Trudi Baldwin - Sammy Dick, PI 02 - Acid Test for Yellow Flower

by Trudi Baldwin

  We were all touched. Even me. Kathy had lost her parents in a car crash in Delaware and through a series of events had ended up here in Arizona, where Geo and I helped her solve a high-profile case.

  During Kathy’s grace, Snack rested his head on my thigh. He was saying a prayer of his own, praying to God that someone would sneak him a slice of that delicious smelling chicken. Not all of my prayers ever got answered, but I was one hundred percent sure that Snack’s would be.

  After dinner, Delilah and Kathy offered to do the dishes while Geo and I worked on the case. Both Geo and I hate dishes—that’s why we eat a steady diet of Lean Cuisine and Diet Coke, so we both acted like Gee we really wish we could help, but lots of work to do, sorry, and I got out my yellow legal pad and began to outline our approach to the case.

  There really wasn’t much to do just yet we decided. Geo was going to study the manufacturing process for organic lotions and the locations in town that sell hydrofluoric acid. Geo showed me photos of what the acid can do to your skin and warned me to always wear gloves and abide by all safety requirements documented by their quality department. Of course, the quality department could be in on it. Who knew at this point?

  Geo encouraged me to get the names of anyone remotely suspicious and text them to him throughout the following day. He didn’t have class on Monday and would be spending it in our office near Kathy’s work place at 24th Street and Camelback. Luckily, Geo liked holding down the fort in our office when I couldn’t because I was working a case. He could have lunch with Kathy and stay at her place after work. That way, between Geo and me, our office seldom remained vacant.

  Geo drove Kathy home after dinner was all cleaned up. Delilah returned to highlighting game. Geo and I had already outlined a barebones approach to solving Glory’s case. By now it was nearly ten PM, so I headed for my room bringing Snack with me. I needed sleep. Tomorrow would be a big day.

  Somewhere in the night I dreamed of that hawk diving into Gloria’s canyon and the shriek that followed. I woke up, my heart pounding. After that, I tried to return to sleep, but all I could think about were the deformed, eaten-away hands and body parts Geo had shown me on the computer, the results of hydrofluoric acid damage. I shivered trying to get comfortable, but to no avail. Then at some point in the night, I said fuck it all, tomorrow will bring what tomorrow will bring and fell into as deep a sleep as Snack who was snoring happily, his legs in the air, in a nest of scattered laundry on my floor.

  Chapter Six – The Job Interview

  Tomorrow arrived swiftly. I dressed in the best bad-girl outfit I could muster: skin-tight, faded jeans, with a revealing red top that made my breasts plump fetchingly I thought, a slash of lipstick bordering on black, gobs of mascara and a final touch of luminous purple eye shadow streaked like wings across my lids and extending an inch beyond my eyes on each side. I’d heightened the effect of my tri-color hair by touching up the ends of it with the Red Wand, a temporary, bright red hair product, applied daily. Then I’d stroked gel through it to give it a hard-rock look.

  In this awesome outfit, a few minutes past eight AM, I strolled into Glory’s Organic Lotions factory, located at the corner of Magnolia Street and Seventh Avenue. Leave it to Gloria to locate her organic essence of flowers factory on a street named Magnolia, so she could tout a “within brand” address for her website and communications. A large, gray, functional structure, the building easily took up an acre or more in square footage.

  As I parked my car in the visitor space, I noted the factory looked pretty good from the outside. Potential buyers and distributors of high-end lotion would expect that. I locked my Mazda, strutted to the entrance and swung open the glass door to the lobby. The lobby area struck a nice balance between luxury and functionality with comfortable, maroon sofas, gray slate floors and subtle lighting. Not too over the top, but tasteful.

  The young receptionist sat behind an L-shaped, wood desk with a glass top, typing furiously on a computer. The name plate on the desk read Marissa Blout. I tried to attract her attention, “Hey, Ms. Blout, do you have a trash can somewhere? I need to get rid of my gum.” In my attempt to be a bad girl, I was experimenting with setting the right tone. Not sure I’d found it yet.

