Max Collins - Midnight Haul

“I see.”

“Harry and the girls weren’t getting along too well, either. He and Angie were always going at it, because he felt she had loose morals. He accused Jenifer of the same thing, and she was only thirteen. Why, she’s still a baby! Can you imagine?”

“No.”

“So Harry took an apartment over the hardware store. That’s where he took his pills and Scotch.”

Crane sat there and tried to absorb what he’d just heard. Make some sense of it.

“Mrs. Woll, I need to ask you something that may seem a little... off the wall...”

“All right. Ask.”

“Was there anything at all suspicious about Mr. Woll’s death?”

“Suicide. No. I think he hoped someone would stop him. I don’t think he really meant to do it.”

“No, I suppose not. What I mean to say is, did you at the time — or do you now — have any suspicions, whether based on fact or just a feeling you might have, that Mr. Woll’s death might have been something other than suicide?”

“I don’t understand.”

“Mrs. Woll, there have been five suicides in Greenwood in a little over one year. Mr. Woll was one; my fiancée, Mary Beth, was another. All five worked for Kemco.”

“I still don’t understand what you’re driving at.”

“Five suicides in a town the size of Greenwood is about ten times the national average. That strikes me as odd. And all five suicide victims worked for Kemco. That seems odd to me, too.”

She smiled; she really was a beautiful woman. “ Now I understand. Mr. Crane, accept your fiancée’s death for what it was: suicide. It sounds harsh, but the truth often does. Just because Harry and I were separated when he killed himself doesn’t mean I’d stopped loving him. We weren’t divorced, after all. We might’ve gotten back together. It was a crushing blow to me. I cried and cried. But I learned to accept it. Live with it. Life goes on.”

“Uh, right. But that doesn’t make the coincidences I mentioned any less odd.”

“It also doesn’t make them anything more than coincidences.”

“Perhaps.”

She touched his leg. “It’s only natural that you find it hard to accept the fact that your fiancée took her own life. It’s normal for you to try to make it be something else. Accept her suicide as her suicide , and not an accident or some conspiracy or other such nonsense — and get on with your own life.” She leaned forward and, with a smile, lifted her hand from his leg and wagged a motherly finger at him. “Just because someone else threw their life away, doesn’t mean you have to. More coffee?”

“No, no thanks.”

“It’s no trouble...”

“No, really,” he said, rising. “Listen, it was really very nice of you to see me. Talk to me.”

“My pleasure.”

He moved toward the door. “Well, anyway, thank you. I know it must’ve seemed strange, getting a phone call from somebody you never heard of...”

“Don’t be silly. I knew who you were.”

“You did?”

“Of course. I knew Mary Beth. Isn’t that why you came? Because you needed to talk to someone who’d known Mary Beth? Someone who’d been through what you’re going through now, which I have, with my husband’s suicide?”

“Uh, well. I didn’t know how well you knew her.”

“I didn’t know her well, but I knew her. She was a wonderful person. It’s a tragic loss.”

“Did she talk to you about me?”

“Not really. She mentioned you. The girl was crazy about you, I’d judge. And I didn’t blame her.” She gave him an openly flirty look; her mouth was her daughter’s. “I’d seen your picture, after all.”

“She showed it to you?”

“No, it was on her desk.”

“You worked with her?”

“Yes. I’m in charge of the secretarial pool at the Kemco plant. You knew that, certainly?”

“Uh. Certainly.”

“Well, good night, Mr. Crane.”

“Good night.”

Just as the door was closing, the volume on the TV went up; he could hear the canned laughter.

The barrels were stacked four high, and everywhere. Toxic Tootsie Rolls, standing on end, more rows deep than Crane dared guess. In their midst was a sprawling warehouse, faded red brick with black windows, its loading-dock area clear, but otherwise surrounded by fifty-five-gallon barrels.

And the barrels looked sick. Piled haphazardly, unlabelled, many of them pockmarked, stained by unknown fluids that had streaked them like dried blood. Some of the bottom barrels were so corroded that weeds grew in and out of them, God knew how.

They’d taken the New Jersey Turnpike to Elizabeth, and Boone had guided the Datsun down this industrial waterfront stretch lined with storage tanks of gasoline and natural liquid gas that loomed like silver UFOs; the air hung with the smell of industry. At the end of this unshaded lane was Chemical Disposal Works, this Disneyland of waste drums they were now wandering around, like tourists, complete with camera.

“I thought you said you’d already been here,” Crane said, uneasy that she was strolling around at two in the afternoon, and a sunny one at that, taking pictures of what had to be a criminal operation.

“Sure,” Boone said. She was cheerful today, her long hair pulled back by a bright yellow headband, an incongruity next to her faded denim jacket and jeans and black-on-white NO NUKES sweatshirt. “But last time I was here they only had twenty thousand barrels. I’d say they’re up to thirty, now.”

“I mean, this is illegal, right?”

“I can take pictures here if I want. They don’t have any no trespassing sign up, that I can see. We didn’t climb a fence to get in.”

“I’m not talking about that. I’m talking about this.” He gestured to the barrels stacked on either side of the cinder drive they were walking along; the warehouse was up ahead, fifty yards.

She shrugged. “I contacted the Solid Waste Administration about it.”

“And?”

“I was told this was a licensed facility.”

“Jesus.”

“I sent photos I took, and never heard anything. So I called back and was told Chemical Disposal Works had been ‘administratively required’ to clean up their site, within a ‘reasonable amount of time.’ ”

“When was that?”

“Three months ago.”

They had reached the warehouse. No one seemed to be around. Boone took pictures of the loading-dock area; there were no trucks present, however, just a battered-looking tan station wagon, which indicated perhaps someone was around. Crane was getting nervous.

“What’s in those things, anyway?” Crane asked.

“The barrels? Who knows. Could be anything. Solvents. Plasticizers. Nitric acid. Cyanide. Pesticides. You know.”

“That sounds... dangerous.”

“You might say that. If they got certain compounds in ’em, exposure to the air could explode them.”

“Explode.”

“It’s happened before. Not here, but it’s happened.”

“Does Kemco use this place?”

“I don’t know. I just know I wanted you to see this place. It’s not the only one of its kind, you know.”

“I’m convinced,” he said. “It’s a real eyesore. Can we leave?”

“In a minute.”

She was still at it with the Nikon.

Despite the sun, it was chilly. Crane buried his hands in his jacket pockets. The air here had a funny smell; not like the acrid industrial odor he’d noticed earlier, but something not unlike an unpleasant perfume, and reminiscent at the same time of rubber.

To the left of the loading dock a door opened. A short, stocky man in a blue quilted work jacket and brown slacks leaned out. He had a pale face in which thick black streaks that were eyebrows obscured all else.