Finnegan's week

CHAPTER 12

After Bobbie had her eggs, toast and orange juice the next morning, and after she’d studied the list of truckers she was going to try to contact, she decided to wear a skirt instead of jeans with her blazer. Maybe a more businesslike look would help discourage rock concert invitations, but actually, she wouldn’t mind seeing Paula Abdul if somebody halfway acceptable had asked her.

Until the month before Bobbie had gone home on leave she’d been kept pretty busy by a neighbor whom she’d met through her landlady. The guy was a paving contractor, older than Bobbie, but still in his thirties, and recently separated from his wife. A guy in that state of utter turmoil where he continually waffled between reconciliation and divorce.

He’d finally kissed off Bobbie by telling her that for the sake of the children he had to go back home. As they all did eventually, every married or separated guy she’d ever dated. They always got that message across, apparently thinking it was unique, that they were only staying with or returning to a wife “for the sake of the children.” It got very boring.

After the paving contractor had reconciled, Bobbie missed the weekly dinner date, the box seat at Jack Murphy Stadium, and the pretty good sex. The contractor had a nice sense of humor, and she’d actually enjoyed him as a friend and companion. Bobbie believed that she’d learned sooner than most women her age that young guys were selfish lovers, yet she’d never had the chance to go to bed with a man over forty.

One of the women on her last ship had a boyfriend sixty-three years old, and she claimed that he was so adept sexually, he could just “talk her off.” The trouble with young sailors was, they didn’t talk at all; they just rutted like buffaloes. Bobbie wasn’t sure about a guy sixty-three, but if she met an older guy she liked she’d be very curious, no doubt about it.

The third waste hauler on her list was Reggie’s Truck Line. She didn’t get to the company in Mira Mesa until 10:30 A.M., discovering that Reggie was a cop-hater who wasn’t anxious to cooperate with anyone connected to law enforcement. And he complained to her that he’d been unable to get navy contracts, except for the one job in question, because of ethnic contractors who were beating him out. After twenty minutes of bitching about how Americans were losing out to spies, spades, and slopeheads, he grudgingly gave Bobbie permission to interview the employees who’d made a pickup at North Island.

The first was a Mexican national, fifty years old. His partner was a Honduran, about the same age. Neither spoke English, so Reggie had to supply Bobbie with a bilingual secretary from his office. Both truckers were so intimidated they could hardly talk. The Honduran wore tennis shoes with soles that flipflopped when he walked. The Mexican wore huaraches with soles made of truck tires. Bobbie felt sure that they hadn’t stolen the flight-deck shoes.

After having a burger for lunch, Bobbie noted that the next contractor on the list was Green Earth Hauling and Disposal in Chula Vista. When she got there she found that it was one of the larger hauling companies. There was a yard behind the building that encompassed a square block, and the whole property was surrounded by an eight-foot chain-link fence, topped with razor wire. In this type of business it was more to protect the public from the product than the other way around.

The company office was upstairs in a U-shaped stucco building, but before going to meet the owner Bobbie stood outside the yard and counted ten workers loading and off-loading. Two vans and an eighteen-wheeler drove out during the time she remained there observing. Business was good.

Bobbie was met in the upstairs office by a very pregnant, fortyish dispatcher with a hairdo that said, Wake me up early for the curling iron. On a woman her age and in her physical condition the hairdo looked all right to Bobbie, but being twenty-seven years old, she couldn’t help wondering why, the older they got, the harder they worked on their hair, instead of lightening up on themselves.

The pregnant dispatcher said, “Can I help you?”

Bobbie showed her navy credentials and said, “I’m Detective Doggett from North Island. I’d like to speak to the owner, please.”

The pregnant dispatcher (Abel Durazo’s sometimes squeeze, who wasn’t sure if her baby was going to look like her carrot-top husband or a papoose) picked up the phone, punched a key, and said, “Mister Temple, there’s a naval person here from North Island.”

Jules Temple stood up when Bobbie entered his office, and showed her his Rotary luncheon smile: “How can I help my favorite customer, the United States Navy?”

Bobbie thought he was a good-looking guy, but she wasn’t fond of his blond hairdo, long on top but stopping halfway down the sides. It looked like something an F-14 could take off from. He was tall and had great teeth, but he dressed like a Manila car dealer in one of those ice cream suits with a black shirt buttoned all the way up. The other waste haulers she’d met wore khakis or coveralls.

