him blankets and let him sleep in the shed. They also
helped him repair the damage he had done. Saturday,
her cousin Miguel gave him his wages and told him to
leave. More than that, she says she doesn’t know.”
She did give them the number for her cousin’s cell
phone though; and when Dwight called it, Miguel Diaz
told them where they were working. The site was a new
development off Ward Dairy Road near Bethel Baptist,
less than fifteen minutes away.
He was waiting for them at the entrance of the new
subdivision, and Dwight tried to take his measure as
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Diaz got out of his truck to meet them. A clean-shaven
man with light brown skin and straight black hair.
Without that black Stetson and the workboots, he’d
probably stand five-nine or five-ten, just a shade taller
than Mayleen Richards. Regular features. Slim hips and
a slender build that conveyed strength and confidence.
Hard to read his face because he wore mirrored sun-
glasses this bright sunny morning.
Dwight introduced himself and they shook hands. In
lightly accented English, Diaz asked how he might be
of service.
“We’re looking for Ernesto Palmeiro,” Dwight said.
“We’re told you went to court for him last week and
that he works for you now.”
“Did work,” Diaz said easily. “No more. He left for
Mexico on Saturday. At least that’s where he said he was
going. Is there more trouble, Major Bryant?”
“Didn’t you guarantee he’d repair the yards he plowed
up?”
“They’re finished. We put the last yard back with new
bushes Friday night. I let him work for me during the
day, then work on the damages in the evening, and I
kept his pay till it was finished, just like I promised the
judge.”
He seemed puzzled by the three cars that still flashed
their emergency lights. “All this for some flowers and
bushes? I can show you, Major. It’s all fixed.”
“Not flowers and bushes,” Dwight said. “You’ve
heard about Buck Harris? Palmeiro’s boss? Owner of
the farm where he used to live and work, and where he
stole that tractor?”
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“He was killed, yes?” He shook his head. “A bad busi-
ness. Very bad.”
“Ernesto Palmeiro did it.”
Impossible to gauge his reaction behind those reflec-
tive glasses. Diaz did not exclaim or protest, but he did
let out the long indrawn breath he had taken.
“You don’t seem surprised,” Dwight said grimly.
“Did I know he was the butcher? No, Major. But
you’re right. I think I am not surprised. You heard about
his son? His first child? Who died the same hour he was
born, thanks be to God?” He crossed himself.
Dwight nodded. “Why did he blame Harris?”
“It was his farm. María was working there. Beyond
that I don’t know. I didn’t want to know. I gave him
work and a place to stay. I spoke for him in court and
as soon as I had done all that I pledged, I paid him his
money and told him to leave. He said he was going
home. The honor of my village required me to help him
when he asked for it. It did not require me to like him
or take him to my bosom.”
No, thought Dwight. Just my deputy. And how much
did she know? She had flushed bright red when Deborah
mentioned Diaz’s name.
“How much money did he leave with?”
“Fifteen hundred dollars. I gave him the flowers and
shrubs at our cost.”
“We’ll want to speak to your men who worked with
him.”
“Of course, Major, but they’ll only tell you the
same.”
“I bet they will,” Dwight said. He motioned to
Raeford McLamb, who had stood nearby listening.
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“Separate those men and get a statement from each of
them as to what they knew about Palmeiro.”
“Want me to translate for you?” asked Diaz with a
slight smile.
“No thanks,” Dwight said. “We brought our own
translator.”
It took less than an hour. Each man was separately
questioned, then allowed to go back to work.
Dwight did not wait to hear the predictable results.
Instead, he got in his truck and drove over to the old
Buckley place, Harris Farm #1, where Richards and
Jamison were bearing down on Felicia Sanaugustin and
Mercedes Santos, who swore separately and together
that they knew nothing about the Palmeiros or their
baby.
“I don’t understand why they keep saying that,” a
frustrated Richards told Dwight. “They know we know
that the baby was born here in the camp and that the
EMS truck responded to an emergency call here in
January. Why won’t they admit that the baby was still-
born and had serious birth defects?”
“Maybe for the same reason they didn’t tell you about
Mrs. Harris falling in the mud puddle till they knew she
had told you,” Dwight said. “Let me go see if she’s
here.”
He drove up to the house and found Mrs. Harris and
her daughter having coffee in the bright sunny kitchen
with Mrs. Samuelson. Even though the housekeeper
immediately stood and busied herself over at the sink
the moment he entered, it was clear from the plates
and cups on the table that neither woman stood on
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MARGARET MARON
ceremony with the other. No bosslady/servant protocol
here.
