“No,” she said more quietly, rocking the infant against her shoulder. “Mr. Zamar, he told me no police, he won’t let me call. But you, you grew up here, you could ask some questions, no one would mind questions from the lady who helps the girls play basketball.”

I shook my head. “I’m just one person working alone, and an investigation like this, it’s time-consuming, it’s expensive.”

“How much money?” she asked. “I can pay you something, maybe when I finish paying the hospital for Julia.”

I couldn’t bring myself to tell her my usual fee was $125 an hour, not to someone who thought she was lucky to feed five children on thirteen dollars an hour. Even though I often do pro bono work—too often, my accountant keeps telling me—I didn’t see how I could conduct an investigation at a shop where the owner didn’t want me.

“But don’t you see, if you don’t find out, if we don’t stop this, the plant will close, and what will happen to me, to my children?” she cried out, tears in her eyes.

Julia hunched deeper inside her T-shirt at her outburst and the baby squalled more loudly. I rubbed my head. The idea of one more obligation, one more rope tying me to my old neighborhood, made me want to join Julia on the couch with my head buried in an imaginary world.

With a leaden hand, I pulled my pocket diary out of my bag and looked at my commitments. “I can come down early tomorrow, I guess, but you know I’m going to have to talk to Mr. Zamar, and if he orders me off the premises I won’t be able to do anything else but leave.”

Rose Dorrado beamed at me in relief. She probably figured once I took the first step, I’d be committed to the whole journey. I hoped very much she was wrong.

8

Plant Life

I hugged my windbreaker close to my chest and slipped through a loose piece of the chain-link fence. The pale steel of a late-fall dawn was just beginning to lighten the sky, and the air was cold.

When I told Rose Dorrado I’d come by Fly the Flag this morning, I’d originally planned to arrive around eight-thirty to question the crew. Last night, though, when I was talking to Morrell about the situation, I realized I should come early: if someone was sabotaging the plant before the morning shift arrived, I might catch them in the act.