Dirty Harriet

by Miriam Auerbach

“Reckon we’d best discuss this in person. Don’t put no stock in them cellular thingamajigs. Somebody might be a-listenin’ in.”

  Great. It was two o’clock in the morning, and I was talking to a paranoid drunk. Who said a P.I.’s life isn’t glamorous?

  “All right,” I said. “When can you meet?”

  “Reckon now’s as good a time as any.”

  “Man, it’s 2:00 a.m.!” I cried.

  “Yep,” came the reply.

  I could see there was no reasoning with him. Besides, I was wide awake now, my curiosity piqued.

  “I’ll meet you in an hour,” I said.

  Chapter 20

  I GOT OUT of my warm, cozy bed and put on my leggings, tank top, and leathers. I boarded my boat, put on my earplugs and earmuffs, and took off into the night. It was eerie in the Everglades in this witching hour. Only a sliver of moon lit my way as the sawgrass whipped past me. An occasional owl hooted.

  I arrived on land, then rode my Hog the twenty miles to the beach. I turned north on AlA. Out on the ocean, I could hear a storm brewing. Powerful waves slammed the shore, eating away at the land as they sucked mouthfuls of sand back out with them.

  I pulled up to Rodgers’s trailer. The porch was still sagging, and the screen door was still hanging by a thread. I knocked on the door and waited a couple minutes. No answer. I tried again. Still nothing. Now I was getting seriously irritated. Rodgers had summoned me out of my warm and cozy bed to come out here on this godforsaken night. If he’d decided to go out in the meantime, I’d be real pissed.

  I opened the screen and pushed on the door. It swung open.

  “Rodgers!” I called. Nothing. I stepped inside. He was sprawled out on the killer couch, snoring. Beer bottles littered the floor around him. I walked over and shoved him on the shoulder.

  “Yo! Wake up, bud!”

  He snorted, but didn’t budge. “Hey!” I yelled. I shook his shoulders. No response. Shit. The man was passed out in a drunken stupor.

  I opened his eyelids. His eyes were rolled back in his head. Not a good sign. I felt the pulse in his throat. It was about twenty beats a minute. A real bad sign. The guy was knocking on heaven’s door. Damn! As if I didn’t have enough troubles of my own.

  I got out my cell and called 911. The ambulance arrived a few minutes later, siren blaring. Naturally, the entire population of Briny Breezes came out on their sagging porches to check out the excitement. Two paramedics trooped in and proceeded to do their thing. They and their equipment took up just about all the room. I stayed back in a corner, watching. They put an oxygen mask on him, then gave him a shot of adrenaline.

  “What’s he on?” one of the paramedics asked me.

  “I don’t know. Beer, I guess,” I said, indicating the empty bottles.

  “This isn’t just a beer buzz,” he said.

  The other paramedic began looking around the room. He went into the kitchen and opened drawers.

  “Okay, here we go,” he said, holding up a plastic baggie containing a few white, oval-shaped pills.

  “Old cars,” he said. The other one grunted.

  “Old cars? What are you talking about?” I asked.

  “Lady, what rock have you been living under? Old cars—that’s the street name for OxyContin. The latest and greatest substance of choice.” He rolled his eyes. “We got us an OD on downers.”

  So Wanda, Rodgers’s health care aide, was his supplier. She’d been talking about “old cars” the last time I’d been here. How was I supposed to know that was code for O.C., OxyContin, the widely abused narcotic painkiller? What other clues had I missed in this whole investigation?

  Rodgers’s eyes fluttered open. I walked over and laid a hand on his arm. “Hey,” I said softly, “it’s Harriet Horowitz.”

  “What you doin’ here?” he asked.

  “You asked me to come, remember?”

  “Oh, yeah.”

  “Ma’am, please step back,” one of the paramedics said. “We need to get him to the hospital.” I did as instructed, and they loaded him onto a stretcher. I followed them out the door. Damned if I’d come out here in the middle of the night for nothing.

  They loaded him onto the ambulance, the eyes of Briny Breezes watching every move. I climbed in after him, the paramedics making no protest. One of them stayed in the back, the other went up front to drive. We got rolling.