More than ever, the Harris daughter looked like
someone who had come straight from a soup kitchen.
She wore loose-fitting black warm-up pants and an over-
sized Duke sweatshirt that hung on her thin frame.
“We know who killed your father, Mrs. Hochmann,”
he said when the formalities were done.
She looked at him, startled. “Who?”
“One of the migrant workers here, an Ernesto
Palmeiro.”
The name clearly meant nothing to her. Even Mrs.
Samuelson looked blank. But not Mrs. Harris.
“He and his wife María worked in the tomato crop
here,” he said. “She got pregnant last spring and had
a baby here in January. Either stillborn or it died soon
after. We’ve heard conflicting stories.”
Mrs. Hochmann looked concerned and murmured
sympathetically. Her mother sat silently.
“It was born without arms or legs. It was only a torso
with a head,” he said.
“Oh my God!” said Susan Hochmann. “That’s why
he—? But why, Major?”
“Ask your mother,” Dwight said harshly.
“My mother?” She turned in her chair. “Mother?”
“Has she told you what she and your father really
fought about last spring when María Palmeiro was less
than one month pregnant? When that baby was still
forming
in her womb?”
“Mother?”
“Be still, Susan! He doesn’t know,” her mother said.
“He’s only guessing.”
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“Am I? We’ll subpoena the records for this farm.
They’ll show who was where when the tomatoes were
sprayed that week. Too many people know.”
“Records are sometimes spotty.” She gave a dismissive
shrug. “And these are my people. They won’t talk.”
Dwight looked at her, genuinely puzzled. “Why are
you still protecting him?”
“He made the workers go into the field before it was
safe?” asked her daughter.
“Sid Lomax described your father as somebody who
couldn’t bear to see workers standing around idly while
the clock was running,” Dwight said. “You yourself de-
scribed the trailers he used to house them in, trailers
that had no running water where they could wash off
the pesticides. Why did they need to wash off the pesti-
cides, Mrs. Harris? They would have been safe if they’d
waited forty-eight hours to go back in the fields.”
Susan Hochmann looked sick.
“Oh, Mother,” she whispered.
At that moment the light finally broke for Dwight as
he looked at the older woman’s weathered face. “You’re
afraid of another fine, aren’t you? Another OSHA inves-
tigation. Maybe a huge lawsuit. You don’t want another
scandal for Harris Farms. Did you give María Palmeiro
money to go back to Mexico, Mrs. Harris?”
“She wanted to go home,” Mrs. Harris said angrily.
“She’d lost her baby. The marriage was a mess. She
just wanted to leave and forget it all. So yes, I gave her
money. But that doesn’t mean Harris Farms caused the
baby’s birth defects.”
Susan Hochmann’s shoulders slumped as if weighted
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MARGARET MARON
down by a ton of guilt and she shook her head in dis-
belief.
“It all fits, doesn’t it?” Dwight said wearily. “Buck
Harris was killed in that empty shed, but it was a shed
that held spraying equipment. He was dismembered to
look like the baby. Then his head and his”—he hesitated
over leaving that second grisly image in the daughter’s
mind—“his head was left in the field where his wife was
contaminated. It was that back field, wasn’t it?”
Mrs. Harris nodded. “She didn’t go in too soon,”
she said dully. “She was there while they were spraying.
When I got down there that day and saw what was hap-
pening, I screamed at them to come out of the field and
I sent them back to the camp to take showers. They were
all green with it. But it was the second day of spraying
and she was at the most vulnerable stage of pregnancy.
I didn’t know she was pregnant. I don’t think she even
knew for sure at that point. Buck and I got into it hot
and heavy then. Sid Lomax wouldn’t have let it happen,
but Sid was in California. His father had died. So Buck
was in charge and by God he wasn’t going to coddle
anybody or pay a dime for people to stand around and
wait till it was safe. ‘You made me put in fancy hot and
cold showers,’ he said. ‘Let ’em go wash off. Where’s
the harm?’ After that, I stayed in New Bern and I didn’t
know about María till Mercedes Santos called me. I
came immediately. And yes, I gave her the money to
bury her baby and yes, I gave her money to fly home.
Enough to buy a little house and a sewing machine and
start a new life for herself. All her husband wanted to do
was stay drunk. She’s better off without him.”
“He didn’t think so,” Dwight said and turned on his
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heel and walked out. He needed air. Long deep drafts
of clean spring air.
Mayleen Richards was waiting beside his truck. “No
luck, Major?”
