Hard Row dk-13

by Margaret Maron

  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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  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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  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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  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.”