  Marissa said, “Just a minute,” and continued typing, ignoring me and clicking the keys with a pounding vengeance. I stepped back a little, adjusting my angle of vision. Since she sat on the short part of the L-shaped desk, I could now glimpse what she was typing. I watched as How dare you, you mother fucker spat out rapid-fire across the page followed by !!!!!!.

  I kept chewing my gum and lowered my voice conspiratorially, even though we were the only two in the room—might as well start making connections right out of the box. “Looks like you’re in a fight with your boyfriend. I just had a big blowout with mine last week too. I caught the damn motherfucker cheating on me again.” Nothing could be further from the truth. I did have an on-again, off-again boyfriend, but any dating around was on my part, not his.

  Upon registering that comment, Marissa Blout sucked in a quick breath and minimized her screen in one, swift click of her long, painted index nail on the keyboard. Then she looked up at me as if nothing in the world were wrong. She chimed in a singsong, mechanical voice, “How may I help you?”

  Uh oh, I might be in the presence of a schizoid. I’d have to keep my eye on her. I’d already found a research case for Geo: Ms. Marissa Blout, the Schizoid Admin.

  “I’d like a trash can to toss my gum in. I need a job real bad, and I don’t wanna be chewin’ gum during the interview.” Marissa had a foxy look about her, as in a real fox, the kind that peeks out at you from under the bushes on the side of the road. Sharp, pointy features. Beady, little, pitch black eyes, set too close together. She sported that kind of jet black, straight Frenchie hair, cut severely at chin length, with one side longer than the other. The longer side kept flopping over her left eye, forcing her to flip her head up and over to regain her vision, when she tried to make eye contact with you, which was seldom.

  “The trash can is there and the job application is here.” Head flip as she handed me a clipboard and pen. “Sit over there to fill it out.” The long index finger pointing. Midnight-colored nail polish gleaming along the nail. “Please,” she added after several beats.

  I disposed of my gum and seated myself as indicated. Marissa sat back in her chair, scooted over to her keyboard, reopened her screen, and resumed violently clacking on the keyboard.

  Ah, life in the factory with a schizoid admin, I thought as I leafed through the pages of the three page job application. I’d have to talk to Gloria about first impressions in her factory. I wondered if potential distributors visited the site often. Marissa might be better placed in the back office, not the front, or in someone else’s factory, not Gloria’s. If the opportunity arose, I’d talk to Gloria about it, but I decided I’d better concentrate on my own first impression and printed my fake name, Parker Bowe, at the top of the application.

  Before continuing, I texted Geo two words: Marissa Blout from my phone to give him a research assignment. He texted back immediately K. Yay, Geo was actually working and helping me! This is a good sign. I began filling in the application using one of my undercover persona names, Harper Bowe. Signing in as Samantha Dick might lead someone back to the Dick Agency, if they decided to do any digging. Geo and I had concocted two suitable sets of fake credentials for my undercover work. For high-end work, I used Tina Brown, with a corresponding on-line presence in multiple places and a fancy resume, doctored for each assignment. The Harper Bowe persona came in handy for frontline worker assignments, such as this. Because we usually wanted Harper to attract the dark side, as it were, her online presence consisted of a Facebook page depicting heavy drinking, lewd body shots, in-your-face comments and lots of partying, bad-girl style.

  The fact is I love my work, both personas, and nearly everything about my assignments. Adrenaline jolts through my veins each time I slip into a new underc
over role. The stakes are high, lots of money to be made for Geo and me and the consequences of failure or error, at least in this situation, could be life-threatening or disfiguring. As I filled in the mindless application, I contemplated bringing in my on-again, off-again boyfriend, Montaigne Devereux, into the case for his sage advice, but his sage advice would be “hand this over immediately to the police,” an option Gloria wanted to avoid if possible. I decided to spend a day or two undercover and get the lay of the land, then bring in Montaigne if warranted. Geo and I’d made sure that our contract, signed by Gloria, covered the Dick Agency in just such an instance.

