Seeds of Evidence (9781426770838)

by White, Linda J.

  Above Curtis’s battle-scarred oak desk hung a huge, mounted trophy fish. Chris asked him about it. “White marlin. Caught it right off Ocean City fifteen years ago. Best trip I ever had,” Curtis explained. “Now, it ain’t every day we have federal agents come to call. What can I do for ya?”

  Chris explained about the axle.

  “That truck was stolen,” Sam Curtis said, “five, maybe six years ago. Hold on.” He pressed a button on the phone on his desk. “Helen, get me that file on the stolen truck, hon.” A few minutes later, his secretary walked in with it in her hand. “Yessir, let me see,” Curtis said, licking his thumb and going through the pages. “We reported it gone December 15, five years ago. Yep. That’s right. Five years.” He turned the file around so Chris and Kit could read the police report. “Insurance paid us off. So you found the axle?”

  “Yes.” Kit had been watching the man carefully. She found it hard to believe he was anything other than an agricultural produce businessman. “How’s business been lately?” she asked him.

  Curtis smiled. “Good. Once’t we got over that salmonella scare. You Feds got to be careful about them warnings. Cost us a bundle.” He settled back in his chair and propped his folded hands on his ample belly. “We doin’ OK, though,” he said. “ ’Nough to keep my grandkids in shoes.”

  Behind him, on a credenza, were pictures of two little blond-headed kids, one boy and one girl. “Are those your grandchildren?” Kit said, pointing toward the pictures.

  “You bet.”

  “Mr. Curtis …”

  “Sam. Just call me Sam.”

  “OK, Sam … can you tell me how your operation runs? I mean, I’ve driven by tomato fields … but I’ve often wondered just how they get to market.” Kit hoped her question came across as innocuous as she intended.

  “City girl, huh?” he said, laughing. “Tomatoes are an important crop around here. They account for ’bout half of Eastern Shore Virginia’s total ag product sales. You got to handle ’em right. The pickers …”

  “Your employees?”

  “Nope. We contract that out. They’s mostly migrant workers. All legal, far as I know. Anyway, the pickers got to wear gloves, watch out for cuts in the skin, sort ’em right, wash ’em.”

  “Then what?”

  “We truck ’em north and south, to Salisbury or down to Norfolk. We actually bought that distributor out last year, so we truck ’em now to our own building in Norfolk, and send ’em all over the East Coast. Got to move ’em fast; they’re fragile.”

  “So these truckers,” Kit said, tapping her pen against her lip, “they’re your employees?”

  “Some is, some ain’t. Our needs are flexible. So we got a fleet of our own trucks, but then we contract with other guys to take up the slack.”

  “How many trucks do you own?” Chris asked.

  “Let me see now … right now, ten. And we contract out with twenty or so more. Keep ’em busy, this time of year.”

  “What happens in the off season?”

  Sam Curtis grinned. “I go to Florida.”

  “I mean with the trucks.”

  “We keep ’em ’round the processing plants. That’s when that one got stolen, in the off season. Nobody ’round to watch ’em.”

  Kit looked at Chris, who seemed to read her mind. “Mr. Curtis,” he said, “do you have an employee named Hector Lopez?”

  Sam looked puzzled. “Lopez … Lopez … not that I recall.” He grinned. “Now if ya said ‘Curtis’ or ‘Richards’ I might be able to help you out.” He laughed at his own joke. “We contract with Mexicans for field crews. Ain’t nobody named Lopez that I recall.”

  Kit leveled her eyes at him. “He was driving a truck registered to your company.”

  Sam picked up a pen. “Give me the tag number if you got it. I’ll check it out. There been an accident?”

  “No,” Kit said. She started to write the tag number on a slip of paper. Chris put his hand on hers and stopped her.

  “Let it go for now, Mr. Curtis. We’d just as soon not let him know we’re looking at him.”

  Curtis’s eyes narrowed. “All right.” He set down his pen.

  “Could we get a list of those contractors?”

  “Absolutely.”

  When they were done, Kit and Chris exited the one-story building. “You were right,” Kit said. “Not tipping off Lopez is the right thing to do.”

