Beneath the Cracks (20 page)

Fingers tangled in the loose strands of damp
hair that framed my face.  Johnny peered intently at me. 
"Did you see him the night he was murdered?"

I closed my eyes, felt the tears burn at the
corners as they streaked out on a path dictated by gravity and
guilt.  Yes, that's what this was.  Guilt.  For
killing Rick, for being less than people believed I was, for
failing my father, for not having his strength to compartmentalize
living the life of a good person from the things that must be
done.

Love makes people want to believe the best
in others.  They will dig for excuses and reasons to justify
the worst of deeds.  Johnny Orion must've been the president
of the duped lover's club.  He pressed his lips to my
forehead.

"What did he do to you, Helen?  How
could anyone who loved you ever hurt you this much?"

I pushed the urge for honesty into the pit
of my stomach.  I sucked in a deep breath and perpetuated
another half-truth.  "Part of me is glad he's dead,
Johnny.  He got what he deserved."

A large thumb brushed the moisture from one
cheek.  "Is that what's got you so torn up, that you aren't
sorry Marcos had him killed?"

For once, I didn't lie.  I didn't
confirm or deny.  My head rested against Johnny's chest, arms
clasped around him tightly.  "Don't leave me, Johnny."

In hindsight, I should've told him the
truth.

Chapter 17

I thumbed through the photos of the dead
John Doe victims – including the morgue shot of Detective Cox so we
could maintain the illusion that he too was unidentified – on the
way out to Dupree Farm.  Frustration took up residence on the
tip of my tongue.  "It's going to be obvious that these men
were victims of something.  I mean, since when do three police
detectives show up with a stack of morgue shots and it means
someone died of natural causes?"

"Somebody's gotta try to identify
them.  It ain't like we're goin' in and sayin' these men were
murdered, Eriksson."

"Tony's right, Helen.  We're just going
in to see if we can find names so next of kin can be
notified.  We're not divulging how these men died."

"That's good, because it would be a lie," I
muttered.  "Since we don't know what caused the injuries that
killed them."

"What crawled up your –"

"Tony," Crevan intervened quickly. 
"Let's just focus on finding this Tom Denton and asking him if he
knows the names of any of these men.  We need identities,
regardless of whether it helps us find out how they died."

I pondered Crevan's wisdom at keeping a cool
head and wondered if my foul mood had really been the trigger that
set Tony off that morning.  I knew why I was
irritated. 

Wendell was right.  I should've never
allowed myself to become attached to Darkwater Bay.  He always
told me that I needed to be willing to walk away from anything at a
moment's notice. 
These are things, Sprout.  They
don't matter.  We can always get more somewhere
else. 
I broke the rule.  I got caught up in my dream
house, turning a place into something that was an emotional
attachment.  It didn’t help that my fantasy of killing Datello
somehow got mixed up in every block of stone, every line of mortar,
every fleck of paint so that the house came to represent my resolve
to see the rest of the plan accomplished.

And then I let the ultimate temptation waltz
through the door and straight into my bedroom.  Lies and
anonymity don't blend well when the heart wants to settle down and
wallow in the comfort and security of love.  Even though the
outcome of marriage to Rick was disastrous, he was still a better
choice than Johnny Orion.

Rick didn't love me any more than I loved
him.  What a jumbled mess my life had become.

"I know why I'm in a foul mood this morning,
Briscoe.  What's your problem?"

"Oh, I dunno, Eriksson.  Why would I be
in a bad mood?  I can't seem to talk a speck of goddamned
common sense into anybody."

Crevan's eyes drifted to the scenery out the
window.

"Am I missing something here?"

He snorted.  "Yeah, you're missin'
plenty, Helen.  Maybe I should let you take a run at
Puppy.  Like you said, we divorcees got a club that opens our
eyes to reality."

A light clicked on in my brain. 
"What's the problem, Crevan?"

"There is no problem," he muttered.

"The hell there ain't!  How can you let
that woman blackmail you –"

"Whoa, wait a minute.  Belle is
blackmailing you?"  I perched on the edge of the back
seat.  "Crevan, that's a crime.  If you have evidence
that she's –"

"It isn't blackmail per se," he interrupted
and glared his thanks at Tony for dragging me into the
conversation.  "And I'm done talking about it."

