“The foremen—Larry Ballatra, he’s the day man, and Joey Husack, he’s the second shift.”

“And you, right, since you often come in early?”

Her lips moved in a nervous smile. “Yes, but me, I’m not trying to hurt the plant, I’m trying to keep it open.”

“Or trying to get Zamar to think you’re indispensable, so he doesn’t let you go in the next round of job cuts.”

For the first time her hands slowed and she didn’t feed the fabric through fast enough. She hissed a curse at me as it bunched up under the needle. “Now look what you’ve made me do. And how can you say such things? You’re Josie’s coach! She trusts you. I trusted you.”

A hand suddenly gripped my shoulder and yanked me to my feet. The noise from the machines had been so loud I hadn’t heard the foreman come up behind me.

Although he was holding me, he spoke to Rose Dorrado. “Rose, since when do you have the right to have guests at your workstation? You better not be short when the day ends.”

“I won’t be,” Rose said, her face still red with anger. “And she’s not a guest, she’s a detective.”

“Who you invited into the plant! She doesn’t belong in here. The boss told her to get out, so what business you got talking to her?” He shook my shoulder. “The boss told you to leave, now you’re going to leave.”

He frog-marched me to the door and pushed me outside so hard that I stumbled against a man who was crossing the apron to the front door.

“Steady there, steady there.” He caught me and held me upright. “You’re not drinking on the job, are you, my sister?”

“No, my brother, not today, although, at the moment, it doesn’t sound like a bad idea.” I backed away from him and dusted my shoulders where the foreman had gripped them.

He looked startled, then concerned. “You have been fired, perhaps?”

He had a slight Hispanic accent, whether Mexican, Puerto Rican, or even Spanish, I was too ignorant to know. Like much of the work crew, he was a swarthy, thickset man, but his somber suit and tie didn’t belong in a factory.

“I’m an investigator, whom Mr. Zamar doesn’t want to hire, or even talk to. Do you know about the attempts to sabotage the plant?” When the man nodded, I asked what he knew about it.

“Only that some members of the community are concerned. Has there been another episode today?”