A Body To Die For (20 page)

“No way!”

“Yes. I was talking to a friend of mine who grew up in this area, asking him if he knew about any sort of poultry ranch or whatever. He said his dad actually worked at this place, like thirty years ago. Said it put his father off eating chicken for the rest of his life.”

“I can imagine.”

“Anyway, it’s abandoned now.”

“All the more reason to check it out.”

“True.”

“Off Sulphur Creek Road, near the car dump site, huh? Which direction?”

“West. There’s a sign by the road where you turn north, an old one, advertising apple cider, a dollar a gallon.”

“Yeah, I’ve seen that.”

“Turn down that dirt road, and my buddy says it’s about half a mile from there.”

“Dirk’s gonna love you for this.”

“Oh, wow…what I’ve always dreamed of…having Dirk’s undying love and devotion.”

“I’m sure. Thanks, buddy. I owe you one.”

“You owe me nothing, except an evening in a slinky, low-cut ball gown.”

“Yeah, sure. Toy with my heart, will ya?”

Savannah said good-bye to him and hurried back to Sharona.

“Something about the case?” Sharona asked eagerly.

“Maybe. Maybe not. Not sure yet.” Savannah had learned long ago not to show all her cards to anybody. “But let me ask you something. You said you know a bit about Pinky’s operations.”

“Some, yes.”

“Did he or any of the others ever mention anything about chickens?”

“Chickens?”

“Yes, like maybe cockfighting, betting on them, whatever…?”

Sharona thought for a moment, then nodded. “Yes, I think I did hear something like that. A couple of times I heard Pinky tell someone to meet him at what he called the ‘chicken plant.’ I thought that sounded sort of strange. Is that a flower or a tree or…. What kind of plant is a chicken plant?”

“Thank you,” Savannah said. “Thank you very much. I’ve gotta go. Enjoy the goodies.”

“Oh, I will! I will! I’m going to go do the crossword puzzles and eat the cookies right now! I do the crossword in the
Los Angeles Times
every Sunday.”

Crossword puzzles, huh?
Savannah thought as she rushed back to the Mustang, punching in Dirk’s phone number as she went. Maybe there was more to Sharona than she’d thought.

“Hi ya,” she said when he picked up the phone, “I’m at the safe house. I gave Sharona her stuff. Ryan just called me. He had something for us.”

“Oh, yeah? What?” He sounded grumpy. Dirk was always grumpy, but more so when a case wasn’t moving fast enough to suit him.

“An abandoned chicken-processing plant just off Sulphur Creek Road, six miles from where we fished Jardin out of the creek.” She climbed into the Mustang and waited for his excited, overjoyed response.

There was dead silence on the other end. But she could hear him breathing, so she knew he was alive.

She started her engine. “And Sharona told me that she’s overheard Pinky mention meeting people at the ‘chicken plant.’”

Still, he didn’t reply.

“Aren’t you happy about that?” she said, heading down the road through the orange grove. “I was. It sounds like a good solid lead to me.”

“It is,” he said. “But I’m going to be bummed if it’s Pinky. I was hoping it was Clarissa or Rachel. Weren’t you?”

“Yes, a little, I guess. But a lead is a lead. And at least this way, it won’t be the Morris kid. I’m heading out there right now.”

“No, wait for me. You could run into some of his crew out there. Or some of the guys who do the cockfighting.”

“If I run into some bastard who thinks it’s fun to see animals kill each other, I’ll beat the tar out of him.”

“That’s exactly why I want you to wait there at the dump site for me, and we’ll go together. I don’t want you hurting anybody. You don’t think I was worried about
you
, do you?”

She laughed. “I want to call Ryan back and invite him and John along, too. After all, it was his lead.”

“You really think this is gonna pan out?”

“Yes, I do. I have a feeling about it.”

“Okay, if they want to tag along, that’s fine by me.”

“Later, Sweetcheeks.”

“In a while, Babycakes.”

In unison they blew raspberries at each other and hung up.

Ah, the sweet romance of it all.

A
s Savannah, Ryan, and John sat in her Mustang by the side of Sulphur Creek Road, waiting for Dirk to arrive, they discussed the upcoming trek to the poultry plant.

