A Long December (14 page)

“Linda says he’s over here all the time. Watching TV. Helping Rudy change the oil in the car. That sort of stuff. They even had him here last Christmas.”

“Orejas his real name?” asked Hester.

“I don’t know, but until she wakes up,” said Terri, indicating Linda’s zonked form, “Orejas will have to do. Do either of you speak Spanish?”

Neither of us, as a matter of fact. “Why?” I asked, knowing the answer.

“Well, I don’t think Orejas speaks any English. He might not do you a lot of good. I mean, if you can’t talk to him.”

“Interpreters,” said Hester, “should be just fine. Standard procedure.”

“Orejas is the butt of lots of jokes about those ears,” said Terri. “The best one is that he looks like he thinks Viagra’s a suppository.” She giggled. “I mean, I feel sorry for the poor guy, but that’s really funny.”

It struck me that way, I had to admit.

There was a loud snoring sound. We all glanced into the living room toward the sleeping Linda. Gone to the world.

“Is there anybody around for her?” asked Hester.

“Her mom and dad are on their way back from Arizona,” said Terri. “We talked to them before she went to sleep. They’ll be here early tomorrow.”

“Good. I hate to say this,” said Hester, “but just how sure are you that when she says there’s no dope involvement here, she’s right?”

Terri shrugged. “I always thought he was into dope. She always said he wasn’t. She ought to know.”

“Can you think of anything else it could be? “I asked.

Terri shook her head.

“Well, I said this back at the office, but she might want to go where there’s some company. Just in case.” I thought about what Hector had said about Rudy’s associates. “Dope or no dope. At least until we know why this happened. Can we keep some of these photographs for a while?”

“Houseman, you want a lot. Ah, what the hell, why not?”

When we got to the car with the photos, I opened the envelope and took out the first one. I handed it to Hester. “This is the head table at the wedding reception. Want to know what I noticed?”

“Please.”

“No parents. Nobody old enough to be the parent of a twenty-year-old, not by a long shot.”

“And?”

“The parents sit at the head table. I can only think of two reasons they aren’t there.”

“Death,” said Hester. “That would account for it.”

“All four, for a couple in their twenties… what are the odds?”

Hester laughed outright. “Houseman, sometimes…look, at least as good as the odds that the young couple met at the orphanage.”

“Okay. Okay, but
my
second reason is better.”

“And that would be?”

“They’re illegal aliens. They can’t afford to bring their parents to the wedding and couldn’t do it legally anyway. Hah, gotcha with that one, didn’t I? Well, if you don’t have available parents, you just might have the most important person in your circle of friends join you. Mr. Thin-face there. Look at all the pictures with him, and you’ll see that everybody looks just pleased as shit to be in his presence.”

“Well… “she said, after she’d looked the bunch over while I backed the car out and headed toward the packing plant, “that might be a stretch.” She very carefully put them back in the envelope. “Oh, what the hell, for the sake of argument, let’s say you’re right. So, like, what?”

“I want to know who he is,” I said. “I’m thinking Godfather-type of relationship in those photos.” I paused while I turned a sharp corner.

“You’re developing a suspicious imagination, there, Houseman,” said Hester. “Let’s make a bet… like for a milkshake. You go for”—and she made a two-fingered gesture with each hand, indicating quotation marks—”the Godfather.” She chuckled. “I, frankly, will go for”—and again the quotation gesture—”the plant foreman.”

I have to admit that plant foreman hadn’t occurred to me. Damn. Just somebody’s boss. Of course.

“Is there a Dairy Queen around here?” asked Hester. “I want chocolate.”

“Let’s just wait,” I said. “Wait and see.” I sounded lame even to myself.

   We paused in the parking lot of the packing plant long enough for me to call Sally and see what she had found out. By the lack of cars in the parking lot, I was afraid I already knew the answer.

“They’re closed, Houseman,” she said. “No explanation, just that they aren’t working today.”

“If they’re closed,” I said, “who’d you talk to?”

“Well, the office staff is there. But the floor is closed down.”

“Thanks. That’s where we’ll be until further notice. I’ll leave this thing on in case you need us.”

“You’re all dedication. You have anything to tell Lamar yet?”

“Not really. When we get back.”