  Chris nodded.

  “I don’t see any red flags,” she said.

  “I agree.” He started the car. “That means we’ve got to go deeper.”

  “Lopez told me what the job is.” David stood in the offsite office, wearing jeans and a white T-shirt. Kit thought he looked fatigued. “I pick up the truck at 8:00 p.m. tonight at the processing plant. Lopez wants me to drive it to Norfolk. So I’ll be gone a while.”

  “You’ll be OK driving the truck?” Kit gestured toward his arm, which he still had in a sling.

  “It’ll have an automatic transmission and power-assisted steering. I’ll be fine. I can drive with my knees if I have to!”

  Kit rolled her eyes. “Call me when you get back,” she said, “even if it’s in the middle of the night. And, of course, call me if something goes down bad. Or even if you feel hinky.”

  “I will.”

  “What will you be carrying?”

  “Tomatoes.”

  “Anything else?”

  “Not that I know of.”

  Kit paced, her arms crossed over her chest. “How will you protect yourself?”

  “Good looks.”

  Kit rolled her eyes again.

  “I’ll have my gun.” He grinned.

  “And you do have my cell phone number in your new phone?” Steve Gould had assigned a technician to help them. Jason had bought pay-go phones for all of them to keep real FBI cell phone numbers secure.

  “Yep.”

  “Call me then.”

  “I promise! I will.”

  Kit spent the evening in her motel room, going over some of C&R’s records and trying not to think about David, trying to get the different parts of her life to line up … she’d thought she’d gotten it right with her carefully considered marriage to Eric. The divorce blew that notion to pieces. Now she didn’t know what to think. Her cognitive, rational side, the one nurtured and reinforced by her father, was battling with her emotional side. Was she really as flaky as her mother?

  She hoped not.

  Frustrated, she considered calling her dad, just to talk, then rejected that idea. Her friend Ben, maybe? But when she looked at her watch she realized it was already getting late … late for normal people with normal lives, that is. She was stuck. She’d just have to ignore her confusion and focus on work. That seemed to be her favorite coping mechanism anyway.

  C&R Enterprise’s financial records seemed straightforward. No IRS issues. They had contracts with four crew chiefs to provide workers for the fields. They rented acreage all around the county, paid their bills on time, and made a profit each year.

  Kit leafed through page after page of material, studying until the numbers grew blurry and fatigue made her eyelids feel heavy. Finally, David called. Kit jumped when the phone rang at 1:00 a.m. “How did it go?” she asked.

  “He sent some young dude with me,” David said. “We’re about ten miles down the road and the kid pulls out a joint. I told him if he didn’t stow that thing I would pull over and throw it and him out of the truck.”

  “So did he?”

  “Yeah. But I had to pull off the road and threaten him again. That’s all I need is a dope charge.”

  “Right. Good move, David.” She gripped the phone, her stomach tight. “Nothing else odd?”

  “Nope. It was very routine. I found the distribution point, offloaded the tomatoes, and drove back. But I’m going to tell Lopez I’ll make future runs by myself. That kid was irritating.” David yawned. “Right now though, I’m going to sleep.”

  Kit hung up the phone, relieved.
Still, what was Lopez up to? Did he really need David just to make routine produce runs?

  The next day, Kit and Chris drove to the old churchyard, where Chris stowed his FBI SUV in a copse of trees. Together they walked through the woods to the hill overlooking the farm, where the field workers were ending their day. Sure enough, Lopez’s pickup truck was parked in the lane.

  “So, is he the boss of just this group of workers?” Chris asked.

  “We don’t know yet. He’s at least that,” Kit said, staring at the field through her binoculars. “Here comes the van.” She put her binoculars down. “I’d like to follow it, but any car, much less a bureau vehicle, is going to stick out on these deserted roads.”

  “Which is why we need David.”

  His logic was irrefutable. “Look. Who’s this?” she said, gesturing toward the farm.

  A shiny blue pickup was driving down the lane. A man got out, walked toward Lopez, and the two of them stood talking. The man looked taller than Hector, and had on jeans and a bright white shirt.

