“Ain’t no skin off my neck,” the man with a bad limp said. The freight elevator clanged loudly to a stop and he slid a steel-mesh accordion grate out of the way. Oblivious to his own impairment, he towed his left foot behind him like an unwilling child; the sole dragging on the warehouse cement sounded like fingernails on a blackboard. Daphne fought off the chills. “Mr. Taplin ’posed to be here,” he stated firmly.
“He’s coming,” she lied. “Besides, Mr. Adler,” she emphasized, “said it was all right. You want me to get Mr. Adler on the phone?”
“No need for that,” the guard said. They rode the rickety freight elevator three stories up. “Mr. Taplin ’posed to be here,” he repeated, unlocking and throwing open the heavy door for her. She had to get in and out of here quickly and without being found out. In her mind, someone had altered the State Health lab report, and she intended to find out who, and without their knowledge. It was an enormous room, partially lit by an east-facing row of towering, fogged safety-glass windows that reminded Daphne of her gymnasium locker-room door in junior high. This being the top floor of the warehouse, the ceiling was vaulted, the ridge twenty or more feet overhead. Rain fell on the roof noisily, like pebbles on sheet metal; the air smelled heavily of paper and ink and mold—stale, like an old attic, but metallic, like the inside of a refrigerator. She heard the groaning of some machinery that she identified with the odor in the dry air, made aware of the environmental controls that sought to preserve the room’s contents. This was confirmed when the guard explained, “Gotta keep the door shut because of the dehumidifier.” Adding, “You want me to tell Mr. Taplin you’re already up here when he comes?”
“No,” she said. “Let’s surprise him. I won’t tell if you don’t tell.”
“Mr. Taplin don’t like no surprises.” He flicked on the lights and pulled the door closed with an authority that made Daphne flinch.
Alone in here, the room felt about the size of a football field. Row after row of steel shelving, about half of which was stacked high with cardboard boxes—all carefully labeled.
The boxes were ordered chronologically, and arranged alphabetically within the year. New Leaf Foods, being the original company name, was likely to be among the first archived material. The very first boxes she encountered were labeled NLF: A—D; NLF: E—G; on and on—twelve boxes for the first year, 1985.
At the far end of the enormous room, in aisle 3, she discovered a specially designed rolling ladder—part ladder, part scaffolding—containing a battery-operated platform lift with locking wheels. She moved it down to 1985, locked the wheels, and climbed up, unsure where to begin: C, for Contamination; S, for State Health; L, for Longview Farms? She could spend hours in 1985 alone, and looking down the row of years, she saw more boxes labeled NLF in 1986 as well. She would need extended hours alone in this room. Should she jump ahead to 1986, figuring that this contamination occurred near the end of what was New Leaf Foods, and the start of Adler? She remembered the date, September 25, but not the year.
Ten minutes later she stumbled onto a set of files labeled Corporate Security, and a light went off in her head: by job definition, Kenny Fowler would have been involved in any possible contamination investigation. It seemed like a legitimate place to start. She pulled the box off the shelf, balancing it on the mechanical lift when she stood. She thumbed quickly through the material, heart beating strongly, a tingling on the back of her neck.
CONFIDENTIAL
RE: Salmonella contamination
CONFIDENTIAL
RE: Salmonella
CONFIDENTIAL
RE: State Health Investigation
All signed by Fowler. The mother lode! Fowler’s investigation of the contamination might provide leads or insights. It seemed exactly what she was after.
An electronic pop went through her system like a gunshot as the freight elevator engaged. She jerked slightly, and felt the box going over, only it was too late: The file box was midair before she reached out to grab for it. As she did, she knocked the file she was reading off as well. The box tipped fully over and spilled its contents. Her Corporate Security file went airborne as well. The uncountable sheets of paperwork floated down and blanketed the cement floor.
The elevator hummed.
She panicked, slipped, and fell, catching a hand on the top rung and dangling from the mechanical loader. She kicked out and hooked a foot around the rail and hauled herself back aboard the ladder, tearing the armpit out of her jacket in the process.
The elevator continued its noisy ascent and she hoped that it might stop at the floor below. But it did not. It continued up. And this was the floor’s only room.
It seemed impossible that so many papers could have been inside a single box. They littered an enormous area below her. She scrambled down the ladder, collected the papers in big, sweeping, armfuls, attempting both to find the Fowler letters and get the edges of the piles straight enough to fit back into the box, which she quickly uprighted and began to fill. Paying no mind to order or classification, she crammed the pages into manila folders and stuffed them into the box. She spotted a Fowler memo and separated it from the others. Then another. And a third. But only one marked Confidential—those she wanted so desperately. Scoop … Stack … Stuff … she went dizzy with the task. Papers were sideways, upside-down, dirty, folded, wrinkled—wrecked! Crawling on hands and knees, she made herself dusty, working her way around the large loader, scooping under it, looking everywhere for the adventurous piece of paper that had managed to travel great distances in free fall.
Bang! the freight elevator stopped. Daphne briefly quit what she was doing and listened. The sound of the metal grate coming open. It was definitely on this floor!