The business office of the plant was smaller than you’d think, and was on the second floor of one of the large cement-block buildings. The receptionist in the sparsely furnished office handed us off to the assistant manager, a Mr. Chaim B. Hurwitz. I suspected the B stood for Benjamin, because the first time I’d met him he’d told me to call him Ben. Most people at the plant referred to him as “Mr. Hurwitz.” I’d had dealings with him before, a couple of times, and I thought he was a pretty straight sort of guy. Ben had been the first Jew I’d met in Battenberg, and he had been an education for me. Like most of the residents of Nation County, my previous experience with things Jewish had consisted of the movies
The Diary of Anne Frank, Exodus, The Pawnbroker, Schindler’s List
, and
Fiddler on the Roof
. Hardly a primer for knowing the twenty-first-century Jewish American.

Ben Hurwitz and I shook hands, and after Hester identified herself, he asked us to sit down. His office was small, crowded, and spartan. It reminded me of the interior of a mobile office you find on construction sites. Absolutely no nonsense, and extremely functional.

“What brings you to me? “he asked.

“Well, we originally wanted to talk to some of your workers, but”—I smiled—”they seem to have gone on strike again.”

I was well aware that the packing plant was not a union shop. Not at all, and the plant would fight unionization to its last breath. And Ben knew that I knew that.

“No. No, the union is much stronger than that,” he said, deadpan. “What we have here is a coffee break.” Ben Hurwitz and I had been over the illegal alien issues before. His company asked for Social Security numbers, and the workers presented them. The plant had absolutely no way to verify the numbers. They started asking for birth certificates, and the workers began producing them. All indicated they were from either Los Angeles or San Diego or Houston. None of those county courthouses had the facilities to constantly search their records for confirmation of birth certificates, and the plant had no legal way of compelling them to do so. At one point, the plant started asking for driver’s licenses as a way of confirming the other identity papers. Their attorney told them that they couldn’t do that unless they were hiring a particular individual to drive for them. If they asked to see a green card, those they were shown were probably forgeries anyway. They also had no obligation or desire to spend the fees charged for the searches. If they had a question, they called INS. That agency had never responded by showing up. INS was grossly undermanned and Iowa was a long way from being the state with the largest immigration problem.

“Just so we’re perfectly clear here,” I told Ben, “as you know from before, I have no authority to ask for an individual’s proof of citizenship. If I ask if somebody is a U.S. citizen, and they say yes, that’s the end of it. I have no authority to demand. None.” I shrugged. “Unconstitutional is unconstitutional, period. So, even if I do determine that somebody is illegally here, I can’t arrest an illegal alien because, one, I’m not a federal officer, and two, I don’t have a federally-approved facility where I could keep them.” I nodded toward Hester. “Neither does she. So… I think we can afford to stipulate that none of us will go into that issue during this conversation. That sound okay to you?”

He nodded.

“We’d also like to get the word out on that, because we’re gonna be needing witnesses, and it’d be nice if they came back into the world.”

Ben chuckled. “I’ll do what I can, but I’ve got to find them first.”

“I hear that,” I said. “So, I assume you’ve become aware that Rudy Cueva was murdered yesterday afternoon, about five or six miles from here?”

“Yes. My wife and I saw it on the news. They didn’t say who it was, but we heard from the staff later.” He gave me a wry look. “You know, on TV you looked pretty good. Even if the camera puts on some pounds.”

“Thanks for blaming the camera,” I said. “So, you knew Rudy, then?”

“Of course.” Ben picked up the phone on his desk but didn’t touch the numeric pad. “You want to see his employee file? It’s no use to him.”

“Sure.”

He pressed two numbers and told whoever answered to bring in Rudy’s file. “What else can I do for you?”

Hester opened the envelope Terri had given us and handed Ben the photo with Orejas in it. “Do you know the stocky short one there? With the hat. He’s called Orejas, I think.”

Ben didn’t hesitate. “Surely. That’s Jose Gonzales. You’re right, they do call him Orejas.” Ben chuckled. “Orejas is Spanish for ‘big ears.’ It’s his nickname.”

Ah. Big ears, indeed. “They only use one word for ‘big ears’? I would have thought it would be two words.”