“I’m not looking forward to this. I just want to get it over and done with,” Savannah told them, resting her arms on top of the steering wheel and resisting the urge to check her watch again. “I’m an animal lover and a hypocrite. I like to pretend that the meat I eat is created back there in the rear of the grocery store. They make it out of some magical ingredients and then put it in those little Styrofoam packages with the cellophane wrap over them.”

“I know what you mean,” Ryan said. “I think most of us would prefer to think that what we’re eating never actually mooed or clucked or swam.”

“I don’t mind if it swam,” John added from the backseat. “But I can assure you, that if I had to butcher my own meat, I’d be eating a lot of fish.”

“We’re a bunch of wimps,” Savannah said. “Too many Disney animal films growing up. That’s what ruined us. It was Bambi and those mice friends of Cinderella’s.”

“True,” Ryan and John agreed in unison. “So true.”

Savannah’s cell phone rang, and when she answered it, she had an excited Tammy on the other end.

“Got something for you,” Tammy said. “I was searching on the Internet and found out who owns that property that you’re going to right now.”

“Oh, yeah? Who?”

“Baldovino Pinky Moretti himself.”

“Really? Well, if that ain’t interesting.” Savannah glanced up and in her rearview mirror she saw Dirk’s Buick approaching. “I’m so happy to hear that. And I’m sure the boys will be, too. Good work, I mean, good sleuthing, kiddo.”

She hung up and said to Ryan and John. “Hey, fellas. The chicken plant is now owned by none other than our mob-connected friend, Pinky Moretti.”

“Ah,” John said, “and so the plot thickens.”

“Sleuthing? The plot thickens?” Ryan shook his head. “You two need to limit how much time you spend with Tammy.”

Savannah waved Dirk to drive around them, and she pulled out onto the road and followed behind him.

“There are worse influences in this world than Miss Tammy-Pollyanna Hart,” she said. “But I have to tell you, she’s been trying to get me to go vegetarian for years. After this little field trip, I may just have to try it.”

The processing plant wasn’t difficult to find, because it was the only group of buildings at the end of the long, dirt road.

One large, gray, windowless structure promised to be the actual processing center, and several equally forbidding outbuildings stood, shabby and somber, nearby. The roofs on some of them had caved in, while the walls on others bowed outward.

And yet, for all the property’s rundown appearance, it didn’t have the look of a totally abandoned facility. Weeds grew beside the road, but there had been enough recent traffic to keep the drive itself clear. And on either side of the road, lay a profusion of litter, mostly beer cans and assorted snack food wrappers. And those looked fairly fresh.

“There’s been some recent activity around here,” Ryan said, looking out the window as they bounced down the deeply pitted road. They could barely see ahead because of all the dirt Dirk was stirring up.

“I don’t see any cars up there, though,” Savannah remarked, squinting through the dust cloud. “Maybe we’ll have the place to ourselves.”

“Does Dirk have any sort of search warrant?” John asked.

“I doubt he had time to get one that quick. If we find anything good, he can get one then.”

“You colonists are far more bold about these things than we are on the other side of the pond,” John said.

“Oh, stop with the Limey crap,” Ryan told him. “Like you and I didn’t bend plenty of the rules when we were in the Bureau all those years ago.”

John snickered. “I remember it well. If we’d been caught, we would have been—”

“Fired?” Ryan interjected. “You mean, like we were?”

“I thought you two were fired because you were gay,” Savannah said.

“Well, let’s just say that we broke more rules than just ‘Don’t ask; don’t tell,’” Ryan replied. “They had a hard time deciding which ones to fire us for. They had quite a selection.”

Dirk pulled up in front of the largest building, and Savannah parked right beside him. They all climbed out of their cars and looked around.

The dirt nearby showed the tire tracks of numerous vehicles. In fact, it was obvious that some cars or trucks had even been parked on large portions of the weeded areas as the vegetation had been flattened. Even more litter lay strewn about here than on the road.

“Looks like they’ve thrown some pretty big shindigs around here,” Savannah said with a feeling of dread.

