by Robin Lamont
Then do it. Like I said, the hogs ain’t talkin’ and neither are your illegals. You know the margins we work on in this business, it’s all about line speed. But there’s some things we can’t put on paper, which is why I’m here today. Seldon wants me to personally explain to each manager just what it takes so we’re on the same page. This is coming straight from Seldon. Line speed, Bob. Line speed.
The voices faded, but Jude had heard all she needed. She pulled out the disc with trembling fingers and immediately secured it deep inside her jacket pocket. Here was proof that at the highest levels Marshfield Industries not only knew about the horrific abuse to the animals and the danger posed to the employees because of the breakneck line speed, they wanted to make it run even faster. This last is what Frank meant when he told her he had recorded “dynamite” – and it’s probably what had gotten him killed.
Jude heard a sound just outside the trailer and startled. She didn’t think she’d been followed, but she was still on edge. Whoever had been shooting at Roy Mears was a big unknown. He may have saved her life and she didn’t know why, but it didn’t feel like an altogether well-meaning gesture. She pulled aside the trailer’s homemade curtain and peered through the window. In the pre-dawn light there was only a feral cat slinking around the corner. She let the curtain fall back and nervously checked the time. Too early to call Gordon. He’d want to orchestrate the release of the video to the media, then prepare for the swift and aggressive corporate response. Marshfield would, of course, claim it was all fabricated by animal rights extremists, but the more they protested, the more they’d draw attention to the issue. Gordon knew a reporter at CNN who would broadcast portions of the video. It would get picked up on Facebook, YouTube, Twitter. Many people wouldn’t want to look, wouldn’t want to know. But enough would. Change was going to come.
Chapter 27
Jude drove slowly up the circular driveway and stopped in front of the high school entrance. “Your mom knows I’m dropping you off at school, right?”
“I told her. She’s still peeved about last night, so this will give her a little time to cool off.”
“You want to call her again?”
“Can’t, my battery died. Stupid phone – I just charged it yesterday. But I did call her. Abelina let me use her phone before we left.” She reached around to stroke Finn under the chin. “He’ll be fine, won’t he?”
“I’m going to get him checked out before I head on back. He’s pretty sturdy.” Jude tried to sound reassuring, but she was worried. Finn was limping badly this morning. “Say, do you, uh, need a note or something? I mean, for being late?”
Caroline smiled – an actual smile that created a dimple in her right cheek. “I think it has to be from a parent or a doctor,” she said. “But it would be cool to see what the attendance office thought of a note from an animal rights terrorist.”
“Good point,” Jude grinned back.
There was an awkward moment as they struggled with how to say their goodbyes. Caroline postponed it by offering, “I’ve gone vegan, you know.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, I’ve been doing some research on the web and learning about all the foods that come from animals and vegan alternatives and stuff.”
“Good for you. How do your folks feel about it?”
Caroline shrugged. “They think it’s a phase. But I know it’s not. I don’t want to be a part of all that.” She nodded in the direction of the plant. “Anyway, I can cook for myself.”
With only a few hours sleep, there were smoky circles under the girl’s eyes, but there was an energy emanating from her that Jude hadn’t seen before. She felt an overwhelming desire to protect Caroline from the difficulties she would face in a world that too often equated being a vegan with being an extremist. But the second period bell rang from inside the building, marking the time for a wordless farewell hug.
An x-ray of Finn’s back leg revealed no fractures. The local vet diagnosed a severe sprain of his already weakened hip, then treated a few cuts on the pads of his feet. At one point he glanced over to Jude’s own bandaged hand, but refrained from asking any questions. She left feeling much relieved and with a prescription for Finn of rest and an aspirin every twelve hours. She called in to Gordon and checked out of the motel. Then, after making Finn comfortable in the back of the Subaru, she was finally heading home.
On her way, Jude drove down Main Street, passing the corner Gulf station, the Hardware & Feed Store, and the rickety building that housed the Chronicle. The hard corners of the DVD’s plastic case in her pocket poked into her ribcage and made it impossible not to think about the effect the video might have on these businesses and the people who worked there – to Emmet and Caroline, Howard Bisbee, and all the other workers and their families dependent on a vast profit-driven industry that keeps upping the ante on the backs of helpless animals and desperate workers. Whatever the impact, Jude knew it was right to release this new evidence, proof of Marshfield’s moral corruption. As it was, going up against the meat industry’s money, power and political influence was like David fighting Goliath. Now finally, she had a weapon worthy of the battlefield, and she knew that she ought to feel good. Still, something weighed heavily on her and she couldn’t put her finger on it.
“Hi, CJ.” Jude put her phone on speaker as she drove.
“Where are you?” he wanted to know. “What’s going on?”
“I’m on my way back.”
“How’s Finn?”
“He’s going to be fine, but he’s not walking too well. Just have to keep him quiet for a few days.”
“We’ll take good care of him here. Hey, Gordon filled us in this morning. You’ve got the video. That’s huge.”
“Yeah, it’s going to change the dialogue, guaranteed.”
“Mmn, your words are saying one thing, your voice is telling me something else. Are you alright?” asked CJ.