"Tony, what's he done talking about?" 
I tapped Briscoe's shoulder.

"Belle told Crevan if he wants a quickie
divorce so he can move on with his life, he's gotta basically give
her everything.  The house, half his pension, his life
insurance payoff should the gold-digging harpy manage by some
unjust twist of fate to outlive him, the whole shebang.  I
can't imagine what man in his right mind would roll over and take
that, 'specially the pension thing.  Hell, Crevan, you weren't
even married three years, and she wants a pension that's been
growin' since you were barely an adult?  Tell me that ain't
blackmail."

"It's a private matter, Tony.  I'm not
discussing my reasons for going along with what she wants."

My fingers brushed over Crevan's
shoulder.  "I know how difficult all of this can be,
Crevan.  If you need a shoulder, we're here for you.  I
think that's what Tony wants you to know."

"You should take her up on that,
Puppy.  She's the guru in residence.  I bet Eriksson
could tell you how to survive this divorce
without
becoming
a pauper in the process."

"Maybe."  The sullen gaze returned to
fields of grain whizzing past us almost too fast to
identify. 

Then again, I'm a city girl.  I
couldn't tell the difference between a lot of plants, the fruits
they bear being my only exposure.  "Are we getting close to
this place?'

Briscoe grinned.  "You did not just
ask:
are we there yet
?"

The tension dissipated in the car, much like
the overhead cover faded to wispy clouds that barely covered a
small patch of bright blue sky.  The sun was shining outside
Darkwater Bay, and I wanted to stay in its warmth forever.

"What do they grow at this farm?"

Briscoe chuckled.  "Milk,
Eriksson."

"It's a dairy farm?"

Crevan shifted in his seat and looked at
me.  "Uh-huh.  It's the biggest dairy farm in the state,
maybe the whole west coast.  Over half of what they produce is
organic now.  It's really an interesting set up.  They do
have more than dairy cattle, but the crops produced are used for
grain to feed the cows.  It's a massive operation."

"A corporate farm."

"Yep," Briscoe nodded.  His index
finger extended over the steering wheel.  "And there she
is."

I gazed at the impressive building rising up
from the depths of green.  Its mirrored windows reflected the
sun, making it a beacon of civilization in the midst of grain as
far as the eye could see.  "Wow.  I wasn't expecting it
to look so…corporate."

Briscoe chuckled and said, "Puppy, I think
she was expectin' to talk to Auntie Em, the tin man, a couple of
scarecrows and maybe a big ol' coward with the jowls of a
lion."

"Oh stop," I shook my head. 

"They've got their own research facility out
here too, Helen," Crevan said.  "Breeding a healthier milk cow
from what I've read about the place."

"Seriously?"

"Uh-huh.  Like I said, it's an
impressive operation."

"Who owns this place?"

"Jean-Claude Dupree," Tony gagged out his
best French inflection.  Crevan snickered, and I even had to
admit it was pretty comical.

"I take it you don't like Monsieur
Dupree?"

"You speak Frog, Eriksson?"  His bushy
eyebrows waggled in the rearview mirror. 

"A bit," I grinned.  Briscoe was
adorably politically incorrect, but it was always tempered with
humor and a distinct absence of malice.  "A little background
on Mr. Dupree might be helpful."

"He's French Canadian," Crevan
supplied.  "Born and raised in Quebec City, got into the
farming gig when he migrated south and helped overtake a whole
lotta Midwest farms for the corporations about 20 years ago when
they were being sold off piece by piece."

"So in other words, after the big push for
corporate farming in the seventies and eighties on economic grounds
had slowed way down, no pun intended."

"Yeah," Crevan nodded.  "If you believe
his bio on the company's website, John Clod sees himself as some
kind of grand savior of the farming tradition, willing to step in
and keep the soil tilled when the farm boys decided to depart for
the concrete jungle in search of grander prospects."