  With a flourish, I scribbled a flamboyant Parker Bowe along the bottom line of the application, dated it and stepped back up to the front desk to drag foxy Frenchie out of her keyboard clacking and back into the alternative reality of her job. I’d positioned myself to observe the contents of her e-mail, but she hit Send. I noted the time: eight-thirty AM, to see if Geo could hack into her account later and follow the e-mail trail. She rose, walked over, took the clipboard and application, fixed me with her beady eyes and chimed, “Mr. Gadstone,” a beat passed. She flipped her hair. This time with an angry shake and added “the Third, will see you now. Please follow me.”

  Interesting, I thought, sounds like a mandatory scripting, as I followed her swinging hips through a door and down a maroon carpeted hall. She wore high, spiked black heels and a form-fitting gray skirt that ended just above her knees. A severely cut black blouse topped off the outfit. Kind of a vampire thing goin’ on with her. We hiked all the way to the end of the hall to reach the corner office. She rapped once and swung open the door. The nameplate read, Office of Human Resources: Fredric Gadstone III.

  “Ms. Parker Bowe here for an interview,” she thrust the application onto his desk, pivoted abruptly on her spiked heel and exited before Gadstone III could even rise. The door shut behind her with a force bordering just this side of a slam. When Gadstone III did rise, it was anti-climactic. For having such a big name, Fredrick was a very small man, probably about five foot four inches tall. He was handsome, in a sandy-haired Ken doll sort of way, a tiny Ken doll dressed in a business suit.

  He moved suavely around the desk extending his hand to lightly ‘press the flesh’ as the politicians call it, and that’s exactly what he reminded me of, a politician. He was one of those people who made you feel like a number or a vote, not a person.

  After the brief, obligatory pressing of flesh, he moved back around the desk and began leafing through the application, asking me a few, cursory questions about related experience and my high school diploma. Geo and I decided that I shouldn’t pretend to have any directly related experience because I might get into trouble if they quizzed me in the job interview about specifics, but Fredric Gadston the Third barely seemed to realize I was there, much less get to any specifics. He seemed preoccupied. Fine with me I thought. He asked me if I could stand for long periods and lift fifty pounds or less. I wanted to say I can bench press you over my head, Freddy, I work out so much, but I just nodded my head. Finally, he stood back up, pressed the flesh with me again and said, “Can you start today?”

  “Sure.” Apparently no drug testing or background checks here. If you breathe and can shake hands, voila, you’re in!

  “You’ll be working on what we call the Yellow Flower Line,” he smiled.

  Natch, I thought, since you are probably losing workers on that line if any news of the acid leaked out (no pun intended). Only the more desperate workers will be left. And, perhaps, the perpetrator.

  “I’ll call up the Plant Manager to give you a tour and get you started,” he said as he reached for the phone and dialed someone named Carlita, who must have been nearby, because three swift raps struck the door shortly and in strode Carlita Cordova. Her name, I was soon to learn from Gadston III.

  I’d already decided I was going to have to employ some kind of memory game to keep all of these people straight. I tagged Fredric Gadston the Third as Fake Freddy in my mind, and the front desk help as Malicious Marissa the Schizoid Admin.

  After only a few moments with this new arrival, I tagged her as Carlita, the Cool One. Tall and sturdy, she wore a sleeveless blouse showing off sinewy musculature that easily rivaled mine, and carried herself with a competent, professional ease. She was reserved, though, as if coiled and ready to spring into action at a moment’s notice. I decided to try and make a connection with her.

  “So, Carlita, you’ve got some impressive biceps. How do you keep so toned?”

  “Kickboxing, boxing, karate, weights, running.”

  A woman of few words—as in five. With a heavy focus on self-protection and/or aggression sports, I thought. Those five words turned out to be the only personal words Carlita the Cool One uttered to me during the entire first day that weren’t associated with the job. She was much more comfortable explaining the job than talking about herself as she led me through a quick tour of the plant, explaining the parking arrangement, start and end times, and other expectations. Normally, I’d enter through a side door and park in the back, not the front. Carlita took me into a room where white lab coats hung from the walls. She assigned me a little locker with a key for my handbag and informed me that cell phones were forbidden on the floor. She instructed me to don a lab coat. She did the same. Then she showed me a bin full of hair covers and handed one to me as she tucked her hair into hers. I followed suit, covering up my flaming red spikes. I could see that Carlita was eyeing my spikes as if they were in questionable taste. The hair net was going to do a lot of damage to my cool “do.” Flattened spikes are less than flattering.