“Yeah,” Dirk answered. “I found Julio in a pool hall on the east end of town, and he said he’d heard of some cockfighting going on in this area. Of course, to hear him tell it, he hasn’t even been close to a KFC since he’s been out on parole.”

“And speaking of…” Savannah said, as she opened the door of a nearby outbuilding and looked inside. Her heart sank when she saw row upon row of tiny wooden doors. One of the inside walls was covered with what looked like stacks of tiny outhouses, three high and six across. Eighteen separate enclosures—one for each of the roosters who was awaiting his turn to fight to the death for the amusement, entertainment, and financial profit of the spectators.

The broken cement floor of the building was littered with chicken feathers, excrement, feed, and, here and there, drops of dried blood.

“It’s a holding area,” she told them, as they joined her to look inside. “How much do you want to bet the arena is in there?” She pointed to the largest building.

“Rather ironic really,” John said. “Years ago, this place was used for killing birds. Now it is again.”

“Yes, but slaughtering for food is one thing,” Dirk replied. “This crap is something else.”

“As bad as this is for the chickens, it breeds other crimes, too,” Savannah said. “Huge amounts of money are gambled and lost. And anywhere there’s a lot of money, there are guns. Homicides aren’t that uncommon in these circles.”

“And then you’ve got organized crime,” Ryan said as he walked over, opened one of the small cages, and looked inside. “Anything that rakes in a lot of dough is a magnet for those guys.”

“But blood sports are prominent in many cultures around the world,” John said. “In the U.K., we have our own foxhunting. Spain its bullfights.”

“And cockfighting’s always been part of the U.S. culture, too.” Dirk turned away from the outbuilding and headed toward the main structure. The rest of them followed. “George Washington and Abe Lincoln participated,” he said, “…or so Julio informed me when I was arresting him last time.”

“Yeah, well, slavery and child labor were legal back then, too,” Savannah added. “Just because it’s an old cultural tradition doesn’t necessarily mean it’s a good one.”

When they reached the door to the main building, they found it secured with a heavy padlock. Dirk fiddled with it a few minutes, then started looking around for something to pry it off with.

“Here, let me try,” Savannah said.

He gave her an indignant look. “Oh, right. I can’t get it off, but you…”

She reached into her purse, took out a lock pick, and ten seconds later, had the lock open. “And that,” she said, “is how a professional does it.”

“A professional what?” Ryan teased. “Burglar?”

She raised her nose in the air. “I’ll have you know I have never burgled anything. Breaking and entering, yes, but Granny Reid raised me to be a lady.”

As she pushed past Dirk to be the first to enter, he said, “And breaking into people’s property is okay with her?”

“What Gran doesn’t know…” she said, “…won’t get me whooped.”

There were no windows and no lights on, so at first, they had no idea of the enormity of the room. It wasn’t until Dirk had felt around for a switch on the wall and thrown it that they realized the long, gigantic building was mostly one room.

And the evidence of both its past and its present was all too apparent.

Hanging from the high ceiling was a conveyor belt with many small, ominous-looking metal frames suspended from it. Savannah didn’t have to use a lot of imagination to picture a chicken hanging from each of those frames as it circled the room, going through one stage after the other of the slaughtering process.

Along the conveyor line there were several huge vats. At least one of them appeared to be connected to some electrical equipment.

Savannah didn’t want to think a lot about that, either.

At the far end of the room were a set of large doors, and she assumed that was where trucks could load and unload their cargo. Near that end was also another walled-off area with a particularly heavy metal door.

But it wasn’t the slaughterhouse equipment that bothered her most. As Dirk had said, killing for the sake of producing meat was one thing. What she saw in the center of the room had nothing to do with providing fried chicken for the traditional American family’s picnic.

“Look at that,” Ryan said. “That has to be a cockfighting arena.”

“Yeah,” Dirk replied. “They call it a ‘pit.’”

He was pointing to a large circle in the center of the room that was bordered by a short, mesh fence. Around the pit was a ring of cheap plastic chairs, and behind those chairs, on a foot-high riser, was yet another circle of chairs.

