by Robin Lamont
“Always do,” said Jude. She slipped her cell phone into her pocket, gathered up her backpack, and let Finn out. The plant was somewhere beyond the thick line of trees on the hillside, so she walked along the side of the road until she found an opening onto what looked like an extension of an old logging track. Ignoring the prominently posted no trespassing signs, Jude stuck to the narrow course of pebbly, root-strewn dirt while Finn explored the underbrush on either side.
They had gone about five hundred feet when Finn halted, sniffed the air, and turned his head sharply to look behind them. She followed his gaze but saw nothing. A moment later he did the same thing, alerting her to something or someone.
“What is it, boy?” she asked. And then she heard the sound of dry pine needles crackling under heavy footsteps. Remembering the photos of Roy Mears proudly exhibiting the animals he’d killed, she called Finn close in case there were hunters in the area.
A flash of something shiny through the trees preceded the sight of three figures hurrying down the path. Caroline was in the lead next to a lanky teenage boy with shoulder-length hair; Sophie trailed after them, struggling to keep up.
Caroline brightened when Finn ran to greet her. “Bravo ragazzo,” she cooed, ruffling his fur.
Jude didn’t know what to make of their appearance. “Ciao, ladies,” she said as they approached. “What’s up? You following me?”
“Kind of,” answered Caroline sheepishly. “We saw you over at the Motor Inn and wondered if you wanted us to show you around. This is Sophie.”
“I’m sorry about your dad.” Jude shook her plump hand. The girl had her mother’s build and big brown eyes, but there was more breadth to her nose and brow where Frank’s genes peeked through. She didn’t seem to have his moxie, however. Caroline had the edge on that.
“And this is Jack.”
The boy barely nodded, taking Jude in with an aloof, half-lidded expression. He was dressed in black jeans and a faded black t-shirt with torn sleeves that revealed tattoos of Celtic symbols on both arms. A silver stud earring in one ear matched the one that Caroline wore through her nose.
“Shouldn’t you all be in school?” asked Jude, not really expecting an answer.
“What are you doing here?” Caroline asked by way of a reply.
“Trying to get a look at D&M.”
“How come?” asked Sophie.
Jude eyed the trio critically for a moment before saying, “I’m an investigator with an animal protection organization. We think they may be abusing the animals at D&M.”
“Well, duh, they’re getting killed in there,” Jack pointed out.
“Yes, but don’t you think it should be done as humanely as possible?” asked Jude.
The girls made quick, furtive eye contact with one another.
Jack struck a nonchalant pose and asked, “So what, you’re kind of a private investigator?”
“You could say that.”
“Where are you from?”
“Washington, D.C.”
“How do we know you are who you say you are?” grilled Jack.
Jude dug in her backpack and handed a card to each of them. “Here you go,” she said wryly. “You can send donations to this address, and don’t forget to check out the website for tips on becoming a vegetarian.”
Scrutinizing the card, Jack raised an eyebrow. “I gather The Kinship refers not just to like minded co-workers, but to the more intangible relationship between man and animal.” The kid was smarter than he looked.
“You could say that,” Jude tossed over her shoulder, continuing her trek down the path with the teens in tow.
Moments later, the processing facility emerged through the trees on a flat stretch of land below. A high chain link fence topped with curls of barbed wire encircled the complex. But aside from the smell of manure, there were few clues as to what went on inside. They could have been manufacturing toys or pencils in the huge box of a building made of white corrugated aluminum. The only hints were the turbine fans spaced at even intervals on the flat gray roof and the waiting line of livestock transport trucks. Even then, you’d have to know what a livestock truck looked like since it was designed to conceal its cargo. But Jude knew. She had known since that lonely, misty night when she went to investigate the strange sounds inside the eighteen-wheeler.
One of the trucks was starting to back up to the lairage pens, which were covered with a metal roof. But audible inside were the sounds of men shouting “Hey ya, hey ya,” as they drove the pigs, one lot at a time, into the pens. Finn stood at heightened attention, ears pricked forward, his tail curved between his legs. He could smell death from where he was.
“I told you about the manure stink. This is where it comes from,” pointed out Caroline.
“Not as bad as the lagoons,” offered Sophie. “My dad worked at a hog farm before we came here. All the waste goes into these huge, totally gross pits. One time a man fell in and they pulled him right out, but he was already dead.”
Jack commented, “You’d have a better chance of surviving a radiation bath.”
Meanwhile Jude was pulling out a 35mm camera from her backpack. She adjusted the light settings and began to snap pictures of the plant.
“I don’t think you’re allowed to do that,” warned Caroline.
“Part of my job,” said Jude, stepping down to get a better angle.
“But … but you can’t see what goes on from up here.”
Glimpsing movement at the loading ramp, Jude affixed a telephoto lens to her camera. Men were running around and shouting, but the truck blocked her view. She squinted through the viewfinder, aware of the girls’ secretive whispers behind her and then Jack’s voice, “Come on, let’s get out of here.”
Jude lowered her camera. “Good idea, I’m going to walk around a little.”
