“I see,” I said slowly. “So you didn’t know about her until she showed up next to Bron on the golf course yesterday morning?”
“If I had, Bron would have been at the unemployment office on Monday. We don’t tolerate rules violations, and having outsiders in the cab is a big By-Smart no-no.”
“But if she was in Billy’s Miata, she wasn’t in the cab with Czernin.”
“Czernin was-” He cut himself off. “He’d been driving her around the neighborhood the last two weeks, that’s what I learned on the floor when I told the men what had happened to him.”
“You tell me Marcena Love was in Billy’s Miata and also that she was in Bron’s cab,” I said. “But the truck and the car weren’t together, so Bron was driving for By-Smart that night, right?”
He looked at me, stone-faced. “He signed out a load at four twenty-two. He reached his first delivery in Hammond at five-seventeen. He was thirteen minutes late to his next delivery, in Merrill, and twenty-two minutes late to the third, in Crown Point. After that, which was ten-oh-eight, we didn’t hear from him again. Now, if that’s it-”
“That isn’t ‘it,’ although it’s interesting that you have those times down so exactly. What did you and Bron fight about Monday afternoon?”
“We didn’t.”
“Everyone heard you shouting,” I said. “He thought you’d help with his kid’s medical bills.”
“If you knew that, why’d you ask?” His tone was belligerent, but his eyes were wary.
“I’d like your version.”
He studied me for a long moment, then said, “I don’t have a version. Truckers are a rough bunch. You can’t manage them if you’re not ready to go head-to-head with them, and Czernin was the worst in that regard. Everything was a fight with him, his hours, his routes, his overtime. He thought the world owed him a living, and fights were a regular part of life with him.”
“I always saw Bron as a lover, not a fighter, and I’ve known him since high school,” I objected. “If he was so obnoxious, why’d you keep him on for twenty-seven years?”
Grobian distorted his mouth into an ugly leer. “Yeah, you broads all saw his loving side, but in the shop we saw his fighting side. Behind the wheel, we didn’t have a better driver-when he kept his mind on the job. Never had an accident in all those years.”
“So going back to his pitch for By-Smart’s help with his daughter’s medical bills-”
“It didn’t come up,” he snapped.
“Hnnh. I have a witness who heard you promise Czernin you’d discuss-”
“Who’s that?” Grobian demanded.
“Someone in the witness protection program.” I smiled nastily. “This person said Bron had a document, businesslike, shipshape, that showed you promised to help with April’s medical care.”
He sat very still for a minute. The light reflected on his glasses, so I couldn’t read his expression. Was he alarmed or just thinking things over?
“Your witness showed you the document, right?” he finally said. “So you know I never signed anything.”
“So you agree that there was a document? Just not one you signed?”
“I agree with nothing! If you have it, I want to see it-I need to know who’s making stuff up about me.”
“No one’s making anything up, Grobian. Unless you are, with your stories about how you knew Billy wasn’t driving his car, or how you and Bron weren’t really fighting. Bron died right after he had his fight with you. Is that a coincidence?”
A pulse jumped over his right eye. “You say that again and you’ll say it in court in front of a judge. You have nothing on me, not one goddamn thing. You’re fishing without worms.”
His phone rang and he jumped on it. “Yeah?” He looked at his watch again. “Damn spic is twenty-six minutes late. He can cool his heels for another five…And you.” He hung up and looked at me. “We’re done here.”
“No wonder you’re the ideal manager for trucking routes-you’re like a talking clock. Your so-called spic is twenty-six minutes late, not half an hour, Bron was twenty-two minutes behind schedule. The family will never promote you-you’re the perfect clerk-manager for them.”
He jumped up from his chair and stood over me, looking furious, but somehow also scared-I had put his worst fears into words. “The family trusts me,” he cried. “I don’t believe they ever even hired you. Prove it to me.”
I laughed. “We’ll call Mr. William, shall we? Or would you like to put some money on it first-say, a hundred dollars?”
He was so caught up in his swirl of emotion that he almost bit; I was picturing dinner at the Filigree or paying a third of my phone bill. At the last second, he recovered his poise enough to tell me he didn’t have time for crap like this and that I needed to leave. At once.
I got up. “By the way, where did you find Bron’s truck? It wasn’t near the Miata at the Skyway, and it sure wasn’t where I found Bron’s body.”
“What business is it of yours?”
“Bron was driving his truck; Marcena, according to you, was alone in the Miata. That means there is probably evidence in the truck showing who attacked him, or how he was attacked, or some darn thing or other. I think it’s kind of hard to misplace a semi, although not really impossible.”
“When we find it, Polack, you’ll be the first to know-I don’t think. Time for you to move on.”
He thrust the arm with the bulging marine tattoo under my elbow and hoisted me to my feet. It was unsettling that he could shift me so easily, but I didn’t try to fight him-I needed my strength for more important battles.
When we were facing the aisles of merchandise with the conveyor belts clacking overhead, he spoke into a lapel mike. “ Jordan? I got a girl here who made it into the warehouse unannounced. She’s heading for the front now-make sure she gets out of the shop, will you? Red parka, tan hard hat.”
I decided telling him I was a woman, not a girl, would just get me into a tiresome exchange that wouldn’t help any more than a physical fight. As he stood with his hands on his hips, snapping at me to get a move on, I started singing the old Jerry Williams song, “I’m a woman, not a girl-I want a real man,” but I did get a move on.
I refused to turn my head to see if Grobian were still watching me and marched down the first aisle with my head held high. I wondered how he would know if I really left, but as I moved through aisles crammed with stuff, beneath the conveyor belts ferrying it around, past the crew in red smocks that read “Be Smart, By-Smart,” stacking everything from crates of By-Smart’s private-label wine to vast boxes of Christmas decorations, I saw the video cams at every corner. Woman in red parka and tan hard hat, visible to all and sundry. As I worked my way through the maze of aisles and forklifts and boxes, the loudspeakers kept booming-“Forklift needed at A42N”; “Bad spill at B33E”; “Runner to truck bay 213.” If I turned back, I imagined they’d start booming, “Woman in red parka on the loose, search and destroy.”
In between the wine and the Christmas decorations, I abruptly squatted behind a forklift laden ten feet high with cartons and took off my parka. I turned it inside out and folded it over my arm, hiding my hard hat underneath it. On the back of the forklift was a By-Smart hat that the driver had chosen not to wear, despite all the signs urging him to “Make the Workplace a Safe Place.”
I put it on, left the parka tucked behind a crate of sunlamps, and doubled back to the hall where the offices were. Grobian was meeting with a Mexican and he didn’t want me to know who it was. That meant-I was going to find out.
Grobian’s door was shut, and someone with the By-Smart guard paraphernalia-stun gun, reflective vest, and all-was standing outside. I backed into the paper room, where the printers and fax machines were. I couldn’t hear what was going on over the noise of the machines, so after a couple of minutes I looked outside again. Grobian’s door was just opening. I ducked my head and moved down the hall to the canteen. In the shadow of the doorway, I watched Grobian summon a guard to escort his visitor back into the warehouse.