CHAPTER SIXTEEN A: THE EMPTY SHIFT
The packing plant was quiet when Jake returned with Priya the following morning.
A deputy had asked Priya to identify the delivery entrance, and Jake had offered to drive because the county road remained rough after the storm.
They parked beside a row of abandoned loading ramps.
Priya pointed toward the smallest gate.
“That one was always locked from the outside,” she said.
The deputy tested the latch and found that the chain had been removed.
“Were you ever inside?” he asked.
“Only the front office,” Priya answered.
Jake recognized the smell of wet cardboard from the day he had delivered sandwiches.
The building looked ordinary from the road, which made the accounts of the workers harder to imagine.
A woman wearing a blue work shirt waited near the fence with a small boy.
She introduced herself as Celia Flores and said her husband had worked there the previous winter.
“I heard someone was finally asking questions,” she said.
The deputy asked how she had learned about the visit.
“My sister works at the pharmacy,” Celia answered.
“She saw the patrol car drive this way and called me.”
The deputy explained that he could take her statement at the station.
Celia shook her head.
“I need to tell you something while I’m standing here.”
She pointed to a narrow side door near the loading dock.
“My husband came out of that door with his boots in his hands one night.”
“Why was he carrying them?” Jake asked.
“Russell had told him he wasn’t allowed on the transport van until he paid for a broken pallet.”
Celia looked at her son before continuing.
“He walked home in socks because the boots were the only thing the company could hold until he came back.”
The deputy asked whether her husband would speak to investigators.
“He wants to,
” Celia said.
“He also thinks he will never get another job if he does.”
Jake knew what a missing paycheck could do to a household.
He had once watched his mother choose between repairing the refrigerator and replacing the brakes on her car.
He asked Celia whether her husband needed a ride to the worker center.
“We can arrange one,” Mara said from behind him.
Celia looked surprised.
“You don’t even know us.”
“That’s why we should start with names,” Mara replied.
The deputy stepped away to speak with another officer.
Jake watched the boy roll a pebble beneath his shoe.
“Does he like pancakes?” Jake asked.
The child nodded cautiously.
“Then tell him the fire station has a cook who makes enough pancakes for an army,” Jake said.
Priya smiled at the boy.
“She also tells everyone when they’re burning the edges.”
The boy laughed.
Celia did not.
“My husband doesn’t need a free breakfast,” she said.
“He needs the money they owe him.”
Jake accepted the correction.
“Then we’ll make sure he knows where the worker center is,” he answered.
“Breakfast can wait.”
