“Are the nine-thousand-dollar cash withdrawals still coming through?”
She nodded. “Every other month.”
“Who takes the cash?”
“Louis Braga, I assume.” Marge straightened her back and fixed her formidable eyes on Jim. “I have no idea where it goes after he touches it.”
Jim waited as Marge took a deep breath. She composed herself behind wet, steel-hard eyes and stared down at the Formica tabletop in front of her.
“None at all, Marge?” he asked quietly. “You of all people have no idea where the money goes?”
A flash of beseechment crossed her face, then vanished. “No, really.”
“Ah.”
She glanced up at Jim, then away.
“But you’ve seen something that doesn’t fit, haven’t you? You’re not stupid, Marge. You’ve hung around a little after hours, maybe? Checked the books real close to see if there’s a legitimate reason for it? Spun by late at night, or maybe on the weekends to see what’s happening? Maybe? For Mr. Cheverton? Am I right?”
She cleared her throat and nodded. “I intend to defend Mr. Cheverton, not to cast suspicion.”
“Wake up, Marge — Mr. Cheverton is being used.”
“Yes,” she said quietly. “Yes, I do know that.” She blinked wetly, and wiped her eye again. “It’s just so difficult to know when to fight and when to retreat. All we really have to go on is our own convictions, sooner or later.”
“That’s true,” said Weir. He leaned back in the chair. Give her room, he thought. He sipped his coffee and waited.
Marge Buzzard glanced quickly at him, then down into her coffee cup. Her perfume smelled of lilac. “I’ve been thinking of retiring,” she said finally. “It’s not the same. Nothing is the same.”
“It’s a terrible thing, to lose someone you love.”
Something indignant flashed in her eyes. “He was the finest man I ever knew. Honest, caring. He... deserved more than he got from life, I believe. Yes, I loved him. But I was never improprietous. He was a married man, and I a... single woman. I honor the marriage contract, Mr. Weir, whether it’s mine or someone else’s. If I had one, I mean.”
“Not everyone is so noble.”
“I’m a big ugly woman, Mr. Weir, but I do have my strengths. Loyalty, conviction, a certain amount of bravery when it’s called for.”
“I admired the way you tried to throw me off the property,” he said.
She looked at him in assessment. “And here I come with the same things I was trying so hard to keep you from finding out.”
“Why?”
“I knew who you were from the papers when you came to us looking for Smith,” she said. “I heard about Becky Flynn’s press conference and I thought she might try to exploit us. But I’m deeply affected by what happened to your sister, and though I’m sure there’s no connection between the larceny at Cheverton Sewer and Ann, still — your sister’s death helped me see the importance of...”
Jim waited, but she didn’t finish the sentence.
Marge’s fingers wrapped around her coffee cup. She didn’t look at Jim when she spoke. “Louis Braga gave money to a policeman named Blodgett, on at least two occasions. I heard Mr. Braga putting the cash into a shopping bag once while I was waiting for him in his trailer, and I saw him give Blodgett the bag that evening when I was working late. I can’t say that
all the payments have gone to him, but two did. I suspect the others have, as well.”
“Why does Blodgett get nine grand of PacifiCo’s money?”
“Cheverton’s money!”
“Cheverton’s, I mean.”
Marge studied Jim intently for a moment, her eyes narrowed, her big nose pink from crying. “I have my suspicions.” She brought her bag up from her lap and zipped it open. Out came a small jar. “The bait tank of Duty Free was filled with this material last week. There were six large canisters, too. They always take out the boat after a truck from Blake-Hollis Chemical comes. I know because Louis Braga never reports to work the following day until evening, and the boat is not there. I believe that this... substance is delivered by the Blake-Hollis Chemical truck. When Duty Free comes back the next day on the trailer, the tank is always empty and the canisters are, too.”
“Is Blake-Hollis Chemical part of PacifiCo?”
“A subsidiary.”
She offered the jar, but Jim shook his head and refused to touch it. He asked her instead to open the lid.
The fumes were sharp and alien. The fluid looked like water. Solvent, he thought. “It’s probably 1,1,1-trichloroethane,” he said. “That’s how it got into the bay.”
“That’s what I believe. I’ll leave it to you to find out and proceed as you see fit. I am not willing to tell the police what I know. Not the Newport Beach Police. Not with a man like Dale Blodgett in charge of toxic waste.”
“How about a federal grand jury?”
“The grander the better, Mr. Weir.”
“Miss Buzzard, you can’t leave that with me. Take it and hide it somewhere safe, but don’t let anyone else handle it. If you want to prove that this was dumped into the bay, you’re going to have to account for the sample. I can’t touch it now. Do you understand?”
She nodded.
“I’m going to ask you a question now that I want you to think about for a minute. The answer is extremely important.”
She snuffed, stiffened her back.
“Did you ever see my sister, Ann, at Cheverton, going out or getting ready to go out on Duty Free? She was blond, tall, pretty — I’m sure you saw her pictures. She may or may not have been with an older woman. Please think.”
Marge blinked and focused her fierce, wet eyes on Weir.
“No. Never.”
“Think again.”
“Never. I don’t forget things. But I do remember this. One day about a month ago, Blodgett had come to see Louis. It was the same evening I saw Louis give him the pouch of money, the day after they’d had the boat out. They were in Louis’s office, talking and laughing. I was watering those miserable geraniums outside his trailer, the ones that he will never stoop to water himself. The following is a rough translation of what I overheard. Louis said, ‘That was a close call last night.’ Blodgett said, ‘She had no idea.’ Louis said, ‘She walked right past the truck when she came in.’ Blodgett said, ‘There’re a dozen trucks in this yard. Don’t sweat it. If it was her mom, then we might have to worry. Virginia’s the one to watch.’ ”
“Virginia?”
“Yes. ‘Virginia’s the one to watch.’ I’m positive. Who is she?”
Weir’s vision had blurred for just a moment, then refocused with remarkable clarity. “Virginia is my mother. Ann’s mother. They’d gone out with Blodgett and Braga on the Toxic Waste patrol. Apparently, Ann tried to go out once alone with them, on a night they were dumping.”
“Oh, my. And now she’s dead.”
Weir stood up. “Don’t do anything for now. As far as you know, everything is fine. Wait until I call you. Do Braga or Blodgett have any idea you know this?”
“I’ve been the model of circumspection for thirty years at Cheverton.”
“You’ve done a good thing, Marge.”
Marge stood, arranged the frilly collar high on her neck, and patted down her skirt. “I feel like Judas must have felt,” she said.
“Judas betrayed Christ,” said Weir. “You’ve just busted a couple of profiteers who might be killers, too.”
“I think I will take a few days off and complete my letter of resignation.”