by Robin Lamont
The adults laughed while Emmet stepped over to the sink and methodically washed up. After wiping them dry with paper towel he held out his hand to Jude. “Hi, I’m Emmet. I guess you know my wayward daughter?”
“I do,” said Jude, shaking his strong hand. “I’m Jude Brannock.”
Like a light suddenly extinguished, the smile faded from his face. “The animal rights lady? I … uh … I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”
“What?” Caroline burst out.
“Look, I’m a floor supervisor at D&M and we’re under strict orders not to talk to you. What we do and what you do are just not compatible.”
“Emmet, she’s a guest,” Alice pointed out sternly.
Caroline threw her napkin on the table. “Dad, what are you doing? I invited her.”
“I’m sorry.” Emmet stood firm. “But I could get fired if anyone even saw you here.”
Alice admonished him under her breath, “This is not right. She’s a guest in our house, and we don’t have to talk about your work.”
Keeping his eyes trained on Jude, he said harshly, “I know about Frank contacting you, and I know about the videotape – if he really did make one. It’s not here. I don’t know where it is and neither does Verna, so I’d appreciate it if you’d let us all alone. Nothing good is going to come of it.”
Alice’s eyes darted from her husband to Jude. “Emmet, what does Frank have to do–”
“I’m sorry,” he broke in. “Please leave.”
“So am I,” said Jude. “I understand.” She got up from her chair.
“No!” cried Caroline.
Emmet stepped back to let Jude pass, and she reached over to take Caroline’s hand. “Can you walk me to the car?”
The teenager burst into angry sobs, turning on her father. “I can’t believe you’re doing this. God, I hate you!”
Alice put her head in her hands to drown out her daughter’s wails of protest as she accompanied Jude down the driveway. Then the sounds of a car door and wheels on the dirt. Caroline did not reappear.
In the silent kitchen, Emmet sat in his daughter’s chair and began to help himself to the casserole and potatoes while Will watched him expectantly, his lower lip trembling. After a moment, Alice picked up her head, her face gray with sorrow. “She was happy, Emmet,” she said softly. “She was happy tonight.”
Chapter 15
At another dinner table eighty miles away, Richard Hillman gazed appreciatively at his wife. After her golf game, she’d had her hair and nails done. He liked that she kept herself fit and impeccably groomed. Tonight they were hosting three of her friends and their husbands whom Hillman didn’t hate. The weather on the patio had been perfect for cocktails, and now the dining room in their Georgian style home glittered from the crystal chandelier down to the polished silver. Hillman was content.
At least he was until his cell phone vibrated in the chest pocket of his sport coat. With as little fanfare as possible, he checked the screen.
“Excuse me,” he said to the woman at his right.
His wife spotted the move. “Not tonight, Rich, dear,” she moaned with a smile.
“It’s nothing, love. I’ll be right back.” He strode across the front hall into his study and closed the doors behind him. Standing at one of the eight-foot windows overlooking the patio and the rarely used swimming pool, he hit the callback button. The phone rang once.
“This better be important, Bloom,” said Hillman. “My wife is having a dinner party.”
“Two things you should know.” Bloom wasn’t one to apologize. “Marino took out a life insurance policy eighteen months ago. It’s got a two-year suicide clause.”
“Shit. Are they going to open an investigation?”
“I doubt it. The coroner’s ruling makes it a done deal. But Brannock is hanging around. Looks like she’s tracing Marino’s path. She went to the meet spot and then to the Lazy Cat. Talking to the widow, too. She may have suspicions.”
Hillman watched a few leaves drift into the pool and get sucked into the filtering system. Finally, he said, “Well, I trust she won’t find anything.”
“She won’t.”
“As far as the insurance, I’ll contact Warshauer and authorize some kind of payment to Marino’s widow. He can call it a pension or death benefit, but he’s got to shut down the communication between her and Brannock. I’m still concerned about whether Marino made a copy of the video. I know what he told you, but maybe Brannock’s sticking around because she knows something we don’t. She is not to get her hands on it.”