  “He’s new,” Chris said, aiming his camera at the man. “He’s too far away to get a great picture, even with this long lens. I’ll get what I can.”

  “I can’t quite read the license plate. The angle’s …” Kit stopped abruptly. “Hold on. There’s a woman in the passenger seat. Can you get her?”

  “I’ll try.”

  The woman stepped out of the truck. That made it easier.

  The sound of Chris’s camera seemed an odd counterpoint to their natural surroundings. Kit watched the scene play out before her as if the people were figures on a game board, and once again she felt the pressure to do the right thing. Make the right plays. Her hand was touching the rough bark of a tree. Dear Jesus, she prayed silently, please don’t let me fail.

  They showed the pictures to David the next day. “I don’t know who the guy is, but that’s her,” David said, standing in the offsite office. His voice sounded tight, like a spring about to uncoil. “That’s Maria. Who’s the guy?”

  “We don’t know yet.”

  “She’s alive, anyway.”

  “That doesn’t mean she wants to be with him.”

  “Right.” The muscles in his jaw were flexing. “Can I keep a copy?”

  “Sure.”

  “I’m going to find out who the dude is.”

  David’s plan was simple. He carried the blurry photo of the well-dressed man with Maria folded in his pocket. One night, when no one else was around, he asked a guy he had befriended at the loading dock if he knew the man.

  The Mexican’s eyes widened and a torrent of Spanish poured out of his mouth. Yes, he knew him. He was the Big Boss. Lopez’s boss. He lived in a big house. Had a beautiful wife. And Lopez acted as his gun, his enforcer.

  His name?

  “Carlos. That’s all I know.”

  “And how about the woman in this picture?” David asked in Spanish. “You know her?”

  No, the man responded. He’d never seen her before.

  But David doubted he was telling the truth.

  After David’s fourth trip in six days, Kit took half a day to head back to Chincoteague to get clean clothes and handle some errands. She was just about to leave her cottage when the crunch of oyster shells on the driveway announced a visitor. When Kit looked outside, Brenda Ramsfeld, dressed in uniform, was walking up onto her porch.

  “I thought you’d like to know,” Ramsfeld said when Kit opened the door. “I fired Joe Rutgers.”

  “Come in,” Kit said. She opened the door wider. “Have a seat.”

  Ramsfeld complied, perching on the couch like a bird ready to fly at a moment’s notice. “I found him smoking pot on duty,” she said, “just like you said.”

  Kit nodded.

  “He protested of course. Said it was his first time. Said he’d never do it again.” Ramsfeld sighed. “We both know that’s a lie.” Her eyes were fixed on a book holder on the coffee table. “I figured I’d better tell you, since you’ve had dealings with him. I don’t guess he’ll get vengeful, but hey, what do I know?”

  “I appreciate that.”

  “First time I ever had to fire anybody. Man, the paperwork!” Ramsfeld looked up.

  “Was he arrested?”

  “Yes. I had the Chincoteague police do it.”

  “Where was he buying the stuff?”

  “The weed? I don’t know. That’s for the police to find out, you know?” Ramsfeld stood up to leave. “You got any more on that body?”

  Kit hesitated, calculating what she should reveal. “We may have linked him with a farm on the mainland. But we haven’t identified him. Haven’t even come close.”

  Brenda nodded. “I figured that might be the case. Kinda glad I didn’t waste my time with it.” She stood up.

  Kit walked her to the door. “Hey, how’d you know where I was staying?”

  “I drive by here every day on the way to work. I’ve seen you coming and going. Saw the car in the driveway just now. Guessed it was you. Your other one’s a Subaru, right?” Ramsfeld motioned with her head toward Kit’s bureau car in the driveway. “That thing just screams ‘cop car’. Anyway, Joe’ll be out of the clink in a few hours. That’s my guess. Just wanted you to know.”

  Brenda Ramsfeld’s calculation was right on. But the call Kit got from Chief Daisey as she drove back toward Glebe Hill went even further. “We were booking him,” the Chief said, “for simple possession. Doing his fingerprints, when that Guatemalan was being moved. And Martinez goes ballistic, pointing and yelling. Seemed to be saying Joe’s the one that paid him to hold that backpack full of meth. We’re callin’ the translator, but that’s what he seemed to be indicatin’.”