“I keep thinking about what happened at the house where we rescued Finn. Did Gordon tell you about that?”
“He said someone stopped that guy Mears from shooting you, so I see that as a positive.”
“But I can’t put it together. I was under the impression that the folks in Bragg Falls would’ve been just as happy if Mears did shoot me. Someone prevented him from doing that, which meant they must have followed me there, and I’m usually better at spotting a tail. I feel like there’s this great big puzzle surrounding Frank and the tape, and I’m just a small piece in it.”
After a moment, CJ said, “What if … this protective shadow wasn’t looking out for you, but for Caroline or Jack?”
“But nobody knew they were there.”
“Nobody except for whoever it was that showed up and kept Mears from killing you all.”
“I don’t understand.”
But the answer came to Jude just as CJ voiced it. “Didn’t Caroline have the video? Maybe they knew that and didn’t want anything to happen to her.”
“Until they got their hands on it,” finished Jude.
“It’s a theory.”
“But … but how could they know she had the tape? She and Sophie were very secretive, and Caroline didn’t have it in her hands until yesterday.”
“Could have bugged her house or phone, I guess.”
The pieces of the puzzle began to fly together. “Oh, God,” Jude said aloud. “Caroline told me earlier that she couldn’t call home because her phone had run out of battery. For a teenage girl that’s pretty unlikely, isn’t it? And I remember that the first time I met Verna, she was distraught over the fact that she’d tried to reach Frank the night he died, but she couldn’t get through because she said his phone was always running out of battery … CJ, are you still there?”
“I’m here,” he said, his voice unusually somber.
“Do you think they bugged Frank’s phone?” asked Jude, already knowing the answer.
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CJ was a step ahead of her. “Spyware on a phone drains the battery real quick,” he prefaced. “They could have gotten to Frank’s phone in his locker or taken it from his car while he was at work. Spyware is easy enough to put on.”
“And they’d be able to listen in on his calls?” asked Jude.
“Are you kidding?” snorted CJ. “Listen to his calls, track the numbers he dialed, pinpoint his location on GPS, read his texts. Hell, with the right equipment, they could send him phony texts.”
“That’s how they knew.” Jude’s eyes were watching the road, but in her mind, she was visualizing the dark forces of Marshfield’s damage control suiting up for battle. “Somebody at the plant reported seeing Frank with a camera and they bugged his phone. That’s how they knew he’d made the tape and contacted us. And they were listening when Frank told me he’d recorded a conversation between Warshauer and Bannerman … one that implicated Seldon Marshfield.” The next conclusion was painful to voice. “They would’ve known when I was coming down to meet Frank, and they got rid of him before I could get here.”
“Jesus,” muttered CJ. “And you’re saying that Caroline’s phone has been acting up as well? Why would they tag her phone?”
“I’m not sure,” Jude responded. “Maybe they had the whole Marino family bugged. Maybe they got to Caroline because of her friendship with me. They’ve got plenty of resources to cast a wide net. Of course, it’s so bloody ironic because Frank didn’t make a copy – it was the girls who did it on the sly.”
The connection Jude made next made her stomach heave. If Marshfield was reading Caroline’s cell phone texts, then the last thing they’d seen before her battery ran down was that she had the video. Sophie’s so pissed. She’s been sending me mad texts all night. I shouldn’t have taken it today, but I had to.
The entrance to the highway lay ahead. “I gotta go,” said Jude. She tossed her cell phone on the seat next to her and hauled on the steering wheel to make the u-turn.
Chapter 28
As Jude raced back toward Bragg Falls, self-recrimination rolled over her in waves. So much she had missed. True, she couldn’t have foreseen that two teenage girls would make a copy of Frank’s video, but she should have seen beyond Caroline’s infatuation … following her to the ridge at D&M, inviting her to dinner where she’d probably planned to say something about the video. Caroline had been trying to connect for a reason and Jude missed it. Just as negligent, she had underestimated Marshfield. Did she really think they wouldn’t search under every rock, in every corner and on every cell phone until they were satisfied that no copy existed? She’d been so focused on what the video meant to the animal movement that she missed what it meant to Marshfield. So filled with hope about shining a light on the company’s abusive practices that she missed their laser beam trained on a girl who only wanted to help – a girl who had risked her life to rescue Finn.
It seemed obvious now that the “protective shadow,” as CJ had referred to him, was there to safeguard Caroline from Roy Mears. He needed her alive to lead him to the videotape she had taken from Sophie. Jude had little doubt that he would find her again – and quickly. What he would do when he found her, Jude didn’t know.
She had to get to Caroline first.
The high school was just letting out. Jude tried to position herself where she could see the crowd of teenagers pouring out of the building and onto the yellow buses lined up around the circular driveway. She craned her neck looking for Caroline’s gangly gait. One by one, the buses loaded up and pulled away, and the stream of students diminished to a trickle. Where was she?
She spotted Sophie emerge and walk purposefully toward the last bus, which started its engine as she approached. Jude hurried over, meeting Sophie at the steps of the bus.
“Do you know where Caroline is?” asked Jude hurriedly.
Sophie’s eyes widened in surprise and she shook her head no.
Jude’s heart began to flutter in panic. “She was in school though, right?”