Bloom abruptly ended the call, and Hillman felt the expensive merlot he’d opened for dinner reassert itself up the back of his throat. He’d made a fine living for himself insulating Seldon Marshfield and his firm from trouble. And he would do whatever was necessary to keep it that way. He gave a final look out at the pool receding into the darkness and strode back to his dinner guests. All options were on the table.
***
The glint of an old hubcap dangling on the chain link fence drew Jude’s attention to the sign which was partially obscured by overgrown weeds. Called Kings Court, the trailer park was anything but – streetlamps were out, garbage cans upended, and more than a few dogs ran loose. She crept along a dirt road that wound between rows of trailers until she saw number twenty-seven. Parked in front was the van she’d seen “Juan” drive to the hardware store. But leery of drawing attention to him, she drove further down to a clearing where worn, plastic toys littered the cracked earth. Across the way, three Hispanic men barely out of their teens sat around a picnic table drinking beer. Jude’s arrival elicited some comments and laughter, but the throbbing bass of a Chicano rap group blaring from their radio drowned out their words. She left Finn in the car with the windows cracked and walked back.
Jude knocked on the trailer door. As she hoped, Juan answered, though his eyes widened when he saw who it was. He looked past her anxiously to see if she was alone, then hurried her into the trailer and quickly closed the door. The small space was filled with the smell of cumin and fried onions and Jude’s rumbling stomach reminded her she hadn’t had any dinner. A baby wailed somewhere in the back.
“I would have called, but I didn’t have your number,” said Jude apologetically. “I know it’s asking a lot, but I happened to see the sticker on your van at the hardware store. I was hoping we could talk.”
He shoved his hands in his pockets, looking as though he deeply regretted starting up a conversation in the first place. A pretty woman in her twenties with a baby on her hip swung into view and looked distrustfully back and forth from her husband to Jude as she tried to coax the baby into a better mood.
“This is my wife,” said Juan, clearly unhappy to have to make the introduction.
Jude introduced herself and added, “I met your husband outside the diner and he started to tell me about the animals and what’s happening at D&M.”
She shot her husband a dark glance.
“Ella es una amiga de Frank,” he said softly. “Él le pidió que viniera aquí.”
“A venir acá?” she asked with evident disapproval. “A nuestra casa?
“No. To Bragg Falls.”
They argued in quiet tones for a few moments, their positions plain. Juan was willing to talk – his wife wasn’t. Jude spoke a little Spanish and was able to pick out a few words as he reminded his wife how difficult it was for them when they first started working at the plant and how Frank had helped her get the job with steady hours. How Frank never lied to them, unlike so many others. At one point, he blurted out in English that Frank “had my back,” as he did with the other “Mexicanos” who everyone else treated “como shit.” They owed him a debt and that if Frank cared about the animals that much, they should honor his wishes and talk to this woman.
His wife finally conceded, “Give m
e a minute.” She returned in less than that with the baby sucking furiously on a bottle. She left him in a car seat on a bench at the built-in dining table and resumed her preparations in the kitchenette. “We will eat now. You join us?” she asked. “Only rice and beans.”
“I would love to,” said Jude, meaning it.
Over the fragrant, spicy food, Jude explained how Frank had come to call her. She learned that “Juan’s” real name was Daniel; he had moved to Texas at age nineteen and was hoping to open a restaurant someday. His wife was named Abelina. She was from Mexico City where she had gotten her degree in nursing. But with no luck finding a decent paying job, she had come north to be with Daniel and D&M had hired her to work in casings.
“What do you do in casings?” asked Jude.
“Clean out hog intestines for sausage.”
“Not easy, I suppose.”
“You get used to it. At first, it’s terrible – the blood, the shit, excuse me, and the worms. They are the worst.”
“Roundworms?”
