Steeled for Murder (2 page)

“Don’t get that rod caught in the works overhead,” Hank hollered up the ladder at me. “We don’t have anybody on this shift who can fix it.”

Great. I’d not only messed up badly in the first few minutes on this job, I had the potential to mess up a whole lot more. No wonder there was the three-month probationary period before anyone was made a permanent employee. Gingerly, I slid the rod into the tank and moved it around on the narrow bottom. I felt it hook onto something. I pulled it up, keeping an eye on the top end of the rod as it rose into the dimness of gears and chains above.

I could see the cabinet rising toward the surface. What was in this tank? I knew some of them contained corrosive acids that could eat right through a work glove. Every few yards, a big red sign designated an emergency station with a pull chain that activated a shower head. Not exactly comforting.

As I tried to raise the cabinet above the surface of the tank’s contents, it slipped.

I grabbed for it. This job was my best hope for supporting myself and staying out of prison. If I got a chemical burn, I’d just have to deal with it.

The warm contents of the tank spilled over the top of my glove. The scar on the palm of my right hand itched.

I yanked the cabinet, and it tumbled onto the catwalk next to me. I carefully extracted the rod from the machinery above. Hank stepped up to the ladder and held out his hand. I passed the rod to him and then scurried down, lugging the cabinet behind me.

The glove didn’t seem to be deteriorating noticeably. My hand tingled, but I couldn’t tell whether it was my imagination or if the skin was dissolving.

I waited for Hank to tell me to go find the foreman and get him to assign someone else to this job. Would John put me on another job or just tell me to punch out and go home?

Hank put the rod back next to the control panel. He examined the cabinet. “No damage.” He hung it on the plater hooks. It was a lot easier when the plater was stopped.

“Look,” he said, picking up another unfinished piece. “You got to get the hang of this.” He secured that piece on the next set of hooks. “Try it.”

He was giving me another chance. Relieved, I took a deep breath and focused on the task. Other people managed to do this job. Had to be a way I could, too.

Hank started the plater moving again as I grabbed another cabinet. I swung it up and tried to place it in the same position he had.

“Good.” He nodded. “Now give it a sharp tug to make sure it’s seated right.”

I yanked down on it and felt it settle into position.

He stopped the plater again and reached into his back pocket. “Dry glove,” he said. “Gimme the wet one. You’ll get blisters if you work in wet gloves. We always got a supply in the office.”

I stripped off the wet glove. I couldn’t help staring at my reddened hand. “What was in that tank?”

“Warm water,” Hank said, taking the wet glove and tossing it off to the side. “Next one’s detergent. Then rinse water. Some of the others are kind of nasty. They got a red label with a skull on them. Be careful if you have to go fishing in any of them.”

I slipped my hand into the glove. No more tingling.

He started the plater again. “I’m gonna stay here and pull enough of these to let you get started,” he said. “Just aim at hanging one on every other set of hooks; it’ll be a little over an hour before they come around again, and I’m gonna have to go give breaks and do some other stuff. You’ll get better at it.”

Hank continued to remove all the finished pieces while I figured out how to settle the unfinished ones in place. Then he started letting every other finished one through so I could get into the rhythm. Lift, remove, swing onto the pallet, grab a new one, lift onto the hooks, tug down, repeat. By the end of an hour, my shoulder muscles were screaming, but I was able to keep up with the half load.

“I got to go start breaks.” He stepped down off the platform. “Do the best you can. Try to speed up. Get everything off. If you have to, let a section go by without putting anything on it.”

I didn’t know how to tell him how grateful I was that he was giving me this second chance. “Thanks,” I mouthed at him.

Hank shrugged. “Ain’t nobody born knowing how to do this. You’re doing fine. Just keep at it.” He went down to plater one to relieve the operator.

I settled into the work. This job was more demanding than the ones I had started out with when I began working here a few weeks ago. First, they’d put me on a forming press, and then they’d moved me to the large root baskets, which were used by plant nurseries to move good-sized trees. The plater job was more specialized and more difficult. Might pay a little better if I ever got off the probationary period and into the union. I tried to pay attention to what I was doing. Thinking too much wouldn’t help. Never had.

The job might be tedious. I might go home with sore muscles and a headache from the fumes. But this was a good job, with decent wages. Benefits after I reached the three-month point. Paroled convicts don’t get many opportunities like this.

I heard the forklift rumble by once in a while, but I was too busy to pay it much mind. When the pallets at my work station needed to be moved, Hank made it his business to be standing there while Mitch moved them. I kept working, not glancing in his direction. I didn’t need any trouble. Besides, I couldn’t keep up with the plater if I so much as glanced away.

Hank was looking out for me. He and John were actually trying to help me succeed. A new experience for me.

Hank relieved me for my first break. My sore muscles begged me not to take them back to the plater. I ignored them.

After my four fifteen a.m. lunch, the muscles were so tired, they didn’t care anymore.

One more break and then the last two-hour sprint to quitting time. I would make it.

Several people hurried through the plating room. I risked a glance. John, the foreman. Hank, the plating group leader. Victor, the union steward.

In the brief moment I looked away, the cabinet I’d just hung started to slip. I hit the emergency stop button so I could straighten it out before it fell in again.

With no noise from the plater right in my ear, I thought I heard a siren. I listened carefully. Definitely a siren. Growing louder as it approached. Seemed to pull right into the truck yard by the shipping bays beyond the plating room. What was going on? I glanced at the other plater operators. They heard it, too. They looked around but kept working.

My stomach in a knot, I started the plater up again.

