered. We’d both heard voices again, this time coming from the house.
Instead I reached for the two other photos and quickly turned them over, pulling down the backing. Sure enough, there were similar folded sheets of paper behind the backing of each one. I pulled them out and stuck them in my purse as I flew out the back door, into the darkened yard, then rounded the corner and flattened myself against the side of the house. I heard the door connecting the garage and the house open.
“What are you doing out here?” Leon’s voice was loud and suspicious.
“I’m missing a sock,” she told him, her tone sullen. “Thought it might be in the dryer.” I heard a sound as she opened the appliance’s door, then slammed it shut.
In the dim space between this house and the next one I saw a couple of recycling containers, a trash can, and a gate made of the same chain link as the fence. I opened it as quietly as possible, then headed around the corner to the relative safety of my ear.
Once inside the Toyota, I snapped on the overhead dome light, looking through my booty. The white sheets of paper, eleven in all, were all photocopies, and they were all similar. At the top of each one was the legend “Call Sheet,” but the dates were different, ranging from late July to late August. They appeared to be customer complaint forms, showing the caller’s name and phone number, the date and time of the call, and, in what I recognized as Rob’s handwriting, some notes about the subject of the call. The car’s dome light was dim, so I had to squint to make out the words. At the bottom of the one with the most recent date, I saw a word that looked like “listeria,” with a question mark behind it. I unrolled the yellow paper and examined it again.
“Listeria” and “1985,” I read, and to one side, what looked like several initials. What did it mean?
I heard voices and looked up. A couple of teenage boys were walking toward my car, talking loudly and laughing. As they stepped into the light from the streetlamp on the corner, I recognized one of them as Doug Hartzell. I switched off the dome light, set the papers aside, and started my car, pulling away from the curb just as Doug and his friend came abreast of my parking space.
I headed for Oakland, thinking about what I’d just found. Listeria was some kind of bacteria. I sifted through my memory, trying to recall where I’d heard about it. Something about contaminated cheese, down in Southern California, I thought. The reference to listeria fit right in with the copies I’d found in the file folder. And earlier today, I’d found another article on foodborne illnesses when I’d searched Rob’s old office at Bates. Had Rob been interested in these subjects because they were part of the regulatory aspect of a food industry job? Or was there another reason?
On the drive home, I wondered just what potentially hazardous bacteria might lurk in the Bates Best products in my kitchen. I even hauled a can of beans from the cupboard and a carton of yogurt from the refrigerator when I got home, ignoring the plaintive cries of Abigail and Black Bart, who had followed me to the kitchen in anticipation of food.
The label on the can of California pinquitos, little pink beans, proclaimed its contents as prepared pinquito beans, water, salt, sugar, red chili peppers, dehydrated onion, cumin, and dehydrated garlic. Nothing about the specter of botulism, which according to the article I’d found in Rob’s things, was an obligate anaerobe associated with canned food. The carton of raspberry yogurt made me think about the possibility of cyclospora, the pathogen mentioned in the Web site printout. But the small print on the white plastic carton labeled Bates Best listed only active yogurt cultures, including acidophilus, as well as pasteurized nonfat milk, raspberries, modified cornstarch, fructose, kosher gelatin, citric acid, tricalcium phosphate, and red dye number 40.
I read labels all the time, but usually I was looking at calories, or fat and sodium content. Now, as I stuck the can into the cupboard, the carton into the refrigerator, and turned my attention to the cat food, I wondered how susceptible the food I ate was to the microbes detailed in the “Bad Bug Book.”
I spread the items I’d found in the garage on my oak dining table. First I examined the rolled-up bit of yellow lined paper that had been tucked into Rob’s glove. Was it my imagination, or were two of those initials “LG”? Leon Gomes? What might he have to do with something that happened in 1985 involving listeria?
I sifted through the call sheets. In each case, someone had phoned Bates to complain about a product, and Rob had fielded the calls. The first sheet was dated July 29 and the last, August 26. Judging from the area codes, the calls came from all over the Bay Area. I picked up the pad I kept next to the phone and made a list. Of the eleven callers, seven had consumed ice cream in four different flavors. Three had eaten ice cream novelties such as bars or sandwiches, and one wasn’t sure whether what made him sick was yogurt or ice cream. Eight of the call sheets also contained a six-digit number, but not all of these numbers matched. Was this a batch number? I got up and examined the contents of my refrigerator again. Sure enough, the yogurt carton contained a sell-by date and a six-digit batch number.