“Yes, many hogs have them, and they’re big, sometimes a foot long. When I was new, the others, they can be really mean, shoving the worms in my face. But I stood up to them and they leave me alone now.”
“It’s a little like life inside a prison,” Daniel interjected with a faint smile. “You gotta be tough and wear your game face.”
Abelina tossed her ponytail over her shoulder and shrugged. “At least I can work a single shift,” she said. “I come home and take care of the baby. Frank work that out for us. Daniel sometime, they make work double shift, one at the tank, then the cleaning crew. Seventeen hours straight, only time to sleep for a few hours, then go back.”
Jude turned her attention to Daniel. “At the diner, you started to tell me that things were happening to the workers and the animals. What kind of things?”
He hesitated, his eyes resting on his young, sleeping son, until his wife nudged him, saying, “Go ahead, tell her.”
Daniel blew out a sigh and opened up. “Okay. I work sometimes at the scalding tank so I see the hogs before they’re cut up. I see what kind of shape they’re in. You can tell if they’ve been dragged because they have scrape marks all over or wounds where they put the hooks to pull them – sometimes in the nose or the mouth.”
Although she had not eaten since lunch, Jude’s appetite disappeared.
“The most important thing is to keep the line going,” Daniel continued. “If there’s a crippled hog in the chute or one that refuses to go, it’s going to stop production. So we got to beat them and use the electric prods to keep them moving. Then sometimes, they trample each other to get away.”
“Have you complained about these things to management or the USDA inspectors?” asked Jude.
Daniel shook his head. “You have to understand,” he said. “I’m okay in this country, but Abelina doesn’t have her green card. And we came to this town because I have relatives, some of them work at D&M, too. I open my mouth, I get them fired. When you’re hungry for the work, you don’t push back.”
“It’s not just the animals,” Abelina broke in. “At my station, a woman died of meningitis and two others got it from bacteria the hogs carry. The inspectors are supposed to watch for hurt pigs or the ones that are sick, but they miss many things. Mr. Warshauer, he calls everything an isolated incident.” Her mouth twisted in an expression that said none of the workers believed that.
Although Daniel had just explained their situation, Jude felt compelled to ask. “If I wrote all this up, would you be willing to sign an affidavit?”
Both of them shook their heads in no uncertain terms and Jude knew it would be pointless to try and convince them otherwise. She reached out and tenderly stroked their son’s chubby fist. “How aware is management of immigration status?” she asked.
Daniel chuckled. “Let me put it this way: to come over the border is expensive, but for an extra hundred bucks you can get a fake ID. You want a job at a place like D&M, that’s all they ask for – that and a heartbeat.”
Jude asked suddenly, “Did you know Frank was taking video inside?” She watched to see their reaction, and they both seemed genuinely surprised.
“I didn’t know that,” said Daniel, finally. “But it’s possible that someone suspected because last week they were doing bag searches at the end of each shift.”
“Looking for a camera you think?” prompted Jude.
“Well, they do that if they think someone is stealing meat, but yeah, maybe looking for a camera.” Daniel paused. “He made the video to give to you?”
Jude nodded, then broached the question she never had the chance to ask Frank, “Why do you think he did it? Bring in a camera, I mean. At the diner you told me he stood up to management, so he was already doing something. But bringing in a camera and taking video would have gotten him fired. He couldn’t afford that, could he?”
Abelina answered, “You could see something building inside him. Frank write letters about the abuse. He send them to some big politicians, but I don’t think they write back. When something bad happened on our side of the floor, he tell us, ‘Just be patient, they’re gonna send someone down. Got to hold on.’ I think he got tired of holding on.”
Daniel had been quietly tracing the edge of his napkin while Abelina spoke. Now he lifted his head and said, “Couple months ago, maybe less, we were standing in line waiting to get our gear and he looked bad. I thought he was mad at me for some reason because he wouldn’t say nothing. But then all of a sudden he turns around and comes up real close,” imitating Frank’s fierce glare, Daniel thrust his face toward Jude, “and says, ‘if you love your wife and your baby, get out of here now before it’s too late, before you stop caring.’”
