CHAPTER 13
The bobtail van belonging to Green Earth Hauling and Disposal had not been in the stolen vehicle system for long. The day after it went missing, traffic on I-5 north had been backed up for two miles because of that van, and the remains of its driver, less his right foot, had been taken to the county morgue in Kearny Mesa.
A CHP officer discovered that it was a stolen San Diego van by calling in the VIN number as well as the Mexican license number. He then allowed the van to be hauled to the tow yard because his radio operator was late in informing him there was a HazMat notification on that stolen vehicle. Otherwise it would’ve stayed where it was until a HazMat team in protective clothing and breathing apparatus could get to the scene and make sure it was safe.
Urgent calls were eventually made, and in less than an hour a fire department HazMat team wearing moon suits arrived at the tow yard to check the bobtail van for any sign of a toxic spill. The truck was found to be clean and was cleared for release to the owner, and CHP agency-to-agency computer messages so informed all interested parties including Nell Salter and the San Diego P.D. And because Fin had made the HazMat notifications, he too was informed of the truck’s status.
Long after the bobtail van had been hauled away, a CHP rookie, whose training officer didn’t want to be walking around out there at night, searched for a missing item that his partner didn’t want to find. Pepe Palmera’s left shoe was not on his foot, and for all they knew, was on the bumper of a car bound for San Francisco. The right shoe and the foot inside it had not been found either. The rookie thought he should search for it as a humanitarian gesture.
The young officer spent twenty minutes slogging through the ice plant on the steep bank of earth on the west side of the freeway, shining his light on every piece of refuse and trash trapped beneath the flowering ground cover. By the time he finally spotted the shoe, swarming with ants, his tan uniform was a mess.
“Here it is!” he hollered to his training officer, who shook his head in disgust. Now, instead of going for a tasty beef-dip they’d be taking a stinking bug-covered human foot to the morgue!
The rookie slid and scrambled down the bank, holding the shoe and foot aloft like a tennis trophy, yelling: “We got it!”
“I hope you’re satisfied,” the training officer said to him. “Now what’re you gonna do with it? Have it bronzed?”
The next day, Fin was worried that he might have to assist on a drive-by homicide that had occurred the night before. He said to his co-worker Maya Tevitch, “I don’t need dead bodies complicating my life. The theme on my favorite talk show is, will Mia take Woody back? I was all set to call in and say that she’ll let the devil knock her up again before she gives Woody another crack. I gotta stay available today!”
“Are you gonna go to the morgue?” Maya asked gleefully, knowing Fin’s reputation for squeamishness.
Fin responded to the animal rights advocate, “Why don’t you go for me, Maya? You people like to hold wakes for road kills. So pretend it’s a gerbil and get indignant. You’ll enjoy yourself.”
While Fin Finnegan fretted about going to the place where former human beings are sawed, sliced, diced, and leave the premises a lot lighter than when they entered, Nell Salter made a call to the CHP and got all the information she wanted from the officer who did the traffic report.
“What do his fingers look like?” Nell asked the Chip. “Is he gonna be printed for I.D.?”
“His fingers were kibbled,” the officer said, “but we’re very satisfied with his I.D. His border crossing card and driver’s license say his name is José Palmera, twenty-five years old, resident of Tijuana. And he’s got a minor arrest record with S.D.P.D. In the truck there was a bill of lading for a delivery he made to Huerta’s Pottery Shed in Old Town.”
“Is HazMat through with the truck?”
“Everyone’s done with it,” the Chip said. “The San Diego P.D. oughtta follow up on the pottery delivery. The shop in Old Town might be in cahoots with Tijuana thieves who steal trucks and cold-plate them.” Then he added, “Of course I’m not the detective.”
“Okay,” Nell said. “I’m concerned about the hazardous waste.”
Before Nell could hang up, the CHP officer said, “Wait a minute, there’s an officer here who wants to talk to you.”
It was the young officer who’d found Pepe Palmera’s shoe and foot. He said, “Hello? This is Officer Tim Haskell? I just wanted you to know that I found the deceased’s foot in the ivy?”
“Very good,” Nell said. “Good work.”
“I just wanted you to know?” the kid said.
“Know what?”
“Well, when I found the foot it was covered with hungry ants.”
“Can’t blame them,” Nell said.
“Anyways, the ants were swarming.”
“I can understand that,” Nell said.
“But by the time I gave it to the meat wagon, the ants had bought it!”
“Whaddaya mean bought it?”
“Croaked. All the ants went tits-up.” Then he added, “Sorry, ma’am. Belly-up.”
After Nell thanked the kid for the info, she called San Diego P.D. and received the message loud and clear from a detective at Central that if they could get the time to do a follow-up at the pottery shop they’d try to get around to it.
Nell hung up, thinking, sure, in this decade or the next? Somehow she believed that the hazardous waste could be located. Or did she just want to talk to Detective Finnegan again? She wasn’t sure.
It turned out that Fin didn’t have to help with the drive-by homicide after all, so he said to Maya Tevitch, “I thought this was my lucky day. I might even get another one of those letters from Publishers Clearing House telling me I won enough to save Somalia.”
Fin had thought several times about Nell Salter’s fog lights, and was truly curious to see how well she’d aged. He believed that babes who’re looking down the barrel at forty-something are anxious to prove they’ve still got it. He dialed her number.
“Nell Salter,” she said, when she answered. He liked babes with full-throated voices, but he hoped it didn’t mean she had a neck like Maya Tevitch, which was a size larger than his own.
“It’s Finnegan,” he said. “I got some news about the stolen van.”
“I was just thinking about calling you” she said. “I already phoned the CHP and found out all about it.”
“Yeah? So what happened?”
“Yesterday on I-five near Mission Bay, the driver of the van jumped out and got dusted running across the freeway.”
“Was it a high-speed pursuit or what?”
“Nope, he just parked by the center divider and jumped out yelling and running. Right into a Greyhound bus, among other vehicles. Like he was out of his head.”
“Any hazardous material in the truck?”
“Like a lawyer’s conscience, meaning there was none.”
“No leads at all?”
“He had paperwork for some pottery he’d hauled from Tijuana to Huerta’s Pottery Shed in Old Town. I can’t convince anybody at Central to check it out right away, so I’m going up there. Might find a lead as to where he dumped the stuff.”
“How’s about if I stop by your office and pick you up?” Fin suggested. “I’ll go with you.”
Nell Salter figured correctly that his motive was not investigation but seduction. She said, “My partner’s on vacation. I got a lotta work to do today, but how about tomorrow?”
“Yeah, I’m busy too,” Fin said. “Ain’t civil service hell? Tomorrow’s perfect. I know a German bar that makes their own beer. They play Barry Manilow tapes, and if that ain’t bad enough, they just discovered potato skins. The cutting edge of hip if you’re from a farm in Bavaria. The place is so depressing your own misery disappears for a while. Whaddaya say we check out the pottery shop and go have a beer?”