Don't Take Any Wooden Nickels (32 page)

“Well, this shouldn’t take long,” Harriet said, patting at her elaborate hairdo. “I just thought it might be easier in person than over the phone.”

“So what’d you find out?”

She put her hands on the table and focused in on me, suddenly all business.

“The company out on that island is called ‘Manno Seafoods,’” she said. “The boat is registered to the business.”

“And is the business legit?”

“They’ve certainly done all their paperwork. I found quarterly state and federal tax filings, quarterly state unemployment, annual
federal unemployment…” Her voice trailed off as she counted on her fingers. “Workers’ comp. I-9 forms. The works.”

“Sounds like the real deal,” I said.

“To anyone else,” Harriet replied, but then she lowered her voice. “Maybe not to yours truly.”

“What do you mean?”

“It works on paper,” she said. “But I’ve got my suspicions.”

“How so?” Kirby asked.

“For one thing, they’ve never filed a single workers’ comp case despite the fact that crab picking is a relatively dangerous occupation.”

“Crab picking?” I asked. “What’s dangerous about that?”

“According to my source at the Board of Health,” Harriet said, “crab pickers are prone to cuts and infections. Statistically, there should’ve been several claims by now.”

I thought about Murdock’s description of the way the people there had been such inept crab pickers.
It’s a miracle they didn’t cut their fingers off,
he had said.
Or smash ’em with the mallet,
Dewey had added.

“What else?” I asked.

“Not a single unemployment claim, either,” she said. “Statistically, it doesn’t hold up.”

“You said they had I-9 forms filed?”

“For ten employees.”

“Just ten?” I asked. According to Murdock, he had seen about 30 people working when he was there.

“Yeah. I wrote down the names, if you want them.”

Harriet dug in her pocket for a moment and then produced a slip of paper.

Kirby and I held it and read the list of names, none of which I recognized, and none of which sounded Asian, even though I distinctly remembered Murdock telling me that the workers he saw there were all Japanese.

I sat back and thought, wondering how all of it added up.

“So what’s your take on this?” I finally asked Harriet.

“They’re flying under the radar,” Kirby interjected, and Harriet nodded.

“Exactly,” she said. “With good, clean records like these, no one would have any reason to question any part of their organization.”

“It’s all spit and polish?” I asked.

“It’s smart thinking,” Harriet replied. “If there is any funny business going on out there, it certainly won’t be discovered from a paper trail.”

“I see.”

Our coffee arrived then, and I leaned forward to take a sip, thinking. In the silence, Kirby began asking Harriet about her methods of investigation. He seemed quite impressed with all she had been able to do.

“That’s why Callie and I make the perfect investigative team,” Harriet explained to him. “Callie’s the brave one who does all the scary footwork, trooping around in the dark and peeking in windows. I’m the chicken who sits back at the office and investigates with the phone and the computer.”

I smiled, thinking that we all had our ways in which we were “chicken.” Harriet may have been afraid of heights and bad neighborhoods and fast cars—but you wouldn’t have caught me dead on a dance floor doing the Double Split Pony in front of 300 people.

“Hey, what about the other matter?” I asked. “The financial records for CNA.”

“Oh, yeah, that,” Harriet replied. “You didn’t give me much to work with there, but what I saw looked good.”

“Any red flags? Any questions?”

“Nah, things seemed fine. Of course, none of the figures were broken down. If I were going to do a full audit, I’d ask for separate records for each division.”

“What do you mean?”

“The data from all of their divisions was combined. To fully analyze the Small Agencies Division, I would need separate data just for them.”

“Yeah, that’s what I was afraid of. But the report I sent you was all that was available.”

“Well, the totals were fine, but I wouldn’t sign off on it without a closer look.”

“Okay,” I said. “Thanks for checking.”

It was time for us to leave, but we chatted a few more minutes while we waited for our hamburgers to be wrapped up in take-out boxes. Harriet prattled on about the line dancing competition, saying how much better it was going to be now that she’d found out a certain someone else wasn’t also going to be there.

“There’s a cowboy who’s got his spurs set in my direction, if you know what I mean,” she said. “But I don’t cotton to him at all.”

“He’s not coming?” I asked.

“No, thank goodness. He tore some ligaments doing the Achy Breaky, so now he’s down for the count. I mean, I’m sorry he got hurt and all, but I’m glad he won’t be there messing up my good time.”

“If you don’t like him,” I asked, “why did you encourage him in the first place?”

“Aw, ’cause nobody can two-step like he can,” she replied. “As they say down at the Longhorn, ‘I just wanted to dance him, not romance him.’”

I laughed, thinking,
I know what you mean.
In a way, and despite tonight’s kiss, that was how I felt about Kirby. He was fun to be with, but I certainly wasn’t looking for a boyfriend!

Finally, our burgers were ready. We got up from the table and said our goodbyes. I hugged Harriet and thanked her for her hard work, especially since it had only been done as a favor to me and not as a function of the foundation.

“No sweat, sweetie,” she replied. “Anything for a pal.”

She and Kirby shook hands, and then he went to the counter to pay. Once he was out of earshot, Harriet gripped me by the wrist and pulled me to the side.

“You have
got
to be kidding me,” she whispered sharply. “You’re going out with that hunky-hunk thoroughbred over there, and you didn’t even bother to tell me about it?”

“We’re not ‘going out,’” I whispered back. “We’re just friends. We’re neighbors.”

“Neighbors?” she hooted. “Well, then, honey, he can borrow my cup of sugar anytime!”