  Next we pulled on medical industry plastic gloves. She told me they used to wear nothing on their hands, but the Quality Department had recently made gloves mandatory. I’ll bet, I thought, knowing, though, that gloves would not prevent acid burns depending upon the degree of exposure and the percent leaked into the overall solution. I knew that the acid episode that brought me into the job would have posed minimal risk to workers, unless they were exposed over a long period of time, but who knew what the next criminal act might be? I processed these thoughts while Carlita the Cool One explained that touching product was rare and the gloves were to ensure the purity of the product.

  So that was the company line at this point. Carlita seemed so composed as she spoke of the product purity that I’d be surprised if she turned out to be the perpetrator. However, I decided to text her name to Geo on my break anyway.

  I followed behind her toward some double doors thinking it was hard to stand out as a bad girl when everyone dressed the same and covered their hair. A hair net neutralized the negative powers of my red tinged spikes not to mention permanently flattening them. While I ruminated on how to overcome these limitations, Carlita instructed me to swipe my temporary badge before passing through the door. She reminded me that an alarm would sound if I failed to swipe my badge, apparently it was programmed to recognize Temporary. Then Carlita the Cool One swung open the double doors to lead us into the main work environment.

  The first thought that flashed through my mind as the doors swung closed behind us was how vast the manufacturing floor was. My second thought was how sweet the air smelled. Essence of flower, I assumed. The factory floor consisted of spotless concrete floors, all sizes of shiny vats, a maze of metal stairways, and at least a twenty-five-foot-high ceiling, maybe taller. I knew the facility covered a half block of real estate from my Google Earth search last night with Geo. Gloria ran an impressive place, and this was just one of her businesses.

  “Gloria Strumheinnie, the owner, commissioned a special plant layout to facilitate optimum production,” Carlita explained, not without some pride in her voice, I noted, as we began climbing up steep metal steps to the highest metal walkway. The ceiling was still a good five feet above our heads. From here the view was really impressive. Carlita began pointing out key features of the manufacturing and distribution process from our high vantage point. I gripped th
e metal rail and looked down. A fall from that height would not end well.

  The central focus of the immense room was a gigantic, open vat of what looked like creamy, white lotion. A huge, metal arm, like an egg beater extended out over the mixture. Not only did the egg beater apparatus turn constantly, but the arm itself rotated around the circumference of the vat.

  “This is called the Mother Vat. It’s supposed to be called the Central Base Solution, but no one calls it that. All of our product lines are derived from this base solution. You can see how manufacturing lines extend outward from the Central Base Solution.” Carlita began naming the exotic names of the various products and with each name she’d point to a production line spaced at even intervals and jutting out like a spider’s leg from the Mother Vat. I was fascinated.

  “This way, the flower and plant essence of each unique product line remains pure and can be independently tracked throughout the production process. You will be working on the Yellow Flower line.” She pointed to one of the spider legs below us, adding, “Yellow Flower has rapidly become our top-selling product. It’s growing so fast, we can’t seem to hire quickly enough to support production demands and people are having to work weekend shifts.”

  Further fuel for the hiring story rationale. Carlita led me to the other end of the suspended walkway. As we descended back to the concrete floor, I once again wondered if Carlita the Cool One was somehow involved in the acid lacing incident and what her motives might be if she were. I figured everyone in the plant was temporarily safe now that the Quality Department was on red alert. Unless the Quality Department was involved in the first place? I halted in mid-step down the stairs as I contemplated the ramifications of that thought, gulped once or twice, then resumed my careful steps down the steep incline. On to the Yellow Flower line!

  “We used to do much more of our own distributing, but we’ve grown so fast that we now outsource much of that. Once bottled, the product is packaged, numbered and shelved over there, awaiting the next step in the distribution process.” Carlita pointed to a separate room. I knew from my lunch with Gloria that it was in this room where the acid-laced bottles of Yellow Flower were first discovered in a random quality check by a member of the Quality Team.