  “Rodgers,” I said, “what was it you wanted to tell me? About your accident?”

  His eyes opened briefly, then shut again.

  “Accident,” he mumbled. “Yeah. I seen what happened.” His speech was labored, muted. I leaned in closer.

  “Lamont . . . pesticide,” he gasped.

  “Jake Lamont? The crew boss?” I asked.

  “Yeah.”

  “What about pesticide?”

  “Spilled . . . on the road.”

  “Lamont spilled some pesticide on the road?”

  He nodded.

  “Why?”

  “Banned substance . . . had to get rid of it . . . EPA coming down . . . surprise visit . . . must’ve been tipped off.”

  “So he poured it on the road, and your truck slid on it?”

  “Yeah, I seen him do it . . . I hit that slimy stuff and wham! Nothin’ I could do.”

  “Why didn’t you tell this to the police?”

  “Couldn’t . . . in hospital . . . had visit from corporate honchos . . . convinced me to keep quiet . . . said they’d pay all my medical bills and disability, take care of my little girl. Had to think about my baby—no one else around to watch out for her. Had to do it—for my baby girl.”

  So Rodgers had been paid off by Big Tomato to keep silent about illegal dumping of a banned pesticide. Had Gladys known something about this, too, and been permanently silenced?

  “What about Gladys, the dead Mayan woman?” I asked him.

  “She was there. Sittin’ out in the tomato fields. Waitin’ for that boyfriend o’ hers, I guess. I seen ’em out there some mornin’s when I made that run. She was there that mornin’, must’ve seen the whole thing go down.”

  So there I had it at last—a clear motive for Gladys’s murder. She’d been done in by Lamont or some other Big Tomato hatchet man. I felt sick to my stomach.

  Suddenly Rodgers’s hand shot out and gripped my forearm.

  “After you come by this afternoon . . . conscience got to me . . . It just ain’t right, what they done to me an’ them sixteen poor suckers . . . It just ain’t right.” He took a deep breath. “Anyways, my baby’s growed up an’ gone now . . . so’s I’m free to talk. They got nothin’ on me now . . . I’m free.”

  Then his eyes rolled back in his head, and his breathing became rapid and shallow.

  “Damn!” the paramedic exclaimed. “He’s going into respiratory arrest. Step back!”

  Chapter 21

  THE PARAMEDIC started performing CPR. He kept at it . . . and at it . . . and at it. Minutes passed as the ambulance tore through the deserted streets, siren wailing. Finally the vehicle came to a stop, and the siren went silent. The doors opened. The paramedic stopped his efforts, taking deep breaths of his own, sweat dripping down his face. The stretcher was pulled out. I climbed out and watched as the paramedics wheeled Rodgers through the doors of the E.R. There was nothing more I could get from him or do for him.

  I got a cab ride back out to the trailer park to pick up my bike. I rode to my office and spent the rest of the morning and the early afternoon catching up on my other cases. I busted one lowlife who was scamming Boca retirees with phantom discount charter flights to New York to visit their grandkids, and another sewer rat who was conning underage girls into posing for nude photos with promises of big-time modeling contracts. All in a day’s work.

  But my thoughts kept goi
ng back to Rodgers. Around noon I decided to call the hospital to check on his condition. When I started getting the runaround, I started to suspect that the news wasn’t good. Finally a doctor came on the line and confirmed my fears: Rodgers had died that morning, a few hours after arrival.

  A stab of guilt passed through me. Would Rodgers have OD’d had it not been for my probing questions? Yeah, I’d gotten some answers. But could I afford the price?

  Sighing, I called the contessa to give her the latest. As we talked, a thought struck me.

  “What if Rodgers’s OD was no accident?” I posed. “What if he was shut up by Big Tomato? That would mean the Corporate Corruption Division knew he’d squealed.”

  “How would they know?” the contessa asked.

  “As far as I can see, there’s only one way—from Wanda, the health worker who was there when I was asking Rodgers about the truck accident. She might actually be a plant.”

