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.