“Stadium seating,” she said dryly. “How very civilized.”

Together, they walked to the arena, then each went their separate way and looked around.

Dirk stepped over the wire fence and studied the pit itself. Ryan and John investigated some nearby square enclosures that were also fenced off with wire mesh.

On one side of the room, to the right and behind the pit, was a snack bar. Savannah walked over that way and scanned the list of goodies that could be purchased. She was only mildly surprised to see that, along with nacho chips, hot dogs, sodas and beer, they were selling chicken strips.

There was no real kitchen, per se, but several big ice chests for the beer and soda, and a couple of large microwaves seemed to do the trick.

Dirk called out from the pit, “There are a lot of red feathers here that look like the one on Jardin’s tire.”

“Over here, too,” Ryan told him, as he squatted down and looked at the floor of the other pen.

“Maybe if we can get some of these to the Bureau,” John said, “we can find out what breed of rooster it is. If it’s strictly a gaming breed and not a run-of-the-mill domestic chicken, that would narrow down your evidence a bit.”

“Yeah, that would help.”

Dirk left the pit and walked toward the rear of the room, where Savannah joined him. They headed toward the large doors at the end of the room, but before they reached them, they both caught a whiff of something horrible, something putrid.

“Damn,” Dirk said, putting his hand over his mouth and nose. “Where the hell is that coming from?”

Savannah’s heart fell. She had smelled that terrible stench far too many times not to know what it was.

“Decomp,” she said, trying not to breathe. There was something about the stink of decaying flesh that went straight to the belly and induced instant nausea. Savannah had seen things and heard things over the years that had troubled her. But it was the smell of decomposing bodies that haunted her.

They walked around for a few moments, trying to find the source.

When Savannah realized it was coming from an industrial-sized metal trash can with a lid, she froze.

“Oh, no.” She thought of the missing redheaded boy in the picture. “Don’t let it be him,” she whispered. “Don’t let it be…”

One look at Dirk told her that he was thinking the same thing. He reached into his pocket, took out a latex glove, and slipped it on one hand.

Normally, Savannah wanted to be in the thick of things, the first to see and do. But as Dirk stepped up to the can and gingerly lifted off the lid, she hung back, reluctant to see yet another sight that would scar her soul forever.

The kids. She just couldn’t handle it when it was the kids.

He leaned over and glanced inside. Then slammed the lid back onto the can. He looked like he was about to barf.

“Roosters,” he said. “Dead roosters. Apparently, they toss the losers in here and forget about them.”

“Hope they were dead when they got pitched in there,” she said.

“Not always, by a long shot, I’ve heard.”

Savannah sighed. “At least it’s not…”

“Yeah.”

Ryan and John were still in the pen. “Hey,” Ryan called out. “You ought to see these grisly things. Razors that they tie onto the chicken’s feet. Artificial spurs.”

“I nicked myself just touching one of the things,” John said, wiping his hand with a handkerchief.

“Be careful,” Savannah told him. “You’ll get an infection from that crap. I’ve got a first-aid kit in my trunk.”

“It’s okay, love,” John replied. “But I’ll not be handling anything like that around here again. I’m behind on my tetanus shots.”

“Anything in that can you were looking in?” Ryan asked.

“No,” Savannah said. “Nothing important.”

Remembering how Julio had defended his favorite sport, Savannah recalled his argument that champion cocks were often fed better than the human families who raised them. “Treated like kings!” he had argued.

Not once they lose
, she thought.
Then they’re garbage
.

Happy to leave the trash can and its foul contents behind, Savannah walked over to join Dirk by the large doors at the end of the room.

“This has to be the loading and unloading area,” he said. “Swing those doors open and you could get a semi-trailer truck in here.”

“Or a Jaguar?”

She knelt on the ground, took out her penlight and scanned it back and forth across the floor. “Take a look at this. Do you see what I see?”

Kneeling beside her, he put his head down near the floor and nodded. “Yeah, those look like tire tracks in the dust there.”

“Do you figure the CSU could lift those?”

“If we can see them, chances are they can lift them. Wouldn’t it be something if they match the Jaguar?”