Sophie quickly followed Jack’s lead, but Caroline hesitated as if she wanted to say something, then changed her mind and trotted after her companions. They disappeared back up the path as Jude side-stepped her way down the ridge to take pictures in earnest. She heard the metal ramp on the transport truck clang shut and watched the truck pull away leaving two hogs on the ground outside the pens, pushed off to the side where they wouldn’t get in the way.
They were called downers. Unable to move into the chute under their own steam, downers were fairly common. Jude looked through the telephoto lens at the license plate of the truck. If the hogs came from up north this time of year and packed as tightly as they were, some of them might arrive frozen to the sides of the truck, and workers would have to go in to cut them out. Sometimes the weaker ones were attacked or injured, or just too sick to move. No matter the cause, downers were not supposed to go to slaughter until a USDA vet certified that they were disease-free. Jude waited to see what would happen.
A small tractor with a forklift came sputtering around the corner. No veterinarian jumped out, instead a heavy-booted worker carrying a chain. While the motor ran, he wrapped one end of the chain around the pig’s rear legs and attached the other end to the forklift. Then he hopped back into the tractor and began dragging the pig along the ground toward an open doorway. Jude could hear the pig’s screams from where she stood. She tamped down the anger that rose in her chest and concentrated on doing her job – she checked to make sure the date and time stamp on the camera were correct and started shooting.
The shutter clicks must have covered the rustle of leather behind her, but not Finn’s low growl. At his warning, Jude spun around to find herself looking at the barrel end of a gun. Sheriff Ward was pointing his service pistol a few feet to her left where Finn crouched poised and ready to attack. “No, Finn, stay!” she commanded. He stopped growling but continued to fixate on Ward.
“If he comes at me, I’m pullin’ the trigger,” warned the Sheriff.
Jude’s heart raced. “He won’t,” she told
Ward with as much confidence as she could muster.
“How do I know that?” Ward asked warily, still staring at the dog.
“Because I’m telling him not to.”
“He always do what you tell him to do?”
“Pretty much.”
The Sheriff chuckled uneasily. “Pretty much don’t make me feel like holstering my weapon.”
To demonstrate more control, Jude signaled Finn to lie down. The big dog complied but never took his attention off Ward, who slowly lowered the gun to his side.
Ward licked his lips which had gone dry. “Miss Brannock, I believe? You’re on private property, ma’am.”
“Oh?”
“You didn’t see the no trespassing signs back there?”
“Must have missed them.”
“Must have. What are you taking pictures of?”
“Just now, a clear violation of the Humane Slaughter Act,” Jude answered, gesturing over her shoulder. “Dragging a non-ambulatory animal to slaughter is prohibited by federal law.”
“Well, federal ain’t my jurisdiction. So you’re going to have leave now.” Ward kept his tone cordial as much for Finn’s benefit as for hers.
“You also have a state statute prohibiting cruelty to animals and that would be your jurisdiction.” She also kept her tone cordial, but only because antagonizing law enforcement rarely worked to her or The Kinship’s benefit.
“I’m not going to repeat myself,” responded Ward stiffly. “And I’m warning you not to come back here or you’ll be subject to arrest.”
Jude stowed the camera in her backpack and signaled Finn to follow her. She wondered how Sheriff Ward knew she was here. Her suspicion that someone had called him was confirmed when she took a final look over her shoulder and spotted a man with binoculars down by the loading pens – looking straight at her.
***
Seldon Marshfield was an uncommon man. He had success and money to spare, but in public was careful not to flaunt either – unusual for a man both short and nondescript. He cultivated a low profile as a happily married man, doting father, and devout churchgoer. As President and CEO of Marshfield Industries, however, he used his power like a scalpel, mercilessly cutting away anything that threatened his business interests.
Today he sat at the head of a conference table with his board of directors. Among them a former U.S. Senator, a senior executive at Dow Chemical, the president of a multi-billion dollar energy company, and a retired federal judge. He had led them through an encouraging internal report showing Marshfield’s market share was up in both the commodity and processed food sectors. The recent growth, according to the report, was due to the new “Team Training” they had instituted on all their hog farms and in most of the packing plants, training that used bi-lingual supervisors and certification programs for all the workers. The report buried the real reason for the gains. That information was classified.
Marshfield glanced at his watch. The luncheon was already set up in the dining room; time to move to the last subject. “If you would all turn to tab number seven, Ned Bannerman will give us an overview of our new media campaign. Ned?”
Pages turned while his senior VP picked up the remote for the PowerPoint presentation and began, “I appreciate the opportunity to share with you some of the things we’re doing here at Marshfield. Now, of course, you heard earlier that total domestic meat consumption, including pork, beef and chicken is down twelve percent over the last five years. But while the overall pot is shrinking, our market share continues to grow. And we’re going to maintain that trend with an aggressive, proactive approach to fight the misperceptions driven by certain animal organizations and fostered in the liberal media. Our new advertising campaign is budgeted at fifteen million dollars. This is a significant investment, about two percent of net profits from last year, and we believe this campaign will help reverse the decline of pork consumption in the U.S. and will drive more consumers to the Marshfield brand by presenting a more accurate vision of our farms and farmers.”