  “Well, it looks like a chat with Wanda is in order,” said the contessa.

  “Right,” I replied. If I could establish that Rodgers was a victim of homicide by a corporate hired hand, that would strengthen the case for Gladys being a victim of the same.

  I had no idea where to find Wanda, but I figured she’d be back to Rodgers’s place at her usual time that afternoon, either to provide her usual services or to see whether her intentional OD had done its job. So, I’d go back and lie in wait. I headed out to the trailer park.

  I hadn’t locked Rodgers’s door behind us when I left with the paramedics that morning. I walked in and quickly scoped out the place. I decided to bide my time in a broom closet and observe Wanda’s actions when she came in. I stepped into the closet and looked out through the slats in the louvered door.

  Ten minutes later, Wanda walked in.

  “Hey, George,” she yelled. Receiving no response, she repeated herself. Then she did a quick walk through the trailer.

  She took out her cell phone and made a call.

  “It’s Wanda,” she said. “My one o’clock isn’t here . . . I don’t know . . . yeah, okay . . . you want the report on my twelve o’clock? Yeah, Mrs. Blumfeld. BP ninety over sixty, temperature 97.6, pulse a hundred and two. I emptied her Foley, did her sponge bath . . . yeah, okay. Bye.”

  Well, there was nothing sinister there. Sounded like Wanda was just reporting to her employer.

  I heard her go into the kitchen and open a cabinet. There was some rattling around. It became more and more frantic.

  “Shit,” she said. “Where’s the stash?”

  Then she placed another call.

  “This is Wanda. One of our customers is missing and so’s his candy. Of course, I looked. That’s the first thing I thought of, resale. No, I don’t know where he is.”

  I figured this was an opportune time to announce my presence.

  “He’s dead,” I said, coming out of the closet.

  Wanda’s eyes bulged as her face turned a whiter shade of pale. She let out a bloodcurdling scream and dropped the phone.

  Gee, I just love making an impression on folks.

  “What . . . what are you doing here?” she sputtered. “What do you mean, George is dead?”

  “OD’d,” I said. “On OxyContin and booze. Now, you wouldn’t know anything about that, would you?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “How does a murder rap grab you?” I asked.

  She staggered backward. Her calves struck the Killer Couch, and she went down into that bottomless pit. She lay there, flailing.

  “I’ll tell you what,” I said. “How about you let me know whose payroll you’re on, and maybe I just might forget to mention your little retail business to the cops.”

  “Payroll! My Brother’s Keeper Home Health Care. And I resent your implication. I’m a healer, not a dealer.”

  Well, what do you know? Wanda had a way with words.

  “You read the paper, right?” she continued. “About the high cost of prescription drugs for seniors and the disabled? I provide a desperately needed service to the community—priced-right prescriptions.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “Let me guess. You palm leftover pills from your patients who don’t know any better or have kicked the bucket, then resell them to others. Gosh, you could be turning a profit on one little pill four or five times over.”

  She glared at me. “Hey, who appointed you to the morality militia? I don’t have to put up with you.”

  Right. And I didn’t have to put up with her. I turned my back and headed for the door.

  I heard her huffing and puffing, struggling to get off the Killer Couch.

  “Hey! You can’t just leave me here like this. I’m stuck here! Come back!”

  “So sorry you’ve fallen and can’t get up. Why don’t you try calling a forklift company?” l threw over my shoulder as the screen door slammed behind me.

  “I can’t reach my phone! Get your ass back here!”

  I stood out on the porch for a while, listening to Wanda’s screams. It was a hot one today. I took off my boots and walked on the sand to the water’s edge. The ocean waves washed over my bare feet. If only they could wash away my guilt over Rodgers’s death.

  It was looking like an accident or a suicide. Based on her actions and words, Wanda didn’t seem to have a clue about any Big Tomato connection. Apparently, she was just a small-time independent operator, not a hired hit woman. Still, even if the corporation hadn’t knocked off Rodgers, that didn’t mean it hadn’t done Gladys. But how the hell would I find out?

