Fostering Death (8 page)

“Big?”

“Taller than me, but even skinnier.”

“You ain’t telling me a damn thing worth anything. I bet this guy don’t even exist. You’re just making it all up.”

A cunning look crept into Aaron’s bloodshot eyes. “He knows about you.”

“What do you mean, he knows about me?”

“He knows you’re on parole. For murder. He says maybe you’ll end up going down for the old lady’s death.”

“Why does he say that?” I leaned hard on my arm.

“I dunno, Jesse. I swear.” Aaron coughed, and his hands clawed at my arm.

“Tell me what you do know. Or it’ll be
your
death I’m going down for. And it’ll be worth it.”

“I can’t breathe,” he gasped.

I took some of the pressure off. “Talk.”

“Just that Zee said the old lady owed him.”

“Why would she owe him?”

“
I
don’t know. He said the old lady gave him money sometimes.”

I leaned a little harder. “Why would she give Zee money?”

“Please, Jesse.” Tears came to Aaron’s bleary eyes. “He said he needed money. He was supposed to pay child support. He needed a lawyer to try to get his kid to live with him. And he was using whatever money he got to cop drugs.”

That I could believe.

A gust of wind picked up some newspaper from the asphalt and blew it against the wall. Sharp needles of sleet drilled into the back of my neck.

I eased up and let Aaron plant his feet firmly on the ground. He straightened his jacket and pulled a crumpled tissue from his pocket. “You could’ve hurt me, Jesse.”

Looking at him in disgust, I shoved my hands in my pockets, as much to keep them from punching Aaron in the face as to get them out of the cold. “I still got the same thing to say to you. Go to an NA meeting. Ask them to help you get your act together.”

“I don’t need no help.”

“Yeah? What are you gonna do when you lose your job?”

Aaron’s lip curled. “Ain’t gonna lose it. That ain’t such a good job, anyhow. I can get another one.”

It was a calculated risk, but I turned my back on Aaron and retreated to my apartment. I needed to get some sleep before I had to go to work. Then I had to clean the cat pan and set out enough food in case I stayed the night at Kelly’s. Like I hoped.

Chapter 6

W
HEN
I L
EFT
F
OR
W
ORK
that night, the sleet had stopped and light from a few brittle stars glittered on the ice-covered sidewalks. I hunched into my jacket and headed into the wind.

A snow plow rumbled by. Its blade made no dent on the frozen streets, but it dumped cinders in its wake, which would give traction. I backed up against a crumbling brick wall to avoid being cindered myself as it passed.

Inside the plant, a much smaller than usual group of workers huddled around the picnic tables waiting for John to hand out assignments. The roads were treacherous. Would they cancel most of the production shift? A few of the operations, like the plating line, took a good six or eight hours to set up and tear down, so some people would be assigned to those jobs. Any union member who clocked in would be paid for four hours.

Since I wasn’t in the union yet, they didn’t have to pay me for anything I didn’t work. If most production was canceled, they wouldn’t need two lift operators on the shift, and of course Kelly had seniority and would get the nod. But I could operate the platers. Maybe they’d put me on that.

The workers from the shift that was ending looked at our diminished numbers uneasily. How bad were the roads? The parking lot outside was filled with older American-made pickup trucks, most of them rear wheel drive. Notoriously unreliable on icy roads.

John came out with his clipboard and counted heads. He began issuing jobs, most of them on the continuous operating lines. I held my breath while he assigned the four platers to other workers, two of them people who had never run them before. My heart sank. I couldn’t really afford to miss a shift’s pay, but it wasn’t something I could control.

Finally he turned to me. “We’re not running much production tonight,” he said. “And the roads are bad. I don’t think we’ll get too many trucks in. Do you think you can handle what needs to be done on both jobs, if I keep track of where you’re needed next?”

“Yeah. But how about Kelly? She’s got seniority.”

He raised those busy eyebrows and looked down at me from his six-foot-six height. “She called in,” he said.

“Oh.” Kelly needed the money as much as I did. Was she sick? Or one of the kids? Maybe the babysitter couldn’t make it because of the weather.

Regardless, I was working tonight.

John was right about the light traffic. Only one truck pulled in, and when I got it unloaded, the driver called his dispatcher and said he was going to catch some shuteye in the cab right there in the loading bay.

When John told me to take my last break of the shift, I headed to the men’s room. Aaron, who had inexplicitly shown up for work and was on his usual place on the packing line, was sitting at the break table with Clay, a plater operator. Cardboard cups of what the vending machine passed off as coffee sat next to them. In this corner of the plant, the thunder of the machinery was muted, and when Aaron raised his voice, I could hear him clearly.

“Well, look who’s snuck off from work,” he said loudly, rubbing the spot on his neck that was probably still sore from my arm pressing against it. “If it ain’t the shift snitch himself.”

Clay glanced in my direction. “What do you mean, snitch?”

“You don’t know?” Aaron took a sip of the muddy dark liquid in his cup. “Jesse, there, he’s on parole.”

Clay gave him a pained look. “I know that. Everybody knows that. Half the new hires on the production staff are on parole. The company gets some kind of a tax break for hiring ex-cons.”

“Yeah. But Jesse’s got a murder conviction.”

“Don’t matter to me, long as he don’t murder me,” Clay said.

Aaron rubbed his neck. “Jesse’s got years of back-up time. He’s trying to get in good with the parole people, so he snitches out anybody he can. That’s why they got him driving the lift. So he can go anywhere he wants to without anybody thinking twice about it.”

Clay scratched his head under his hard hat. “He thinks he can get in good with his parole officer by telling him things that happen here at work?”