“Uh, yeah.”
“I need to find her. Is she still inside?”
“No, she left.”
Jude grabbed Sophie by the shoulders. “Where did she go?”
“She went running.”
“Running?”
“Yeah, she was going on her long run … to clear her head.”
“Where?”
“In the park somewhere.” Sophie lifted her eyes to the hill that rose up behind the football field.
“When?” cried Jude. “When did she leave?”
“Right after class. A few minutes ago.”
The bus driver called to Sophie; she was holding everybody up. Jude let her go.
She knew where Caroline was headed and only hoped that she could find the trail again – the trail that led to a spot high up where a troubled young girl could clear her head, to a place that was clean and pure.
Jude dashed back to the car and drove it around to the parking lot next to the football field where a group of boys were suiting up with shoulder pads, readying themselves for practice. One stood apart from the others, balancing himself on crutches and joking around with his fellow teammates. Jude trotted up to him.
“I’ll pay you twenty dollars to keep an eye on my dog,” she said breathlessly. Finn could not be with her, not now. He would try to keep up with her and might hurt himself further. Not this time. “He can stay in the car over there. Just make sure no one lets him out.”
The kid didn’t have to be asked twice. “Sure,” he said, pointing to the cast on his leg, “I’m not goin’ anywhere.”
Jude dug in her wallet for the cash. She cracked the windows and locked the car. “Is there a trail that goes up into the park from here?” she asked, pressing the money into the boy’s hand.
“The track team uses one that starts behind that goalpost.”
“Okay, thanks.”
“Say, listen,” he said. “Practice goes ’til six. You’ll be back by then?”
Jude mumbled an affirmative answer, but she was already running.
The path was wide and climbed slowly, and keeping up a steady trot wasn’t difficult. Then Jude came to a fork where a narrower trail continued to ascend. Yellow circles painted on the trees marked it as the one that led to the ridge where Jude had first met Caroline. Without hesitation, Jude continued the climb.
Quickly the terrain changed. Exposed roots and mossy rocks littered the path, forcing Jude to slow her pace or risk a sprained ankle. In a matter of minutes, she was breathing hard and sweating underneath her jacket. But she pushed forward. Before long, she found herself trudging along the side of a ridge where gunmetal sky and glimpses of hilltops came into view. And up ahead the ground opened up to a familiar scenic overlook.
Caroline was standing on a slab of rock, framed by the distant hills, charcoal blue in the late afternoon haze. But in the clearing between them stood a man with his back to Jude. He and Caroline appeared to be in the middle of an argument, because Caroline’s face was red with anger. “Who the fuck are you?” she demanded brashly.
He answered her softly, evenly, and Jude couldn’t quite hear what he said. But she knew why he was there. “Let her go,” she called out. “I have what you want.”
He whipped around, pointing a gun at her chest. Behind the non-descript, pleasant features, he assessed her with the calculating gaze of someone who wouldn’t think twice about killing her and a meddling teenage girl. There was no doubt in Jude’s mind that he worked for Marshfield and that there would never be any proof of that.
“Look who’s here,” he said with the barest of smiles.
“She doesn’t have the video,” announced Jude. “She gave it to me.”
Bloom swiveled his head between the two, then motioned Jude with the barrel of his gun over to where Caroline stood.
As Jude cautiou
sly complied, she held up her hands and said, “I’m not armed as I’m sure you know. I’m going to hand it over nice and slow.” She pulled out the disc from her pocket and held it out to him.
“No!” cried Caroline.
Later, Jude recalled hearing defiance in her voice, but in the moment she thought it was a cry of despair at being forced to concede. And perhaps the man heard the same thing because he lowered his gun. In that instant Caroline snatched the disc from Jude’s hand and darted to the edge of the cliff. She scrambled over the wooden railing and positioned herself on the narrow, rocky ledge of the precipice, holding out her arms for balance.
“You’re not getting this,” she threatened, raising the disc aloft. “If you come near me, I’ll jump.”
Bloom stopped in his tracks and a flicker of uncertainty passed over his face. In it Jude saw his dilemma. If Caroline took the disc over the edge, it might well withstand the fall, even if the girl didn’t. But with cops combing the hillside for her body, he could scarcely stick around to try and find it.
Jude reached out her hand. “Caroline, please don’t,” she implored.
“No. You need it. You need it ... to help the animals.”
“Don’t do it, Caroline.”
“I don’t care. I don’t want to live in a world that treats animals so badly.” She began to sob. “You’ll be able to show people…”
“I understand, but–”
“They’re just innocent animals. And they’re suffering so much.” Caroline’s foot slipped on a loose piece of gravel and she lurched, but managed to right herself again.
Jude’s heart was pounding. The slightest movement might startle the girl off balance again – even more frightening, she might say the wrong thing and it would only strengthen Caroline’s resolve to jump. So many times Jude herself felt that she was teetering on the edge of reason – times that she bore witness to so much agony that the world seemed insane for not seeing it as well, and she didn’t know where or how she could fit in. Words of reassurance and hope had never been enough. Maybe the only lifeline for Caroline was the truth, something her family and community had tried to shield her from.