“I don’t know why you’re doing this, John. I mean, who cares if somebody found a bullet in their hamburger?”
“
It took us almost an hour to find St. Croix Meats because the building was way in back of an industrial park —a big gray rectangular place with six or seven black panel vans parked outside it and no signs outside. The only reason I knew that we had come to the right place was because I saw Mr. Le Renges walking across the yard outside with the biggest ugliest dog that I had ever seen in my life. I’m not a dog expert but I suddenly realized who had been advertising in
“What are you going to do now?” Velma asked me. There was a security guard on the gate and there was no way that a 289-pound man in a flappy white raincoat was going to be able to tippy-toe his way in without being noticed.
Just then, however, I saw the guy with the scar who had delivered our hamburgers that morning. He climbed into one of the black vans, started it up, and maneuvered it out of the yard.
“Follow that van,” I asked Velma.
“What for, John?”
“I want to see where it goes, that’s all.”
“This is not much of a date, John.”
“I’ll make it up to you, I promise.”
“Dinner and wild energetic love?”
“We could skip the dinner if you’re not hungry.”
* * *
We followed the van for nearly two-and-a-half hours, until it began to grow dark. I was baffled by the route it took. First of all it stopped at a small medical center in Pembroke. Then it went to a veterinarian just outside of Mathias. It circled back toward Calais, visiting two small dairy farms, before calling last of all at the rear entrance of Calais Memorial Hospital, back in town.
It wasn’t always possible for us to see what was happening, but at one of the dairy farms we saw the van drivers carrying cattle carcasses out of the outbuildings, and at the Memorial Hospital we saw them pushing out large wheeled containers, rather like laundry-hampers.
Velma said, “I have to get back to work now. My shift starts at six.”
“I don’t understand this, Velma,” I said. “They were carrying dead cattle out of those farms, but USDA regulations state that cattle have to be processed no more than two hours after they’ve been slaughtered. After that time, bacteria multiply so much that they’re almost impossible to get rid of.”
“So Mr. Le Renges is using rotten beef for his hamburgers?”
“Looks like it. But what else? I can understand rotten beef. Dozens of slaughterhouses use rotten beef. But why did the van call at the hospital? And the veterinarian?”
Velma stopped the car outside the motel and stared at me. “Oh, you’re not serious.”
“I have to take a look inside that meatpacking plant, Velma.”
“You’re sure you haven’t bitten off more than you can chew?”
“Very apt phrase, Velma.”
* * *
My energy levels were beginning to decline again so I treated myself to a fried shrimp sandwich and a couple of Molson’s with a small triangular diet-sized piece of pecan pie to follow. Then I walked around to the hospital and went to the rear entrance where the van from St. Croix Meats had parked. A hospital porter with greasy hair and squinty eyes and glasses was standing out back taking a smoke.
“How’s it going, feller?” I asked him.
“Okay. Anything I can do for you?”
“Maybe, I’ve been looking for a friend of mine. Old drinking buddy from way back.”
“Oh, yeah?”
“Somebody told me he’s been working around here, driving a van.
Said they’d seen him here at the hospital.”
The greasy-haired porter blew smoke out of his nostrils. “We get vans in and out of here all day.”
“This guy’s got a scar, right across his mouth. You couldn’t miss him.”
“Oh you mean the guy from BioGlean?”
“BioGlean?”
“Sure. They collect, like, surgical waste, and get rid of it.”
“What’s that, ‘surgical waste’?”
“Well, you know. Somebody has their leg amputated, somebody has their arm cut off. Aborted fetuses, stuff like that. You’d be amazed how much stuff a busy hospital has to get rid of.”
“I thought they incinerated it.”
“They used to, but BioGlean kind of specializes, and I guess it’s cheaper than running an incinerator night and day. They even go round auto shops and take bits of bodies out of car wrecks. You don’t realize, do you, that the cops won’t do it, and that the mechanics don’t want to do it, so I guess somebody has to.”
He paused, and then he said, “What’s your name? Next time your buddy calls by, I’ll tell him that you were looking for him.”
“Ralph Waldo Emerson. I’m staying at the Chandler House on Chandler.”
“Okay … Ralph Waldo Emerson. Funny, that. Name kind of rings a bell.”
* * *
I borrowed Velma’s car and drove back out to Robbinstown. I parked in the shadow of a large computer warehouse. St. Croix Meats was surrounded by a high fence topped with razor-wire and the front yard was brightly floodlit. A uniformed security guard sat in a small booth by the gate, reading
I waited for over an hour, but there didn’t seem to be any way for me to sneak inside. All the lights were on, and now and then I saw workers in hard hats and long rubber aprons walking in and out of the building. Maybe this was the time for me to give up trying to play detective and call the police.
The outside temperature was sinking deeper and deeper and I was beginning to feel cold and cramped in Velma’s little Volkswagen. After a while I had to climb out and stretch my legs. I walked as near to the main gate as I could without being seen, and stood next to a skinny maple tree. I felt like an elephant trying to hide behind a lamppost. The security guard was still awake. Maybe he was reading an exciting article about the sudden drop in cod prices.
I had almost decided to call it a night when I heard a car approaching along the road behind me. I managed to hide most of me behind the tree, and Mr. Le Renges drove past, and up to the front gate. At first I thought somebody was sitting in his Lexus with him, but then I realized it was that huge ugly Presa Canario. It looked like a cross between a Great Dane and a hound from hell, and it was bigger than he was. It turned its head and I saw its eyes reflected scarlet. It was like being stared at by Satan, believe me.
The security guard came out to open the gate, and for a moment he and Mr. Le Renges chatted to each other, their breath smoking in the frosty evening air. I thought of crouching down and trying to make my way into the slaughterhouse behind Mr. Le Renges’ car, but there was no chance that I could do it without being spotted.
“Everything okay, Vernon?”
“Silent like the grave, Mr. Le Renges.”
“That’s what I like to hear, Vernon. How’s that daughter of yours, Louise? Got over her autism yet?”
“Not exactly, Mr. Le Renges. Doctors say it’s going to take some time.”
Mr. Le Renges was still talking when one of his big black vans came burbling up the road and stopped behind his Lexus. Its driver waited patiently. After all, Mr. Le Renges was the boss. I hesitated for a moment and then I sidestepped out from behind my skinny little tree and circled around the back of the van. There was a wide aluminum step below the rear doors, and two door-handles that I could cling on to.