The pallet where I was putting my finished pieces was piled high, yet no forklift arrived to remove it. I put the next piece on the edge of the platform where I stood. I glanced down the line. The operator next to me was out of unfinished wire shelves. He shut down his plater long enough to step into the passageway and shout for Hank. He returned to his plater, starting it up again. He removed the finished shelves and let the conveyor run empty.

Hank appeared. He looked at the pallets in front of us and then hurried up the steps to the offices perched above the production floor.

A few minutes later, a forklift rumbled up. A bigger lift than the usual one, and a woman, not Mitch, was driving it. She deposited a new load for the plater next to me and then pulled out my overloaded pallet. Putting that aside, she swung the lift around, picked up an empty pallet, and maneuvered it into place. Then she dismounted and picked up the cabinets I’d put on the edge of the platform. They were heavy, but she handled them effortlessly. She leaned over and stacked them on the empty pallet.

She glanced toward me. I nodded my thanks to her. She nodded back, smiled, and turned to climb up on the forklift. Her dark brown hair was drawn into a tight ponytail that cascaded down her back almost to her ample rear. I had trouble tearing my eyes away.

Felt good to have a woman smile at me.

No place in my life for that kind of complication. I renewed my concentration on the work.

I realized I had been able to keep up even while I looked at the woman. Granted, I was only working at half-rate, but I must’ve been getting better.

Hank stepped up next to me. “I’ll take over,” he shouted, moving into place and removing the next cabinet from the hooks. He made it look easy.

“Break time?” I asked. Seemed early, and he usually started with plater one.

“You’re wanted up there,” he said, nodding toward the stairs leading up to the offices that overlooked the production floor. “First door on the right.”

My heart sank. Maybe they were going fire me after all. Reluctantly, I climbed the stairs.

As I stepped into the office, a uniformed police officer shut the door behind me. Another one stood to the side, his holster unsnapped and his hand resting on the butt of his gun. Panic rose in my throat. Couldn’t let that show.

The thick office door muted the pounding of the heavy machinery.

A man I didn’t know perched on the edge of the worn wooden desk. Not wearing the mandatory hard hat. Dressed in a rumpled suit. Smelled of cop.

He stood up. Didn’t show his badge. “Jesse Damon?”

He knew who I was. He’d sent for me. But I answered, “Yes, sir.”

“Take off your hard hat.” He held out his pudgy hand for it. “Officer Simmons here is going to frisk you. For our safety and yours. Lace your fingers on top of your head and spread your feet.”

Nothing to do with my safety. But as I well knew, no point in not complying.

Officer Simmons put one hand on top of mine and expertly frisked me with the other. He pulled out my wallet and unclipped its chain from the belt loop. Tossed it on the desk where it hit a silver clock, which fell on its face. He pulled out my key ring with its pathetic single key to my one-room basement apartment. He tossed it on the desk with my wallet.

Taking one of my wrists in his iron grip, he brought my hand behind me, turned the palm outward, and snapped on handcuffs. Tighter than necessary. He did the same to my other hand.

“Okay, Detective Belkins.” He stepped back.

Detective Belkins eased off the desk and walked around me, eyeing me up and down. “Anything you want to tell us?”

I stared at the desktop. My wallet was new and shiny. I’d only had it for five weeks.

My throat was dry, but I managed to say, “No, sir.”

“On parole?”

“Yes, sir.” I continued to look down at the desk.

“Violated?”

“No, sir.” What had I done that might violate my parole? Nothing I could think of.

“Sure?”

“Yes, sir.” Don’t show doubt.

“What was the charge?”

He knew. He just wanted to hear me say it. “Murder. Possession of a handgun during the commission of a felony. Conspiracy.”

“And you pled guilty?”

“Alford plea.” Copping to an Alford plea—not admitting guilt but agreeing that the state had enough evidence to convict me—had been a problem from the beginning. Anyone who had any say in my future, like counselors and parole board members, wanted to hear me express remorse. Much harder to do when the plea itself denies guilt in the first place.

“Refused to take responsibility, eh?” Detective Belkins said.

I couldn’t think of any reasonable response to that, so I kept quiet.

“No armed robbery?”

“Those charges were dropped,” I said. “Part of the plea bargain.”

“Possession of controlled dangerous substance? With intent to distribute?”

“Dropped.” The convictions would show up on any kind of check. But he knew all my original charges; he’d done his homework. Why had he bothered?

“Part of the plea bargain, too, I suppose?” he said.

I nodded. No point commenting on that.

“Been reporting to your parole officer?” he asked, rubbing his nose with a thick finger.

“Yes, sir.”

He glanced down at my ankle, where the black box made a slight bulge in my jeans. “Following the terms of home detention?”

“Yes, sir.” What did he think I was going to say?

“Like this job?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Getting along with your co-workers?” He came closer. I could smell his sour breath.

“Pretty much, sir.”

“How about one Mitchell Robinson?”

“The forklift driver? He thought I was looking at his wife, but I wasn’t.” Jeez. What had Mitch told them?

“He threaten to call your parole officer?”

“Yes, sir.”

“That must have worried you. Don’t want to go back to prison where you belong, do you?” Detective Belkins moved directly in front of me and stared at my face. Red veins showed on his nose.

I shifted my gaze to avoid his.

The office door opened, saving me from a reply. John, the foreman, came in. He had to duck to get through the doorway. He looked grave. “Jesse’s a good worker. Be sorry to lose him.”

If I could have trusted my voice, I would have thanked him.

The detective turned toward John. “They should never parole these killers.” He swung back to face me. “You know your Miranda rights.”

He wasn’t even going to do the right thing and read them to me. He knew I wouldn’t complain; I was a parolee, and no one would listen anyhow.