“Well…” Aaron had the decency to look confused. “He reports most stuff to the company management, to get in good with them. And any criminal stuff he tells his PO.”

“And just what is he finding out and reporting?”

“Anybody who’s swiping any of the materials or supplies from the plant.”

Clay raised his eyebrows. “Sheet metal and wire? Steel shelving? I can’t imagine anybody making off with enough of anything here to make a difference. It’s heavy. How would you get it out? And how would you sell it?”

“Scrap.”

“You’re telling me,” Clay said, a puzzled look on his face, “that somebody’s making off with enough steel from here to sell for scrap? Without anybody noticing? And if they did, where would they sell it? I know for a fact that there’s been a lot of copper pipes and wiring stolen around the city in the last few years. All the junkyards have to keep records of what they buy. They even ask for a photo ID now when you’re selling scrap.”

Aaron set his mouth stubbornly. “He’s supposed to report anything. Like anybody drinking or smoking or dealing drugs.”

Shaking his head, Clay grabbed his paper cup and squashed it in his hand. It wasn’t quite empty, and a muddy stream dribbled down his arm. “Why would he do that? If he wanted to stay out of prison, I’d think he’d stay as far away from that crap as he could.”

“You’d think,” Aaron said. “But I know for a fact that he’s using himself. Can’t kick the habit. Long as he rolls over on the rest of us, they don’t violate him.”

“But they let him drive a forklift?” Clay tossed the cup into the trash barrel standing next to the table. “Suppose he’s high on something at work? They won’t tolerate that. Especially in a driver. Don’t make sense to me.”

“Don’t have to make sense.” Aaron drained the last of his coffee.

Clay turned his thick head on its bull-like neck and looked in my direction. “I don’t do nothing but a little hit of weed every once in a while. He’d just better mind his own business as far as I’m concerned.”

I decided pretending I didn’t hear them was the approach, so I ignored them and pushed open the door to the men’s room.

They were gone by the time I came out.

That was about what I would expect from Aaron. I’d be willing to bet
he
was the snitch. And I supposed he’d be pissed with me after the little incident in the alley.

When the eight a.m. whistle blew, ending the shift, it took me a few minutes extra to hook the lift up to its charger.

When I went to pick up my lunchbox from the table, it was gone.

People usually just left their lunch on the tables near the time clock. A few decrepit vending machines dispensed stale snacks, cans of off-brand soda, and the muddy liquid that purported to be coffee. Most of the production staff knocked off for lunch at the same time and ate there. Those of us who got our breaks at different times usually ate at a table out by shipping, where the noise and fumes from the machinery wasn’t as bad.

I
knew
I’d put my lunchbox on the table out here after I’d finished eating.

It could have gotten knocked on the floor or something. I looked under the tables and then carefully scanned the collection of lunch boxes and bags the day shift had left on the tables.

It wasn’t there.

John came by, zipping up his jacket. “Looking for something, Jesse?” he asked.

“My lunchbox.”

“Sure you left it there?”

“Yeah.”

“Clay had an extra lunchbox on his way out. He said he found it back on the table in shipping. Think you could have left it there?”

“Maybe.” But I was sure I hadn’t.

“I told him to put it in the lost-and-found box.”

“Where’s that?” If Clay’d taken my lunchbox, I doubted I’d find it there. Or anywhere. Unless he’d put some of the potassium cyanide from the plating room in the Thermos or something.

“It’s in the timekeeper’s office. There’s a slot under the window for small stuff. But a lunchbox wouldn’t fit, so I unlocked the door so Clay could put it in there. I’m sure the timekeeper’s in there now, though, so you can just go ask her if you could take a look.”

“Thanks.”

The timekeeper wouldn’t let me into her office, but when I told her what I was looking for, she came up with my lunchbox and opened the door just wide enough to pass it out to me.

I had a feeling that if John hadn’t seen Clay leaving with it, my lunchbox would never have ended up there. But I was going to wash it out really well before I put anything in it again. And see if, in the future, I couldn’t stash it in the plating room office instead of leaving it out on the table.

Weak morning sun washed across the sidewalk as I stepped outside and pondered what to do. Yesterday Kelly had invited me over to her place today, but she hadn’t shown up for work. Was she okay? I badly wanted to go check up on her. Would that just make her mad at me?

If she didn’t want to see me, I could just turn around and leave, I decided, heading in the opposite direction from my apartment. Kelly lived in a residential section of town, in a big old stone house she was trying to keep after her divorce. I knew it was a struggle. She loved the house and said she didn’t want to uproot the kids. They went to the best school in town, and if she moved, they might have to switch schools.

A patrol car eased down the street, slowing down. Was it following me?

I pulled my hood up over the watch cap and shoved my hands in my pockets. At least there wasn’t any snow falling. Or worse, freezing rain. I tucked my head into the wind and set out across town, avoiding the little knots of kids waiting for buses, their vigilant guardians nearby. The road crews must have made considerable progress clearing the roads if school was starting on time.

By the time I got to Kelly’s house, the school buses had picked up all their passengers, and the parents had gone inside or left for work. I glanced behind me but saw no sign of the patrol car.

The walk and steps up to Kelly’s front porch glistened with ice. A haphazard path, a single snow shovel scoop wide, meandered along the sidewalk in front of the house. The driveway was passable, but no tire tracks showed on the newest dusting of snow.

I thought about going around to the back door, which Kelly usually used. But that seemed pretty familiar, and I wasn’t sure what kind of reception I was going to get, so maybe the front door would be better.

The front steps were slick, so I was careful until I got to the front porch. I pushed the doorbell. Its muffled chimes sounded inside the house, but otherwise it was silent. No lights appeared to be on.