Rose saw her opening to talk about Bill Gigot. “I heard from Trish that there was even a guy who got killed here, around that time.”
“Yep. Bill.” Juanita’s mouth made a grim line. “He was on the night shift, where you’ll be. I remember, because I was worried sick about Christmas. We didn’t know what we could afford to get the kids or how long I’d have to take less pay.” Juanita eyed the X-ray screen. “Finally, we started back with the chocolate-filled, and even though we don’t make the peanut-filled nuggets or crackers anymore, we still don’t put peanut-free on the bags. We can’t take a chance, on account of the FDA and the lawsuits.”
“I heard he had a forklift accident.”
“He did.” Juanita pointed to the left. “Right over there. You can see the loading dock.”
“Creepy.” Rose turned around, but she couldn’t see around the corner. “Do accidents like that happen a lot, here?”
“A fatality, at Homestead? No way.” Juanita eyed the X-ray screen. “Forklifts can be dangerous. Bill came over here from the big plant, wait, lemme think, I don’t know exactly when he started”—Juanita positioned the next box—“but I know he was here by July. I remember because of the holiday. We had a company picnic, and he was the new guy, over from the big plant. The peanut people always stuck together. That was our joke.” Juanita chuckled. “Bill was a nice guy, and he’d been with the company a long time. Then all of a sudden, I come in, I hear he died.”
“I wonder how that happened. I guess he wasn’t experienced on the forklift.”
“No, he was. Very. Drove a forklift at the big plant, too.”
Rose didn’t get it. Mojo told Julie that Bill wasn’t experienced. “So isn’t that strange that he could have an accident, even though he’s so experienced?”
“No, accidents happen to experienced people. I think they happen more, because the experienced guys don’t watch as much. My neighbor is a roofer thirty years, and last week he fell off a ladder and broke his leg.” Juanita shook her head, closing the flaps on the next box. “Still, I was so sad when Bill died.”
“I’m sure. Did anybody see what happened, that night?”
“No, there weren’t any other employees around. We were down to a skeleton crew at night because of what I told you.” Juanita closed another box. “They didn’t find him until it was too late. He bled to death.”
“Yikes. Who found him?” Rose was verifying her facts.
“The Director of Safety. Joe Modjeska. Mojo.” Juanita sent another box on its way. “Great guy.”
Right. “Did you have a lot of interaction with him?”
“Mojo was here all the time. He was in our building so much, we called him Mr. Peanut.” Juanita smiled, moving the next box along. “He resigned but I heard they asked for it. The captain goes down with the ship.”
“Why was Mojo here so much? Did you have more safety problems than the big plant?” Rose didn’t want to sound too inquisitive. “I don’t want to work in a place with a lot of safety problems.”
“Don’t worry, the new guy hardly ever comes by.” Juanita eyed the screen again. “Mojo just liked us, that’s what he said. He thought we were more fun, and we are.” Juanita smiled, and Rose joined her, but she was dying to get a look at the loading dock, to check the rest of Mojo’s account.
“Can I take a bathroom break, boss?” she asked.
Chapter Sixty-eight
Rose went to the loading dock, slowing her pace as if she were just walking through. Two men in phosphorescent lime green uniforms, maybe for greater visibility, drove scuffed orange forklifts, whipping them around the concrete floor. The loading dock was a long, wide area, with flattened cardboard boxes piled on the floor, next to pallets stacked with boxes, shrink-wrapped with plastic sheets, to make a block. On the left was a line of white garage-type doors, with rectangular windows, and two of the doors were closed. The others opened into the containers of tractor-trailers, and at a glance, it looked as if the containers were a series of long, dark rooms.
Rose remembered Mojo had told Julie it was dark in the loading dock, but it was as light here as the factory floor, with panels of exposed fluorescent fixtures attached to a metal support overhead. She wondered if the lighting had been improved after Bill Gigot’s death and made a mental note to ask Juanita. Even if his death was a murder, she was curious if they’d changed the lighting, for show.
Rose stepped aside as one of the men steered a forklift into one of the containers, carrying a pallet of shrink-wrapped boxes. Two large lamps on the cab, like the eyes on a hardshell crab, lit his way, and even if the loading dock had been dark, the lamps would have corrected for that problem. One of the garage doors was wide open, with no truck, and sunlight beamed through it in a slanted shaft. Rose could imagine how a forklift operator could drive too close to the edge of the dock and fall off, but she still didn’t think that was what had happened to Bill Gigot.
Rose headed back to the factory floor to ask Juanita about the lighting, but stopped when she noticed a man approaching her at the screening station. It could have been the supervisor, Scotty, and Rose didn’t want to take any chances of his calling Trish. She did an about-face, walked back toward the locker room, and hurried out of the building.
Five minutes later, she was in her car and driving away from the plant, in the late-day sun. She whipped off her hairnet, glasses, earplugs, and gloves, but she didn’t pull over to take off her uniform. She couldn’t risk getting caught, and her brain was buzzing. So Mojo had lied about Bill Gigot’s death, trying to make it look more like an accident, which only made it more likely to be murder.