I made myself a cup of tea, then glanced at Rob’s engagement calendar. He’d noted each of the eleven calls there, as well as the six-digit numbers. There were four different batch numbers, none of them in succession. Stuck between the pages for the month of December, I found two short newspaper articles. One was about a Fremont dairy that had been cited on July 10 of this year for fecal contamination of milk. The other concerned a 1994 salmonella outbreak that sickened nearly a quarter of a million people in several states. It had resulted from ice cream being hauled in tanker trucks that had previously transported contaminated liquid eggs.
I sat back in my chair, thinking. There was no indication that anyone had taken any action on these calls. Surely Bates had some standard follow-up procedure to deal with customer complaints.
I picked up the phone and called Kaz Pelligrino, the doctor I’ve been dating since the beginning of the year. I wasn’t sure I’d find him at home, but he answered on the second ring.
“Tell me about foodborne illnesses,” I said, fingering the yellow slip of paper on which Rob had written “listeria” and “1985.”
“Not even a ‘Hi, Kaz, how are you?’” He chuckled, but he knew how I was when a case was worrying me. “This isn’t my specialty, but I’ll tell you what I know. I have some personal experience. There are two kinds of food poisoning. One happens when something is at the wrong temperature and bacteria gets into the food. The classic case is potato salad with mayonnaise left out in the sun at a picnic. You eat it, you get sick in a matter of hours, and it’s over. The other kind is basically an infection. You ingest live organisms, and they start growing inside you. It takes longer for you to get sick, and it’s worse. Getting over it takes time and antibiotics. Now, can you be more specific? Which bacteria interests you?”
“Let’s start with listeria,” I said, “then move on to salmonella and whatever else crops up in dairy products.”
“Listeria is a group of bacteria. The disease listeriosis is caused by one species called Listeria monocytogenes. It’s present in the environment, soil, dust, water. It usually gets into the food chain through fecal contamination.”
“There was an outbreak down in the Los Angeles area, right? Involving cheese, as I recall.”
“Mid-eighties,” Kaz confirmed. “I was working down there at the time. There were over a hundred and forty cases, and forty-six people died It was traced to soft, Mexican-style cheese manufactured with contaminated milk. There was another outbreak two years later in Phila
delphia. Healthy people usually don’t contract listeriosis, but people with weakened immune systems are vulnerable, like my HIV and AIDS patients, and also elderly people, newborns, and pregnant women. Most of the deaths occur in these groups.”
“Is the food involved usually dairy based?”
“No. There was an outbreak in Canada that was traced to the cabbage in some coleslaw. And a recall of contaminated hummus, just recently.”
“Okay,” I said. “Salmonella next.”
“Salmonella and Campylobacter are the most common,” Kaz said. “In fact, salmonella cases have doubled in the past twenty years. Both of them are reportable illnesses, which means if a doctor treats a case he’s supposed to report it to the local health department. If they get reports from several doctors, they’ll start investigating, to see if they can trace the source.”
“How long does that take?”
“Sometimes weeks or months. Now, you were asking about dairy products. Salmonella also shows up in produce. Also in eggs. Contamination when they’re laid, through cracks, for example, like contamination from the cow’s udder when it’s milked. There’s also one species of salmonella that can infect the chicken and contaminate the eggs before the shells are formed. As for Campylobacter, that’s the personal experience I was talking about.”
“You had it? What was it like?”
He chuckled again. “Thought I was gonna die. There’s a rule of thumb—the worse the disease, the longer the incubation period. With salmonella, the onset is anywhere from six hours to four days. Campylobacter crops up in two to five days. Mine hit three days after I ate a casserole made with chicken and cheese. That was back in the days before I became a vegetarian. In fact, the experience had a lot to do with my becoming a vegetarian. I was one sick fella—diarrhea, vomiting, cramps, and a fever of a hundred and three degrees.”