His office was surprising too. There was a glazed cabinet with bookshelves, and glass shelves for decanters of liquor, as well as two leather wingback chairs divided by a lacquered occasional table. His desk was a large glass-topped, art-deco copy. This was the office of a man who hauled waste?

After she was seated in a wingback, Jules said, “Coffee? A soft drink? How about some macadamia coconut cookies? My secretary’s crazy about them.”

“Nothing, thanks.”

She knew by the way he was looking her over that he could be her first older sex partner if she but said the word. She would not be saying it, not to this guy. She could imagine him rubbing his legs together like a happy insect.

“We had a large theft at one of our warehouses,” she said to Jules. “We can narrow it down to a period last week when one of your trucks was there picking up two drums of hazardous waste. I’d like to talk to your employees and see if maybe they saw something or could help me in some way.”

“May I ask what was stolen?”

“We’re not sure,” Bobbie said.

Jules showed his wry smile and said, “Then how are you sure there was a theft, Detective? Shall I call you Detective or …”

“That’s fine,” Bobbie said, “or Ms. Doggett if you like.”

Wryer yet, and not at all discouraged, he said, “I guess you’re saying you don’t wanna tell me too much about the crime?”

“Not unless you were in the truck, sir.”

Jules loved girls like this. He figured she was the chunky cheerleader in high school. Every school had one. She’d blossomed and lost most of it, but there was just enough still showing. Maybe in the thighs, maybe under that slim little skirt. “I understand, Detective” Jules said.

Now the brazen son of a bitch was staring at her tits! And being obvious about it. “I won’t keep them from their jobs for very long, sir,” Bobbie said. “I just got a few questions. I’d like to go out to their workplace, if you don’t mind.”

“I don’t mind,” Jules said. “If you don’t mind wearing a hard hat. Can’t have anything falling on that pretty blond head, can we?”

“Whatever you say, sir,” Bobbie said. “Where can I get a helmet?”

He loved it. Young girls never called anybody “sir” anymore. This sailor cop was just the kind of all-American girl he’d envisioned as a hostess, when he opened his topless dancing club.

After Jules allowed Bobbie to write down the names, addresses, and phone numbers of haulers Durazo and Pate for her records, he told her that she’d find them in the yard washing down equipment.

He added, “I don’t think any of my employees would commit a theft, but you never know, do you? I should tell you that less than an hour after they left North Island, their van was stolen from them. If there was something of yours inside, it’s gone. I don’t believe they’re dishonest people. Dumb, but not dishonest. I don’t believe they’re thieves.”

“Thank you,” Bobbie said, and headed for the yard.

Abel Durazo was puzzled to see the young gringa in a company hard hat approaching them. The ox was inside a trailer hosing it out while Abel wiped down the tractor. Both wore gray coveralls and rubber Wellington boots.

Abel liked her looks very much until she said, “Mister Durazo? I’m Detective Doggett from North Island. Mister Temple’s given me permission to talk to you and Mister Pate. Separately and privately, if you don’t mind.”

When the ox gawked down at her from the trailer bed, Bobbie said, “Mister Pate, you can continue what you’re doing for now. Thank you.”

Bobbie and Abel Durazo left the yard and sat at a Formica table in a shed that served as a lunchroom. There were coin-operated machines for soft drinks, coffee, and junk snacks.

“Can I buy you a soda?” Bobbie asked the handsome young Mexican.

“No thanks, lady,” he said.

“Can you guess why I’m here?” she asked.

“No, lady,” he said.

“When you came to North Island to pick up the drums containing hazardous waste, you were in the quayside warehouse. Something happened there, Abel.”

She paused, but he just smiled quizzically. Then he said, “Yes?” It sounded like “Jas?”

“There were some boxes taken from the warehouse,” Bobbie said. “We hope you can help us.”

Abel shrugged and said, “Yes, lady?”

“We know that truckers took the boxes,” Bobbie said. Then she tried a ploy and said, “We have a witness.”

The Mexican didn’t bat an eye. “Yes?”

“Have you ever been arrested, Abel?”

“Me? No, lady. Never.”

“Has your co-worker Shelby Pate ever been arrested?”

“I don’ know,” Abel lied. “Maybe joo ask him?”