  Curiouser and curiouser, Kit thought. Why would Joe Rutgers want to set Martinez up? When she got to the offsite, she went over the whole thing again with Chris.

  “So this guy, Joe, was on patrol the morning you found the body?” Chris asked. Kit confirmed the answer with a nod of her head. “And he lied about how far he’d gone. Do you really think he was involved?”

  “With the murder? I doubt it. For one thing, he was on shore. For another he just doesn’t seem the type. He strikes me as lazy, a pothead … but a killer? I don’t get that,” Kit said.

  “Would be worth another interview. Want me to do it?”

  Kit considered that. “Is David making a run tonight?”

  “Yes.”

  “All right. Why don’t I monitor that and you go talk to Joe?” Another thought occurred to her. “Are we getting anywhere with these transports?”

  Chris stretched out his legs. “These things take time. He’s earning Lopez’s trust. Something will come of that. Meanwhile, David thinks he’s got a handle on that guy with Maria.” He paused thoughtfully. “He’s making progress, Kit. I’d say we stick with it.”

  David was driving up Rt. 13 on his fifth trip, making his way back to C&R at 2:00 a.m on a clear, cool night. He was listening to his iPod through the truck’s stereo, but he was getting sleepy, so he clicked it off, rolled down the window, and turned his thoughts elsewhere.

  After four trips, Lopez hinted he’d have something bigger to transport soon, something that would make him more money, something that would involve an even bigger player. What was he talking about? Drugs? People? David knew if they could just get Lopez talking about something illegal, they’d get authorization to access his financial records, wiretap his phone … they’d have all kinds of inroads into his life. And that could lead to rescuing Maria and discovering who killed the beach child.

  What would happen after they’d solved the case? He’d go back to Chincoteague and finish painting. And Kit—what about Kit? She’d seemed guarded, cold even, since he’d started working with them. She acted more relaxed … even friendly … with Chris.

  Still, David saw something in her eyes when she looked at him, something that she couldn’t mask, something that gave him hope.

  He only knew one thing for sure: he’d never
felt this way about another woman. He’d never felt so compelled to pursue one, so intrigued by her thinking, so ready to make room in his life for another. No, he thought, correcting himself: give up his life for another. Even with the problems emanating from her divorce, she was attractive to him. Hey, everyone had problems, right?

  He took a big drink of cold coffee. As he did, he glimpsed something on the edge of the road. What was it? A red flag went off in his brain. Automatically, his foot pressed down on the brake. He slowed down and then he saw a cut-through.

  Why? What had he seen? What had bothered him? Following his instincts, David turned around.

  20

  FEW VEHICLES TRAVELED THE ROAD AT THAT HOUR, AND DAVID SLOWED as he approached the area again. Wide awake now, straining to see into the dark, he fought to retrieve the image of whatever it was that had alarmed him.

  The shoulder of the road fell off to a ditch. Beyond that, a bank rose up to woods. With no streetlights in the area, and no moon that night, all David had to go on were his headlights and his instincts.

  But those proved true. As the truck crawled along, half on the shoulder, his headlights picked up what his brain had registered: a hand and an arm emerging from the ditch.

  Jerking to a stop, he put on his emergency flashers, grabbed a flashlight, and climbed down from the truck. His heart pounded, hard. He jogged toward the ditch and looked down. There, in the weeds, lay a man dressed in khaki work pants and a short-sleeved white shirt, stained with blood.

  David dropped to his knees. He felt the man’s neck. He found a thready pulse, grabbed his cell phone off of his belt, and called 911. As he spoke into the phone, the man opened his eyes. “Hang on, partner, help is on the way,” David said, clicking his phone off. He used his flashlight to scan the man’s body, ripped open his shirt, and found a bloody gunshot wound.

  A dark dread swept over him. David shivered. The smell of the blood, the sight of it, washed through him, bringing back memories. He shivered and closed his eyes. In his mind’s eye, he saw the man, he saw the kid he shot, he saw a roadside, he saw an alley in the city, he saw life flowing away in a sickening stream.