He gave her a quick synopsis of what had passed in
the kitchen but before they could confer on their next
actions, Susan Hochmann called from the back porch
and crossed the yard to them.
“You were right,” she said, nodding to Richards.
“Mother’s terrified of a lawsuit. I’m not though. What
can I do to help?”
“Do you speak Spanish?” Richards asked.
The woman nodded.
“Mrs. Sanaugustin let slip something that makes me
think her husband might know more than he’s told,
but she’s clammed up altogether now and won’t say a
word.”
“Sanaugustin?”
Dwight told her about the worker who said he had
seen the bloody slaughter scene in the shed on Saturday,
two days before they discovered it.
“Sanaugustin,” Mrs. Hochmann said again. “Felicia?”
“Sí,” said Richards and immediately turned as red as
the shoulder-length red hair that gleamed in the sun-
light. “I mean, yes.”
“Let me talk to her. I think she trusts me almost as
much as she trusts Mother.”
She got in the prowl car with Richards and Dwight
led the way back down to the camp. It took a few min-
utes, but at last Felicia Sanaugustin threw up her hands
and told them everything. Yes, the baby was as they
had said. Yes, María Palmeiro had been covered with
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MARGARET MARON
pesticide. No, she did not know the name. Only that
it was green and it made them break out in a rash even
though they washed it off every day. And yes, she ad-
mitted, she and Rafael knew that Ernesto had killed
el patrón. Early Monday morning, before it was really
light, Rafael had walked up to the sheds to get a dolly
to move the old refrigerator out in preparation for the
new one la señora had promised to bring. As he ap-
proached the empty shed, he had felt a great need to re-
lieve himself and so had stepped into the bushes there.
A moment before he finished, he heard the rusty hinge
squeak and saw the door open. Then Ernesto Palmeiro
had put out his head and looked all around.
Rafael had stood motionless. Something about the
man’s stealthy movements frightened him so that he
could not even pull up his zipper. The light was still so
poor that it was hard to be sure that it even was Ernesto.
Especially since he was not supposed to be there. He
had been fired the month before.
Sanaugustin waited until he was sure the other was
gone, then curiosity compelled him to look inside the
shed.
“She says we know what he saw,” said Mrs.
Hochmann.
“Your father’s remains?”
She put the question to Felicia Sanaugustin and the
woman shook her head.
“Sangre solamente, ” she whispered.
Only blood.
“But it was fresh blood. And it dripped from the back
of the car,” said Susan Hochmann, desperately trying
not to let the horror of the woman’s
tale become per-
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sonal. “He closed the door and immediately went back
to the camp and said nothing of what he’d seen to any-
one. Everyone said that Palmeiro was crazy and he was
fearful for his own life if he accused him. He told himself
that he didn’t really know anything for certain at that
point. He did not know for sure what man or animal it
was that had been killed there.”
The migrant woman continued and Mrs. Hochmann
translated. Rafael had brooded all week as the body parts
began to appear along the road, yet no one else con-
nected them with their boss, even when word drifted
down to the camp that people were starting to ask for
him.
So last Saturday, Rafael had sneaked back to the shed.
The smell! The flies! Ai-yi-yi!
This time he had taken some of the money that they
were saving to get a place of their own and he had gone
into town and bought drugs and got arrested. And
what, she wailed, was to happen to them now?
Susan Hochmann spoke in soothing tones and when
the woman had quieted, she said to Dwight, “I told her
nothing was going to happen to them, Major. They’ve
done nothing wrong. Have they?”
“Nothing illegal maybe,” said Dwight, “but they may
have just cut your inheritance pretty drastically. If he’s
willing to testify that he saw Palmeiro leave that bloody
scene early that Monday morning, then your parents’
divorce is invalid. The summary judgment wasn’t signed
until that afternoon. Depending on what your mother
does, it could mean that you won’t get half the business
now.”
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A wry smile flickered across her broad plain face.
“Want to bet?”
Dwight left the mopping up to Jamison and the other
detectives and told Richards to ride back to Dobbs with
him to start the reports and put out an APB on Ernesto
Palmeiro, who had a five-day lead on them and was
probably already back in Mexico by now.
Their talk was of the case and the ramifications of what
they’d learned and the very real likelihood that they’d
never get him extradited back to Colleton County. All
very professional until they were about five miles from
town and Dwight said, “Anything you need to tell me,
Richards?”
“Sir?”
“You heard me.”
“About what, Major?”
“About Miguel Diaz.”
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