Thirty-Five

“I’ve got it, I’ve got it,” I whispered, holding my end of the two-person boat up over my head. Instead of the Jaguar, we had driven another of Kirby’s vehicles, a plush Mercedes SUV. I had been nervous about eating the messy hamburgers in such a nice car, but fortunately we had managed to consume them without dripping ketchup all over the interior. Now we were parked at Carson Point, trying to wrestle Kirby’s boat off of the carrier and down to the water.

I knew we should’ve brought one of my canoes,
I told myself as we struggled with the unwieldy craft. This was a gorgeous, extremely expensive Kevlar racing boat. Leave it to a rich person to have top-of-the-line equipment that was totally impractical for our purposes.

Our portage was slow going, particularly because there was no entry point to the water here, just weeds and muck. But we couldn’t go in at the boat launch, as I had done the day before, because that would bring us out to the island at a different point and in full view, no less. This time, we were slipping in the back
way. Our intention was to paddle past island number one to island number two, which hopefully would afford us the right access to island number three, Manno Island.

We finally managed to get the boat in the water. While Kirby griped about the mud on his fancy Martin Dingman boat shoes, I climbed into the vessel and took my position at the rear. My boots were muddy, too, but at least inside my feet were dry and warm in their rubber socks, and that was the important thing.

Kirby pushed us off and climbed in, and then together we struggled with the paddles until we found our rhythm. Fortunately for us, the water was as smooth as glass, and I had to admit that the long, narrow hull gave us impressive speed. We paddled straight to the first island and skimmed along closely to its shore, moving then across open water to the second.

We went ashore on the second island at the tip, dragging the boat safely into the weeds before running ahead for the cover of trees. This was the smallest island, and you could practically see one end from the other. I led the way through the brush as we crossed right down the middle. Nearing the other end, we crouched low and found a dry, grassy spot behind a bush to kneel and set up our surveillance of island number three.

So far, the forces of nature seemed to be working in our favor. Besides the smooth water, the air was dry and still, so the cold wasn’t unbearable. The moon was bright and the sky was clear. I felt optimistic that from where we sat we would be able to learn more about Manno Island and what was going on there. In the meantime, it was fun to be so close to the main waterway. Giant ships slid gracefully through the water in the distance, their bows lit, their wakes barely visible in the dark.

Kirby seemed to lose some of his initial excitement once the reality of our mission set in. I don’t think he realized that surveillance was mostly uncomfortable and boring and mindless. Finally, I let him have the night-vision goggles, thinking that would entertain him while I got situated. Sure enough, soon he was whispering excitedly as he peered through them, telling me of the things on Manno he was able to make out in the darkness.

The first hour passed fairly quickly, though the second and then the third began to drag. We took turns looking through the goggles, waiting for activity. All we had been able to glean thus far was that there was, indeed, an armed guard, and that he seemed to wander out to different checkpoints along the water periodically, look up and down the river, and then step back into the trees. It felt as if he were waiting for someone, and I hoped that meant we would see something of significance happen here tonight. I hadn’t yet told Kirby that we might have to come out here for quite a few nights in a row before we actually saw anything important.

He also didn’t know I was prepared to get a little closer to Manno Island on my own, if need be.

Kirby was still using the goggles when he clamped a hand over his mouth, stifling a scream. Skin tingling, I got up to my knees and took the goggles from him.

“What is it? What?”

“In the water!” he whispered sharply. “Ahead and to the left. Giant rats!”

I looked where he had indicated, and saw a pair of nutria swimming toward us. Indeed, they did look like big, 20-pound rats, particularly when they reached the shore and climbed out, their long rodent tails poking out behind them.

“That’s nutria,” I said softly. “Not rats.”

“You told me there wouldn’t be anything wild out here!”

“I meant like snakes. I never said anything about mammals.”

“Do they bite?”

I studied the animals without the goggles, trying not to smile.

“Look,” I whispered. “They’re leaving. You’re safe.”

“Ewww, yuck,” he said. “Those are the nastiest creatures I’ve ever seen.”

“They’re usually marsh animals,” I said. “I’m surprised they’re out this close to open water.”

“Is there anything else I need to know about here? Like giant spiders or man-eating lizards?”

“Just turtles,” I said. “And maybe ducks. Everything else keeps farther inland, like muskrats and raccoons and things.”

“This is great,” Kirby griped. “Stuck in the dark on an island with a pair of giant rodents.”

“Hey, I’m here, too.”

“Yeah, well if those rats come back, I’m not. I’ll be outta here.”

I chuckled.

“They’re more scared of you than you are of them,” I said, and I was about to launch into a brief zoology lesson when a big boat in the distance caught my eye.

I’m not sure why it was different than the other ships we had seen. Perhaps because it seemed to be making a direct course for Manno Island. I put on the goggles and watched, trying to decide what kind of vessel it was.

My heart leaped into my throat when it came close enough for me to see that it was Russell’s boat—the same one I had seen at the dock in Kawshek not five hours before. Now, however, it was headed north from
below
us, which meant that soon after I saw him at the dock he must have gone out into the bay and sailed to some point south of here. Obviously, he had picked up something and was bringing it back, because now there was a sort of large, rectangular box sitting squarely on the deck of the boat. Together, Kirby and I watched as the boat made a wide sweep toward the far end of Manno Island, where the dock and the picking house were supposedly located.

Making a decision, I handed the goggles to Kirby and then began to take off my clothes. He watched me in awe, his eyes widening as each layer came off.

“What are you doing?” he finally whispered.

“I want to get closer,” I said.

“Here? Now?”

I paused to make a face.

“To the other island, Kirby. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about all of this, but I thought you might object.”

He seemed to figure out what was going on once I got down to the dry suit and the rubber socks. From my bag I pulled my little air tank, mask, water shoes, and Kobalt hood.