The things you miss if you only think it’s an unattended death. “No smoking guns?” I couldn’t resist.
“Well, not exactly,” she said. “However, there’s also a pair of dust masks, labeled N-95 PARTICULATE RESPIRATORS, in the same shoe box. They’re just for dust, though. Tell them what you said, Doc,” she said to Dr. McWhirter.
“I don’t think that kind of mask would be particularly effective against the ricin spray,” he said. “I’d wear something with much finer filtration if I was going to be around that. And it isn’t really adjustable enough to make a good seal.”
“It’s labeled in English,” said Hester. “We’ve had absolutely no indication that Gonzales, or whoever he really is, had any English at all.” She shrugged. “Or that he’d understand the finer points of filtration, anyway. A mask is a mask.”
“Right.”
“I figure the can isn’t leaking,” said Hester, noticing that I was edging back toward the door, “because Big Ears didn’t get sick.”
“Sure,” I said, backing up and leaning up against the doorframe. “Good point.”
“So,” said Hester, “lacking any other information, I’d say that our man here used this spray can to spray the meat that went to New York. Most likely when he carried it into the trucks. I’d say that he used the mask and gloves to protect himself, and somehow either failed to do it right, or soon enough, and the mask was inadequate anyway. Maybe contaminated himself when he took the gloves off. He used a mask that provided some protection, but not enough. Maybe it slipped. Maybe it wasn’t tight.”
“Inept,” I said. “Nontrained, then. Just told to use it but not how?”
“You just earned a place on the speaker’s stand,” said George to Hester.
“What?”
He told her about the next meeting.
“Swell,” said Hester. “Just swell. Not that I’m not glad to do it,” she said, “but we really need to get moving on the homicide.”
“I know, and I’m sorry,” said George. “We’ll free you up as soon as possible. Really.”
“Just one of those little adjustments,” I said.
“But we do have an hour or so, I suspect,” said George. “Why don’t we make some appointments to talk to the fellow workers…you know, the ones who worked with Gonzales and this…?”
“Cueva,” I said. Hester and I exchanged looks. “You wanna tell him?”
“Tell me what?” asked George, falling neatly into the setup.
“Well,” I said, “we’ve got a bit of a problem interviewing the coworkers. The majority of them are not here…well… legally.”
That really got his attention.
“It appears that they all left the area the night after Cueva was shot,” I said. “A couple hundred of ‘em, at least. They had to shut down the plant, so many were gone.”
“Well, damn,” said George.
“That’s what we said,” said Hester.
“We’re looking.” I explained about Wisconsin, and Harry’s search over there. “No luck yet.”
“They could have run to a major metro area,” said George. “Gone forever, in a practical sense, if they did that.”
“We’re hoping,” said Hester, “that they drift back when the heat’s off. Next day or two.”
“I hope you’re right,” said George. “We’re all going to need to talk with those people.”
“We have a couple of names,” I said helpfully. “Maybe you guys could help us find them? They could lead to all sorts of good things…”
During this exchange, both Attorney Bligh and Dr. McWhirter started to get a little fidgety.
“Ah, we’re sort of out of our purview here,” said Bligh. “Our concern is the toxic substance and its effects. Ah, if you think this is a criminal matter…”
“You’re in this for the duration,” said George. “We might be wrong. Unlikely though that is. But we need your work to establish a basis in fact for our case, sort of the antithesis, so to speak. Or the thesis, and we do the antithesis. Whatever. We need you to prove that an accident either did or did not occur. This is going to be a really multijurisdictional effort, in all respects.”
Neither Bligh nor McWhirter looked particularly pleased at that.
When we all got back to the sheriff’s department, Hester and I ducked in the back door to avoid the media people who were sitting in the main parking lot with their engines running. I really thought that somebody should have at least had the courtesy to ask them in to the booking room, where there were a couple of seats and it was warmer, but I didn’t say anything. I didn’t say anything because the first person I met was Lamar, who greeted me with, “Where’d all those damned reporters come from?”
“Beats me,” I said. “George Pollard is right behind us, and he wants to talk to you. When he does, you’ll know why Hester and I have to get our reports up to date in the next couple of hours. We gotta get busy,” I said, passing him and heading down the hall.
“You got us in trouble again? “he called after us.
“You betcha!” I called over my shoulder.
About an hour later, when Hester and I were about done typing and sorting things out, Lamar came into my office. He even knocked before he opened the door. That was rare.
“You think this is really this big?”
“You spoke to George, right?” I asked, looking up from my stack of case photos.
“I sure did. What do you think about this? Is he right?”
“I think so,” I said. “It sure takes care of some very loose ends.”
“How about you, Hester? “he asked.
“There’s a good chance they’re on to something,” she said. “The connection to the delis in New York just about clinches it.”
“Damn,” said Lamar, and sat down in on my desk. He picked up a few photos, but wasn’t really looking at them. “As soon as the media got wind of the CDC people showing up here,” he said, “they started pissin’ and moanin’ about ‘access.’ God, I hate it when they do that.”
“Wait until after the briefing,” said Hester. “I think the feds will have a spokesperson assigned. They’ll handle that.”
“I hope so,” said Lamar. “I’m always afraid I’m gonna say somethin’ and accidentally give somethin’ away. It’s worse ‘n court.”
“This is so far out of our hands,” I said, “I think we can just concentrate on making sure we know who killed Cueva.”
“Easy for you to say,” he said. “I been on the phone with Abe Goldstein.” He glanced at Hester. “He’s the guy who owns the plant. The media have been calling him at his office, and at home, all day. He claims he’s the victim of anti-Semitism. Hell, he’s right. But I don’t know what to tell the poor bastard. He says he’s about to be ruined, that he and his family have spent their whole lives making good on his father’s reputation for top products. Now he says the ‘authorities’ say his food kills his friends and relatives in New York. What the hell can I do?”
“It’s not his fault,” said Hester. “Not that that’ll mean a damned thing.”
“He wants to know if we can help him make sure it won’t happen again.”
“We’ll do our very best,” she said. “You could tell him that the plant being shut down right now is the best thing that could have happened to him. With the health people going over everything, we can make sure he’s off to a clean start when production starts again.”
“Maybe,” said Lamar. “Oh, and while I’m at it, I had to send an officer back to court with another application for a search warrant.”
“What?”
“Yeah. Mr. County Attorney Hilgenberg walked off the premises after the first search and left his file folder in the apartment. He didn’t discover it was missing until after he got back here.”
One of the things about search warrants is, you have the right to be there as long as it takes you to do the search. But you can’t go back ten minutes later, not without another, separate search warrant.
“That man,” said Hester, “is going to drive me crazy. I hope nobody got into the apartment and read his
