Lisa Scottoline - Save Me

“No good deed goes unpunished, though. Before you know it, Mojo’s tossed out.”

“Oh no.” Rose lowered her voice. “They fired him?”

“I think they asked for his resignation, you know how they do. But he was too proud to let on, with me.” Julie frowned. “Don’t put that in your story, okay?”

“None of this will be in, I promise.” Rose suppressed a guilty pang.

“Thanks.” Julie nodded. “Tell you somethin’ else about him. He came in as a director after his training, but he never lorded it over anybody.”

“What did he do here?”

“Oh, right. You might not know, because the compliance offices in Pennsylvania are run by the feds.” Julie cleared her throat. “Well, OSHA, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, administers workforce safety out of D.C. But some states, like Maryland, have their own compliance agencies, too.”

“I see.” Rose took notes, and Julie warmed to her topic.

“We cooperate with the feds, and we work hard to ensure that every man and woman in the state has safe and healthful working conditions.”

“So Mojo came here after his training. Where did he train?”

“Baltimore, with everybody else.”

“Why did he need training, if he’d been a safety manager at Homestead?”

“That’s what he said!” Julie laughed. “We train anyway, and he didn’t know the way we do things down here.”

Rose thought a minute. “I didn’t ask him, but was he a Maryland resident then?”

“No, he had to move here.”

Rose hesitated, and Julie leaned over.

“Next, you’re gonna ask me how he got the job, and that I don’t know. He moved to Harford County, just over the state line. I knew he wouldn’t stay forever. He wanted to go back to Pennsylvania, and they were building the house. You’ve seen that place of his?”

“Yes, that’s where I interviewed him.”

“His wife’s family, they got money. That, he told me.” Julie leaned over again. “How else you think he could afford to build custom, especially from that fancy company? He liked it so much, that’s who he went to work for.”

“Campanile.” Rose made a fake note, and suddenly a fluorescent light began to flicker overhead.

“Uh-oh!” Julie looked up, curled her lip in annoyance. “Here we go again. Building Maintenance’s gotta come change that bulb. I don’t know how to do fluorescents, you know, those long, skinny ones.”

“Me, neither.”

“Mojo wouldn’t have any of that, of course. If he was here, he’d get on a ladder, grab a screwdriver, take off that panel, and change that bulb himself, no waiting.” Julie nodded. “Mojo can fix anything.”

“Even lights?”

“Sure enough. That’s something else you probably don’t know about Mojo. You can put it in your article.”

“What?”

“He’s a master electrician.”

Rose hit the road on fire, flying up I-95, heading north. Traffic had picked up, and she kept her foot on the gas, passing slowpokes, full of nervous energy. Mojo was looking more and more like a killer; he had access to the school at any time, so he could have planted the polyurethane in the teachers’ lounge, and he knew enough about electrical wiring to rig the microwave, loosen the wiring, and create a gas leak.

Rose sensed that Mojo had done it, but she didn’t know why. Campanile had just built the school, so why would he want to blow it up, especially when lawsuits were likely to follow, against his own employer? She raced down the highway, and the questions kept coming. Why would he want to murder children? Even if he had known that they’d be at recess, it would be an awful chance to take, and he’d killed three staff members.

She steered smoothly around a Honda, thinking back. In a matter of days, there had been two deaths that looked like accidents that weren’t, and after her trip to Baltimore, she felt even more paranoid. She hadn’t realized that Mojo had any connection with Bill Gigot; wherever Mojo went, death seemed to follow, and she was beginning to wonder if Bill Gigot’s death had been an accident, too.

Rose sped home, toward Reesburgh, but she wasn’t sure of her next move. She still didn’t have any evidence that Mojo had committed a murder, much less three of them, so she still couldn’t go to the police. She had called Annie and Leo to tell them what was going on, but neither had answered, and this time, she didn’t leave a message. She was on her own.

She took the exit ramp, and in time, the terrain grew familiar. White clapboard farms and tall blue silos. Sun-drenched stretches of corn and soybeans, their round, dark-green leaves shuddering in unseen winds. She whizzed past the scenery, thinking about Bill Gigot and Homestead. She had never been inside the plant; she and Melly had missed the school’s field trip there, in second grade. Homestead staged the town’s Halloween and Christmas parades, and sponsored a team in its softball and basketball leagues. Other than that, Rose knew very little about the company.

Maybe it was time to learn.

After all, she was a reporter.

Rose got out of her car in the visitors’ lot, breathed in the tantalizing aroma of frying potatoes, and eyed the Homestead factory, which was on the other side of the access road. It wasn’t a single building, but a series of five buildings-immense corrugated metal boxes, painted a sparkling white, with a broad yellow stripe. Clouds of steam billowed from metal smokestacks and drifted from square metal vents near the flat rooflines, dissipating into the clear blue sky. Rose had known Homestead was a big company, but she hadn’t realized it was this vast.

She turned around, pushed her fake glasses onto her nose, hoisted her purse to her shoulder, and walked to a sidewalk mobbed with kids on field trips, being shepherded by teachers, aides, and moms into lines for factory tours. She waded through the kids to the entrance of the Homestead corporate offices, a large, three-story office building of a sleek modern design, with a façade of dark brick and smoked-glass windows.

HOMESTEAD SNACK FOODS, read a discreet sign in yellow letters, and she reached the office doors, went inside, and found herself in a two-story waiting area dominated by a modern chandelier of frosted glass. A gleaming reception desk was at the back of the room, but the receptionist was talking on the phone, her head down.

Rose looked around. To her left was a waiting area, where two men in suits sat talking in front of a glass coffee table, and on the right was a display case of Homestead products, next to a bigger one of awards, made of engraved glass and Lucite. A set of crystal spikes were annual safety awards, and Rose could guess which year they hadn’t won: seven years ago, when Bill Gigot was killed.

“May I help you?” the receptionist called out, and Rose turned, then froze. The receptionist was one of the moms from school, though not in Melly’s class. Rose had no choice but to rely on her master disguise.

“Hi.” Rose approached the desk. “I’m Annie Adler.”

“Hello,” the receptionist said, seeming not to recognize her.

“I’m with Home Baking, a new magazine. We’re doing a story on how home cooks can make their own potato chips, and I was wondering if I could talk to someone about baking in the big leagues, like at Homestead. I’d love to know more about your operation here, including workplace safety practices.”

“Of course.” The receptionist smiled politely. “Would you like to make an appointment for next week? Our public relations manager, Tricia Hightower, is busy this week. The Harvest Conference, our annual corporate gathering, is held here at headquarters, with all the executives and top sales reps from all our branches.”