She hit the gas, heading into Reesburgh, where traffic was picking up. She didn’t understand why Mojo would have killed Bill Gigot and she wished she could bounce it off of Leo. She glanced at the dashboard clock—5:15. He’d just be getting out of court, so maybe she could reach him. She fished her phone out of her purse, slowed her speed, and when she came to a traffic light, hit L. She waited for it to ring, but the voicemail came on, and she left a message. “Call me when you can. Love you.”
She pressed END, then dialed Annie while the traffic light was still red, but there was no answer there, either. The traffic light turned green, and she cruised forward, trying to decide what to do next. She still didn’t have any evidence to take to the state police, and she wasn’t sure how the murder of Bill Gigot was connected to the school fire, except by Mojo. It was a puzzle with pieces missing, but she felt oddly closer than ever.
She drove ahead, looking through the windshield at the narrow strip of highway, barely seeing the trees with their turning leaves, and her phone rang. She didn’t recognize the number on the screen, but didn’t want to miss a return call if Leo or Annie were calling from a different phone, so she picked up. “Hello?”
“Rose?” a woman said, between sobs. “It’s … Kristen.”
“Kristen, what’s the matter?” Rose asked, alarmed. The teacher sounded like she was crying hard.
“I need … help. Please … help me.”
“My God, is it the baby? Are you okay? Kristen, call 911. I can’t get to Lavallette in time.”
“No, it’s not … the baby. I’m so scared. Please, I need to talk to you. There’s nobody else.”
“What is it? I’m here. I can listen.” Rose was already looking for a break in the traffic, to pull over on the shoulder. “What are you afraid of? What’s going on?”
“I can’t tell you over the phone.” Kristen’s crying slowed. “Where are you?”
“In Reesburgh. Where are you? Are you in New Jersey?”
“I can’t say, but … I need to see you. I’ll text you when and where to meet me, after we hang up.”
“Why? What’s going on?”
“Rose, everything I told you was a lie.”
Chapter Sixty-nine
“What’s going on?” Rose was sitting in her car with Kristen, having convinced the teacher that her appearance was a master disguise.
It was after dark, and they were parked at the edge of a cornfield, in the middle of the farm country outside of Reesburgh. The air was cool and fresh, and the only light came from the full moon, her car’s high beams, and the dashboard, which shone upward on Kristen’s young face, showing the wetness to her eyes. Her gray T-shirt and sweats looked thrown on.
“Rose, I lied to you, about everything. Well, not one thing. I am pregnant.”
“Okay.” Rose tried to slow her heart, which was hammering. She’d taken off her Homestead uniform, which she’d had on over her clothes.
“But it’s not my boyfriend’s baby, like I told you.”
“Whose is it?”
“Um…” Kristen hesitated, sighing. “Let me just say, I wish it was his baby, because he’s a great guy. And he didn’t break up with me, I broke up with him.”
“Who is the baby’s father?”
“Paul Martin. Senator Martin.”
Rose felt her mouth drop open. “Are you kidding?”
“No. It’s true.”
“But he’s married, older, and a United States Senator.”
“I know. I used to think I loved him, but I must’ve been out of my mind.” Kristen shook her head, sadly. “We’ve been seeing each other on the side since early summer. I met him when I was at school picking up some papers, and he was being shown around the construction site, by people from the school district. One of them introduced us, and I invited him to talk to my class. He called me, and we started up.”
Rose remembered that Senator Martin had talked to Melly’s class, at Kristen’s behest. “Okay, so tell me what’s going on.”
“That explosion in the school, it was meant for me. I think he tried to kill me.”
“Senator Martin?” Rose couldn’t wrap her mind around it. She had thought that Kristen was involved in the explosion, but it turned out she hadn’t been a villain, but a victim. “Senator Martin tried to kill you?”
“Well, he didn’t do it himself, but I think he ordered it done. If I hadn’t been out running this afternoon, they would have killed me.”
“How do you know? What the hell’s going on?”
“Paul knows my schedule. He knows that every Friday, I eat alone and microwave a veggieburger.”
“How does he know that?”
“Because that’s when we’d talk. That’s the only time we talk during the work day. It’s our secret.” Kristen bit her lip, her eyes glistening. “You were right. Marylou Battle was where I would have been, at exactly the same time, and I think they did something to make the microwave blow up when I used it. She was killed, instead of me. And Melly could have been there, too. I’m so sorry, really sorry.”
Rose didn’t want to go there, not now. “Didn’t the senator know you’d be out of school that day, sick?”
“No. I got morning sick, that much was true, and decided not to go, at the last minute. I didn’t tell him. I figured I’d call him from home, at the same time, the way we always did.”
“So why would he kill you? Is it because he doesn’t want the baby? The scandal?”
“Of course, he doesn’t want the baby. He’s worried about the scandal and a divorce, and there’s more than that. It’s because of what I know, or what he thinks I know.” Kristen sighed. “It happened this one time, when we were supposed to meet at our country place.”
“What country place?”
“A house, about an hour from here, closer to D.C. It belongs to a friend of his, who keeps his mouth shut. We used to meet there when Paul had time. He called it our love shack.”