“I don’t want to embarrass anyone,” said Ben, with a glance at Hester. “I have to say the way it was explained to me was that it means big ears in the same way that a woman nicknamed ‘boobs’ means a woman with large breasts. The words ‘big’ or large’ in either case would be redundant.”

“Like, ‘mouth’ would mean ‘big mouth’? “asked Hester.

Ben was embarrassed. “I wish that example had come readily to mind,” he said.

“You know where this Orejas lives? “I asked.

Ben picked up the phone again, dialed what looked like the same two digits. “Get me the address of Jose Gonzales. No. No. No, the one they call Orejas… with the ears… that Jose Gonzales.” He looked up at us and smiled. “It’s a common name… and I should warn you, they may have a family Social Security number, too.” He spoke back into the phone, “Yes?” He wrote the information on a slip of paper and pushed it over to me.

Hester, anxious to score her milkshake, presented Ben with a second photo. The shot of the head table, with the thin-faced man so prominent. “Do you know the man with the thin face?” she asked.

“No. No, but I recognize the bride and groom. They work here, too.” He picked up the phone and again rattled off two names. “Juan and Adriana Munoz, their current address, please.” Again, he wrote it down and passed it to me. “They were married about six months ago. Are there more?”

Never being one to let an opportunity go by, I just handed him a half dozen more of the photos. His next call resulted in five more names and addresses. “So, the person who gave you these didn’t know who they were?” He sounded pretty skeptical.

“It’s a long explanation,” I said.

He just nodded. “Anything else I can do?”

“Any idea,” asked Hester, “when this ‘coffee break’ will be over?”

“Unions. What can I say? Maybe tomorrow. Maybe two, three days? I think it will depend on the, ah, ‘activity’ around our plant.”

There was a knock at the door, and a secretary entered with a stack of files. Ben picked out Rudy’s and handed it to me after she left. “Look through it. You need copies, say so.”

“Thanks. Any idea why Rudy was killed?” It was a long shot, but you never know until you ask. Frankly, I half expected Ben to pick up the phone and ask his secretary. Instead, he looked very thoughtful.

“Rudy was not our most ambitious employee. But he was liked. No, I don’t know. So, do you know who killed him, or can’t you say?”

“No comment,” I said with a smile. “Union rules.”

“YOU OKAY?” I ASKED HESTER
.

She nodded, then spoke very deliberately. “How many grenades do you think they have left?” She shook her head, reached inside her coat, and pulled out a bottle of water. She took a swig, tilted her head toward the wounded side, and let the water do its work. She turned away, spit, and turned back to me. “God, that’s irritating,” she said.

“Now that you bring it up, I don’t suppose you walk in someplace and buy just one.”

“Right.” She was looking out a wide crack that some past farmer had tried to fill with cement. It hadn’t worked. “It’s getting dark.”

“Yeah. I was thinking about that.”

“Me, too.”

“George is comin’ down as soon as it’s dark enough.” I looked around. “The yard light will cast a shadow on this corner, from about the big door over the whole left side of the place.”

“They’ll shoot it out,” she said. “Damn thith thing.”

“Be quiet and have some more water. No, they won’t. If they leave it on, they can see anybody who comes our way up the lane.”

It was the grenades that had me worried. “I’ve been thinking,” I said. “Either they got modern frags, or concussion grenades.” She looked at me questioningly. “Modern grenades have a fine wire wrapped around a central core. Notched. Tiny fragments, but a cloud of’em. Lethal radius to ten or fifteen feet, not worth shit twenty-five feet away. Well, somethin’ like that. Not like the old grenades in the movies, with the Hershey-bar squares.”

She nodded in agreement.

“Concussion grenades don’t have very effective fragments at all.”

She nodded again.

“I don’t think any fragments made it through the barn, so…” We left it at that. I had no idea if I was right or not. Just something to say.

“You want me to see if I can start George’s heater for you?”

“No thanks. I’m just fine.”

I patted her on the shoulder and moved back over to my position.

“Hester okay? “asked Sally.

“Yeah. You think dehydration could be a problem for her?”

“Well, she’s thin, and she lost a bunch of blood…might as well not take a chance. How much water you got left?”

I patted the left side of my Canadian Army parka. “Three bottles.”

“Better keep ‘em on the inside,” she said.