“Yes, I will,” Bobbie said. “Our witness may be able to identify the truckers. It’d be better if they came forward before that happens. Do you understand?”

Abel shrugged again. “Yes, lady?”

“Sometimes one person is mainly responsible for taking something and the other person just goes along with it. Maybe the person who goes along is … afraid of the stronger person. That could be what happened in this case.”

Abel continued smiling, not bothering to say: Yes, lady?

“We do have a pretty good witness who saw something,” Bobbie repeated.

“You could bring your witness here and let him look at us,” Shelby Pate said, waddling into the lunch area, wiping his salami fingers with an orange rag. Now he was wearing his Mötley Crüe cap instead of a hard hat. His coveralls were unzipped, revealing a Guns ’n’ Roses T-shirt.

He didn’t look diffidently at Bobbie the way Abel Durazo did. He shot her a look that said, “I ain’t afraid of some little navy cop.”

“Thanks,” Bobbie said. “I might do that. I guess you’re here most every day?”

“Except Saturday and Sunday,” Shelby said. “Better hurry though. The boss is sellin the business, and as soon as the new owner shows up, we’re history.”

“Anything more, lady?” Abel asked.

“If you got a camera with you we don’t mind if you take our pitchers, do we, Flaco?” Shelby said. “You could show them to your witness and maybe save yourself another trip. So what was taken outta the warehouse anyways?”

“Boxes,” Bobbie said, wishing they weren’t wearing rubber Wellingtons. She wanted to see their shoes. “Where’re your lockers?”

“You’re gonna search our lockers?” Shelby asked.

Then Bobbie watched him turn his cap around backwards and give her an in-your-face grin, crossing huge arms that were covered with amateurish skin-ink.

“I didn’t say that,” Bobbie said.

“Tell you what,” Shelby said, winking at Abel. “I’ll give you permission to search my locker if you’ll have a beer with me after work. I know a place in Imperial Beach. Lotta sailors hang out there. Female sailors even. You might meet some old shipmates.”

Dropping her professional demeanor with this asshole, Bobbie said, “Cut me some slack, Jack. I wasn’t dissing you, so don’t dis me. Okay?”

She stood up then, and Abel Durazo said, “Joo can look een my locker, lady.”

“Some other time,” Bobbie said, glaring at Shelby Pate, who turned his back and dropped some coins in a junk-food machine only slightly wider than he was. She wished she could see their shoes!

“What time’s your shift end?” Bobbie directed the question to Abel, but Shelby answered, “Five. Change your mind ’bout the beer?”

“How many of you leave here at five?”

“Less they work overtime, maybe ten, twelve,” Shelby said. “But I ain’t invitin them for the drink. Jist you, me and maybe Flaco here.”

Abel thought it was rude and stupid to talk like this to her. He understood that the ox was using insolence to show a lack of concern, but to Abel it could have the result of indicating guilt, not innocence. He wished the ox would shut up and let this woman leave. “We not thiefs, lady,” Abel said. “Call me when joo wan’ my photo.”

“You kin call me at home,” Shelby Pate said. “I wanna see more a you!”

“You’re gonna see more of me, Creepy Tooth,” she muttered, feeling their eyes on her when she walked back across the yard to the company building. The hard hat made her self-conscious so she took it off and ran her fingers through her bob. She heard Shelby Pate say something to Abel and chortle at his own remark.

When Bobbie had first been assigned as detective at North Island, the director of security, a former San Diego P.D. cop, said to her, “Police work is very frustrating sometimes, especially investigation. And for a woman there’re special little miseries and no man can help you with them. But when you do succeed in developing a case based entirely on your own diligence and intuition and luck, the feeling is incredible.”

Bobbie Ann Doggett could define what “incredible” would mean to her in this instance: snapping those steel ratchets around the fat wrists of that feloniously ugly sonofabitch!

He’d taken his act too far, way too far. She had more than a hunch that these two had stolen the navy shoes. But if so, what did the later stealing of the van signify? Was it just a coincidence? An unknown thief happening to steal the stolen navy cargo?

This was not a case she could talk about to her colleagues, nor even to her boss. Not yet. It was all based on instinct, and they’d just rag on her about women’s intuition, and roll their eyes, and smirk. Be that as it may, her investigator’s instinct told her that Shelby Pate and Abel Durazo were her thieves.