Adorable.
“We were supposed to meet, but Mrs. Nuru wanted to go over a lesson plan. So I called and told him, but then she canceled, and I wanted to see him. I left a message on his cell, telling him I’d meet him there. He didn’t call back, but he didn’t always, if there were people around. I went, but he wasn’t alone.”
“Another woman?”
“No. He was with a man.”
“He’s gay?”
“No, it was a man I didn’t know, and they were sitting in the living room. I had my key, so I let myself in, and when I came in, I could tell it was tense. You know how you can feel it in the air, when you come into a room after a fight?”
“Yes.”
“Paul didn’t expect me. Neither did the man.”
“Wait. Didn’t Paul, uh, the senator, get your voicemail message?”
“He must not have checked it. Or sometimes they get delayed, you know? Does that ever happen to you?”
“Yes.” Rose nodded.
“Paul got the man out in a hurry, then we had a huge fight.”
“What about?”
“Paul worried I heard what they were talking about, but I only heard one thing, and it made no sense. He was freaked that I saw him with this guy.”
“Who was the guy?”
“I didn’t know. But then, I saw his picture in the paper, at a celebrity golf tournament.”
Rose gasped. “Joe Modjeska.”
Kristen blinked. “Yes. Do you know him?”
“No. He works for Campanile, the general contractor at the school.” Rose shifted up in the driver’s seat. “When did you see them together?”
“The Wednesday before the explosion.”
“And the explosion was on Friday.” Rose put it together. “Modjeska is the guy who put the polyurethane in the lounge, which was supposed to kill you.”
“How do you know all this?” Kristen asked, bewildered.
“Doesn’t matter. What did you hear them say, that didn’t make sense to you?”
“Something about peanuts and foreign countries.”
“What do you mean?” Rose asked, her senses on alert.
“They were saying something about peanuts and Jamaica, Latin America, Chile, like a bunch of foreign countries. I asked him what they were talking about, and he freaked.” Kristen threw up her hands, upset. “That’s why it’s so crazy. I had no idea what they even meant.”
“I do. Modjeska killed Bill Gigot.”
“Amanda’s father?” Kristen’s eyes widened. “But I thought he died years ago.”
“He did. He worked at Homestead and was killed in a forklift accident, but I think it was murder. Joe Modjeska was Director of Safety at the time. Only one thing, I don’t know why. I just can’t put my finger on it.” Rose looked through the windshield into the darkness. She flashed on the beach, when she’d looked into the darkness for answers, and she’d let her mind run free. Then suddenly, it came. “Oh my God. I think I know.”
“What?”
“I found out tonight that during this time, Bill Gigot was transferred to the peanut plant, but the peanut business went bust. They wanted to convert the machinery to chocolate products, but it took time because the machinery had been used for peanuts and—”
“People are allergic to peanuts, like Jason.”
Rose blinked. “Jason who?”
“Jason Gigot. Amanda’s older brother. He has a severe peanut allergy, and Eileen told me this incredible story about how they found out.”
“How?”
“They didn’t know he was allergic, but their dad worked at Homestead and they switched him to making peanut-butter crackers or something like that. He came home one night, picked up Jason, and the little boy went into shock.”
Rose listened, spellbound. It was the last piece of the puzzle, and she could feel it falling into place.
“Jason’s throat swelled up, he couldn’t breathe, and they had to rush him to the hospital. He almost died, and they didn’t even know he had the allergy. He was, like, six years old. Amanda was a baby at the time.”
Rose remembered what Juanita had said, and spun out a scenario. “If a production line isn’t working at Homestead, it costs the company a hundred thousand dollars a day. During that time, the peanut machines weren’t working for almost six months. That’s millions, and Homestead had lots of orders for chocolate-filled nuggets. So they must have used the
peanut machines to fill the chocolate orders, at night.”
“That’s terrible!” Kristen shook her head, incredulous. “Children would die. Would they really do that?”
“For that much money, yes.” Rose thought about it, and it made sense. “They ran the machines in secret, making chocolate crackers and chocolate-filled nuggets on the peanut machines. Nobody would know the difference, only the skeleton crew at night and the Director of Safety.”
“Modjeska?”
“They called him Mr. Peanut because he was around so often, and now we know why. The night shift knew, but that was only a few people, and they kept the secret. They were probably paid off, too.” Rose could visualize how it all went down, having seen the plant and the peanut building herself. “I bet Bill Gigot was with them until his son Jason almost died, then he wanted to put a stop to it.”
“What about Eileen? You don’t think she knew, do you?”
“I doubt it. She would have known that he’d gotten transferred to the peanut plant, but not that they were running chocolate on the machines. He wouldn’t risk telling her that.” Rose thought of something else Juanita had said. “Homestead got a lot of orders for the chocolate products from Latin America and the Caribbean, so I’m thinking they filled the orders for export, only. Maybe that’s what you heard when you interrupted that meeting.”
“I see.” Kristen nodded, grimly. “They were talking about countries where they sent the contaminated snacks.”