“Caring about what?” asked Jude.
“About life,” replied Daniel, as if she ought to have known.
“You think he stopped caring about his own life?” asked Jude.
Finn began to bark in the distance and she heard a warning in his tone. “I better go,” she said. “I appreciate everything you’ve told me. You’ve been very helpful, thank you.” She got up from the table, clasped Daniel’s hand and gave Abelina a quick hug.
As she hurried to her car, Jude was met with an unwelcome sight. The young men she’d seen earlier were now clustered around the station wagon taunting Finn.
“Cut it out!” Jude yelled. “Leave him alone.”
One of the men rapped on the window and Finn cowered in the front seat, trembling, lips drawn back in a fearful growl. Inside a confined area like the car, if he perceived a threat, rather than fighting back he became overly submissive – a holdover, Jude believed, from the terrifying prison of his puppyhood.
Jude shouted again, “Hey! Get away from there!”
The boldest of the three stepped forward to intercept her. “Chica, Chica,” he intoned and made whistling noises through his teeth. He couldn’t have been more than nineteen and was drunk, that much was clear; the sweet, yeasty smell of cheap beer preceded him. “You want some, baby?” He made humping moves while he grabbed his crotch and the others laughed.
“Get out of my way,” said Jude, trying to get past him.
He caught her arm and swung her around to face him, thrusting his face into hers. “You want a real man, Chica? I got whatchoo want.”
Jude wrested herself away from his grip. His compatriots watched with anxious anticipation; they had no idea what Finn’s growl meant and it wasn’t unreasonable to think the big dog might break through a window. But at that moment a pair of headlights drew up behind Jude. The boys squinted into the bright beams. A man got out and stepped in front of the lights, his silhouette creating a shadow over the group.
“Get lost, Rodrigo,” he barked to the kid who had grabbed Jude. “You too, Torres.”
Jude recognized his voice. Apparently so did the three boys becau
se they backed off and slunk away. Emmet waited until they disappeared into the darkness and then leaned against the hood of his car. “Are you alright?” he asked.
Furious, she wheeled around and opened the hatchback of the car to let Finn out. He leapt down and now free, his courage returned. He sniffed Jude first to make sure she was safe, then ran to the spot he’d last seen the three encroachers, barking out a warning that if they dared return he would take them on.
“What are you doing here?” Jude demanded.
“You’re welcome,” said Emmet.
“I asked you, what are you doing here?”
“And I’d ask you the same thing.”
“That’s really none of your business.” At a standoff, they stood glaring at one another. Finally, Jude jingled her car keys and said curtly, “You’re blocking me in.”
“I’ll move as soon as you tell me why you’re here,” responded Emmet.
She squared her shoulders. “Did you follow me?” she wanted to know. “Is this about Caroline?”
“No, I didn’t follow you, and no, it’s not about Caroline. I heard you showed up here and I’ve got instructions to keep employees at the plant from talking to you.”
“So you’ve mentioned.” Jude didn’t know if one of the three boys had made the call – or another pair of eyes had seen her at Daniel’s trailer. It seemed like there were eyes on her wherever she went. Meanwhile, Finn had come over to check out Emmet, who put out a reassuring hand to scratch him behind the ears.
“Who’d you talk to?” asked Emmet. He nodded in the direction of Daniel’s trailer. “Was it Daniel Vargas?”
“Is that what your informant told you?”
“Listen, Miss Brannock, we could do this answering a question with a question thing all night, so I’ll get to the point. You’re not doing anybody any favors by snooping around. Trust me when I tell you that no one in Bragg Falls wants you here.”
“That has already been communicated, thank you very much. Today, someone spray painted my car and poured blood all over it. Nice town.”