I laughed at the intentional
mispronunciation of Dupree's name.  "Do we know for sure, I
mean beyond what our identity challenged Mr. Blake said, that
Dupree really hires migrant workers?"

"She ain't been here long enough to know,"
Briscoe said to Conall.  "Yeah, Eriksson.  All the great
big farms out here hire 'em.  It's basically what keeps the
farming economy solvent.  These folks migrate up and down the
west coast lookin' for work year round.  The big places depend
on the cheap labor for more than gettin' the job done, if you get
my meaning."

Briscoe signaled into the sprawling entrance
to the farm, not some white crushed rock driveway, an asphalt road
very much like the highway we left, and blocked fifty yards inside
by a state of the art security check point.

"No such thing as getting the milk for free,
eh guys?"

"Or buying, borrowing or stealing the cow,"
Crevan said.  He and Tony pulled out their identification and
flashed the guard at the gate.

"Detectives Briscoe and Conall – uh – and
Eriksson here to see someone about your migrant workers," Briscoe
said.

"From where?"  Unfriendly and hardly
cooperative, the guard made no move to open the fifteen foot gate
with razor wire looped at the top.

"Darkwater Bay, Downey Division."

"You're out of your jurisdiction, boys."

I rolled down the window in the back and
poked my head out.  "Sir, we're here because I'm trying to
identify a man who died in Downey awhile back, and witnesses who
knew him by a street name indicated that he may have worked for Mr.
Dupree.  I'm Dr. Helen Eriksson, and I'd really appreciate any
help your human resources department could give us.  All I
want is to be able to notify this gentleman's next of
kin." 

"A doctor, eh?  This guy wasn't
carrying some sort of disease, was he?"

"No sir, he died of natural causes, but
because he'd been living on the streets for awhile, we don't know
who he was, or where his family might be now.  If it were your
father or uncle or brother, wouldn't you want to know that he died
safe and warm in a hospital bed instead of wondering what his fate
was for the rest of your life?"

I could feel Tony's amusement over my
pleading lie starting to suck the air out of the confined space in
the car. 

The guard's unfriendliness abated
marginally.  He sighed.  "Let me call the main office and
see if anybody can see you, doctor."

"Geez, Eriksson," Briscoe muttered, "I never
knew you was this good with bullshit on the fly."

"Am I wrong that you cops regularly lie and
use trickery to advance your investigations?"

"You are correct, madam," Briscoe
said. 

The gate jerked into a lateral roll as the
guard reappeared at the window in his security station. 
"Follow the road directly to the first building you see. 
Someone will be waiting for you from security to escort you inside
where you can speak to human resources."

"Would that be Tom Denton?" I asked.

Shock flickered in the guard's eyes. 
"Dr. Denton works in research, ma'am.  He doesn't have
anything to do with hiring migrant workers."

"Thank you," I said.  "It confirms that
one of our sources was misinformed."

I craned my neck around and watched him grab
the telephone while Tony drove through the gate. 
"Interesting."

"Why'd you ask him that, Eriksson?"

"It was a legitimate question, but beyond
that, we now know that Tom Denton is a doctor.  Why would
someone probably engaged in research be known to pick up homeless
men to work at Dupree Farm regularly enough that people know his
name?"

"That's a very good question," Crevan
said.

"I'm not so sure Cox didn't stumble onto
something bigger than he or any of us have realized," I said.

"Like what?  I thought his death was
about drugs, not cows."

Crevan made the connection
immediately.  "Because someone with research credentials hefty
enough to work for Jean-Claude Dupree might have some chemistry
chops too.  Do you think what Jake stumbled onto was about
drugs
at
Dupree Farm?"

"It's too soon to make that leap, Crevan,
but I find it interesting enough to warrant a chat with the good
doctor while we're out here, maybe even Mr. Dupree himself."

Security was waiting for us outside the
first building.  "They're armed.  Doesn't that strike you
as a bit excessive for a dairy farm?  How many ways are there
to feed and milk cows?"

"Easy, Eriksson," Briscoe said.  "Let's
just talk to these people and see what's what before we start
wonderin' why they got this place locked up tighter 'n Fort
Knox."