  Chapter 22

  I NEEDED TO get inside Big Tomato and find out what was going on in there. So the next morning at the office, I logged on to the Web and found the name of the corporation, Consolidated Tomato Growers of Palm Beach County, and its CEO, Zachariah J. Zachariah. Then I picked up the phone.

  “This is Brenda Lee Harper with Au Naturelle Cosmetique,” I drawled in my best Southern-belle imitation. “We are interested in bulk purchase of tomatoes for use in our line of fine products for the visage. I wonder if I might make an appointment with Mr. Zachariah to discuss the potential for our companies to enter into a mutually beneficial business arrangement?”

  “One moment please, let me check his calendar,” the receptionist said, putting me on hold. She came back a couple minutes later. “Yes, Ms. Harper, Mr. Zachariah would be delighted to meet with you at three o’clock this afternoon if that’s suitable.”

  “That’s wonderful, darlin’. I’ll see y’all then.”

  I went over to my office closet and took out the one item of apparel that remained from my Boca Babe life. It was a white Dolce & Gabbana suit, together with matching four-inch vamp shoes, which I kept strictly for undercover operations such as this. Then I reached way into the back of my bottom desk drawer and pulled out my secret stash—a Ziploc bag filled with the finest cosmetics money can buy—again, remnants of my past life. The only thing missing was the jewelry. As a Boca Babe, I’d had diamond studs practically soldered into my earlobes. But I had few regrets about living gem-free. After dusting my husband, I’d dusted off all my rocks and sold them to buy my Hog.

  I pulled out a sheet of perforated card stock, spent a few minutes on the computer, and printed out a snazzy business card to confirm my new identity. The phone number and e-mail address were, of course, bogus. I was ready to roll.

  I loaded the suit, the shoes, and the greasepaint into my saddlebags. Having to haul all my shit around like this was damn inconvenient. As I packed, I started to miss my days as a Boca Babe when all I’d carried was a miniature Gucci backpack to hold my mirror, credit cards, and cell phone. But then I reminded myself that letting myself get knocked around just to keep from having to carry knockoffs had been considerably more inconvenient.

  I rode up to the company’s headquarters
in West Palm. The offices were located in a tall, sparkling glass building on Flagler Drive, overlooking Lake Worth and the gilded isle of Palm Beach beyond. I spotted a Starbucks nearby. I went into the restroom and emerged minutes later as a Southern belle on steroids.

  I teetered across the parking lot, entered the building, and rode the elevator to the top. In short order, I was seated in a luxury office suite, sipping gourmet coffee and looking across a desk at a fifty-something suit.

  “Ms. Harper, I’m delighted to make your acquaintance,” he said. “How may I be of assistance?”

  “Well, Mr. Zachariah,” I drawled. “My company has developed a revolutionary new proprietary line of lipsticks and blushes that rely on a tomato base. You see, at Au Naturelle Cosmetique, our products are one-hundred percent synthetic-free, animal product-free, and allergen-free. The only thing that’s not free is the price. No doubt, y’all can appreciate the importance of quality to discerning clientele. Our customers are connoisseurs of natural beauty, as well as champions of the preservation of this beautiful blue-green planet that we all share. As such, price is no object to our devoted consumers.

  “Now, our new tomato-based products yield long-lasting pigmentation to the lips and cheeks. In addition, their intrinsic Vitamin C provides exfoliating and rejuvenating properties. All this with no harm to the planet and all its myriad creatures. In short, Mr. Zachariah, it’s truly a miracle product, and we are poised to become the world’s leading cosmetics concern. Between y’all and me, we’ll have Dior, La Prairie, Clarins all running for cover.

  “Now here’s the thing, Mr. Zachariah. We require a very significant and steady supply of tomatoes. My product developers inform me that one lipstick will require the juice of forty-three tomatoes. So, y’all do the math.”

  I paused for effect. I could see the wheels turning in his head. They weren’t turning fast enough, so I helped him out.

  “Bottom line, Mr. Zachariah, we will need several million tons of tomatoes per year.”

  The man was practically coming in his pants at the prospect.