He punched a button on the remote that started a video on the wide screen behind him. Cue lilting, tranquil music. A panorama of green fields appeared with clean, pink pigs happily nosing lush grass and clumps of daffodils. The overdub offered up by a sonorous, reassuring male voice averred the commitment by Marshfield and its family of employees to the quality and well-being of our animals. Here at Marshfield, we believe it is our ethical and moral obligation to keep our animals safe, comfortable and healthy. The screen changed to show unusually clean pigs in a covered pen, one of them feeding at a trough filled with grain. The wooden floor was spotless. A man and a woman, both wearing light blue aprons walked into the pen. The woman held a stethoscope and put it to the chest of one of the pigs. Obviously satisfied, she smiled. Her partner returned the smile and patted the pig on the head. We know how to raise healthy pigs at Marshfield, and with our team training we work together to ensure that the quality and well-being of our animals are our highest priorities. The screen cut to a Norman Rockwell-type family gathering around a holiday table. At the center was a glistening ham. This is our commitment to you. The final scene of a pig in the field looking up into the sunlight. This is our commitment to them. The music swelled and then faded. There was a smattering of applause by the board members and Seldon beamed.
“We’ve reconfigured our website as well,” added Bannerman, “with an entire section devoted to animal welfare.”
The lone woman on the board, a former executive of a major health insurance company, lifted her hand. “I applaud these efforts, Seldon, but a quick question – there was a video released about a month ago, apparently an undercover investigation that showed baby pigs being slammed to the ground amid truly deplorable, filthy conditions. The place was called Heritage Farms. That’s not one of ours, is it?”
“Heritage is under contract,” Marshfield replied evenly, “but that video was a total fabrication. And in the end, the network that aired the video had to apologize because the animal activist group couldn’t prove that it was taken at Heritage.”
“Was it taken there?” she pressed, eyebrows arched.
“Goodness no,” he scoffed. “In fact, the video you just saw – that was Heritage Farms.” When she responded with a sigh of relief, he smiled broadly, “Why don’t we all go to lunch now, and if anyone has further questions, I plan to be available this afternoon.”
As the group got up and began talking among themselves, Marshfield took Ned Bannerman by the elbow and instructed him to accompany the board members. Then quietly, he stepped through a side door into a small office where Richard Hillman sat behind a desk watching a live feed of the board meeting on an open laptop.
“I thought the Heritage Farms issue was behind us, Dick,” accused Marshfield. “Why is that video surfacing again?”
“One of the animal liberation groups still has it up on their site,” responded Hillman.
“Then get the legal department to threaten them. It’s got to come down immediately.” He shook his head in frustration. “What is Maureen McConnell doing surfing animal liberation sites? Doesn’t she have anything better to do? That’s probably why Cigna let her go. Did you talk to Bob Warshauer?”
“Yes, and he’s getting the word out that no one is to have any contact with Brannock.”
Marshfield shifted his small feet and sniffed, as if able to detect any other potential problems from the air. “I want her out of there,” he said with finality.
“I understand.”
“You told me there are no loose ends with Frank Marino.”
“No loose ends,” Hillman assured him. “It’s been ruled a suicide by the cops and the coroner’s office. Case closed.”
“And what if he made a copy of the tape that we don’t know about?”
“We don’t think he did. But if one turns up, we’ll know about it and take care of the
situation.”
“I’ve got to tell you, Dick, if that thing gets to the media, it’s a PR disaster and heads are gonna roll.”
“Don’t worry. I got it covered.”
“I fully expect you do because we just informed the board of an ad campaign that’s going to bring attention to the animal welfare issue. And I don’t intend to get beat by some two-bit animal organization with assets smaller than our bill for paperclips.” Marshfield had his hand on the doorknob when he turned back to his Director of Systems Management. A thought made him angry all over again. “These animal people like to make me out as some kind of villain. But you know me, Dick, it’s not that I don’t care about animals. I do. They’ve got no right to come after us like we’re some kind of outlier when everyone in the industry is doing the same thing. This is a business whose function is to respond to demand. Our responsibility is to our stock holders and to the U.S. consumer. Ninety-nine-cent hamburger? Bacon for four dollars a pound? If that’s what the American consumer wants, by God, we’ll give it to them.”
Chapter 12
This time when Jude came calling, Verna Marino opened the door herself, although her welcome was far more guarded. The house, too, was different – it seemed to have been turned upside down with shoes, boots, and coats from the front hall closet strewn on the floor, and in the kitchen, drawers open and emptied of their contents.
“Sorry for the chaos,” said Verna, trying to put some cheer in her voice. “I need to stay busy, and the house could use a good going over.”
Jude noticed the disorder less than she did the obvious changes in Frank’s widow. There were dark circles under her eyes and tension around her mouth that had not been there even in the immediate aftermath of his death.
“Are you alright?” asked Jude.
“Holding on. What can I do for you?”
“I wondered if we could talk about Frank.”
After a moment’s deliberation, Verna opened her hands in a gesture to show she had nothing to hide.
“I only spoke to him a couple of times,” started Jude. “I was impressed. He was … very brave to take a camera inside the plant.”