Furiously, she returned to her task, abandoning making any edges straight, and instead, cramming the paperwork into the box as if it were a trash can. She thought she had them all. She thought that was it. She forced the flimsy top back on, banging all four corners and crushing one.
Footsteps!
There was no time to climb the ladder, to return the box to its proper place. Instead, she shoved it into a vacant spot on the bottom shelf, freed the locked wheels, and ran the ladder down the aisle. She failed to look behind her, to where she had left the Fowler papers she had set aside—on top of a box in the shelves opposite 1985.
A key in the door. No voices … It wasn’t the talkative guard; it was either Taplin or some other Adler employee.
Think!
She negotiated the huge rig around the corner to aisle 2, locked the wheels, and scrambled up the loader’s ladder, yanking the first box onto the platform and opening it, while attempting to contain her frantic breathing. The box was dated 1988. It appeared to be engineering specs and floor plan blueprints. She would have to think of something fast if she were to explain her interest in this.
The door pushed open, grabbing Daphne’s attention.
Boldt stepped inside and shut the door hastily. “We’ve got to hurry,” he said anxiously. “Owen Adler saved our butts. He called downtown in a panic. You evidently tripped a security device. Taplin and Fowler are both on their way over.”
Only then did she take notice of the box with the flashing light behind the door. She hurried over to it, keyed in the same number she had used at the Mansion, and the code took. “Damn it!” she said.
“We’re out of here,” Boldt said.
She understood that determined look of his. As she ran back toward 1985 and the New Leaf files, she said, “You believe me, don’t you?”
Following her, Boldt said, “About Longview being part of this? Yes. And I’d just as soon no one be wise to that except Adler himself. I think we want to contain this thing as much as possible. Let’s get out of here.”
In her excitement she had forgotten about the letters she had set aside, and began searching the box she had stuffed impatiently, missing sight of them entirely.
Boldt rattled the keys attracting her attention. “I’ve got to get these back to Frankie.”
“Frankie?”
“We’re on a first-name basis. He’s big on cop shows. He promised to keep our visit quiet, but only if I got his keys back to him.”
Pop! The elevator could be heard descending.
Boldt snapped his head in that direction. “Let’s go!”
“The lab report!” Daphne said, running down the aisle. “Help me with this.”
“No time,” he objected.
“Help me!” she leaned her weight into the loader and heaved. She glared at him. Together, they wrestled the loader around the corner and raced it down the aisle, the hum of the descending elevator pressing them on.
“I think we should leave it,” Boldt said nervously. “Technically, we should have a warrant.”
“We have Owen’s approval,” she reminded him, scrambling up the ladder to a line of boxes marked NLF-Legal.
“Even so,” Boldt said.
The boxes were alphabetized, and Daphne was forced to make a choice C for Contamination? L for Lawsuit? S for State Health? She chose S-Z, tearing the lid off the box and searching its contents.
The hum of the elevator grew distant. It was nearly down.
“Leave it,” Boldt encouraged.
“No way.” She clicked her index finger along the file tabs, and there it was: State Health. She yanked the entire file, returned the box, and skipped steps coming down the ladder.
The elevator stopped. Its opening grate echoed up the shaft, and pop! it began its ascent.
“Give me the keys,” Daphne demanded of him. She snared them in one quick swipe. “Get this back around the corner and then get out of here. Meet you at the bottom of the stairs.”
Without further explanation Daphne ran out of the room, crossed the hall, pushed through the exit door, and descended the stairs two at a time, determined to keep Taplin from knowing about her search of the files.
This being a three-story building, she had only the one floor—the second—to pass the keys. The elevator opened from either side, and she knew from her ride up that after entering it, the passengers stood facing away from the gate that accessed the room to the Adler archives.
She cracked open the door to the second-floor hallway and peered out. The elevator was just reaching this level. At first she saw the backs of three heads: Frankie, the security guard, Taplin, and Fowler. Now their shoulders. The elevator climbed. Pressed against the wall, she hurried toward them.
The elevator was moving too fast to offer her more than one attempt. She closed the distance. Fifteen feet … Ten … Five …
Their waists. The backs of their legs. The elevator was dead even with the second floor. It continued to climb.
Daphne reached the stationary floor gate, diamonds of accordion steel. By contrast, the elevator’s gate was slanted slats of wood. In order to pass the keys into the elevator, Daphne would have to negotiate both patterns at once. Her plan was to toss them inside and duck out of sight, at which point Frankie could claim he dropped them.
The floor of the elevator ascended past her ankles.
She held the keys, debating when to throw them. Started to, but stopped. Lifted her arm.
Frankie turned and looked right into her eyes. He must have sensed her, for his attention fell immediately to her hand—the keys—and without thinking, she lunged her arm through the steel grate attempting to pass them.
For Daphne, all motion slowed.
“Hell of a rain,” Frankie said to Taplin’s bald spot, taking a step back, his fingers twitching behind him for the outstretched keys. “Give me them!” this hand seemed to say. But as the elevator continued its steady rise, the pass became impossible, and worse, Daphne suddenly realized her arm was in too far: the bottom lip of the elevator could take off her hand at the wrist like a paper cutter.
Taplin’s bald spot moved, as he swung his head to speak to Frankie.
Daphne ducked from sight, her arm high overhead, the steel lip of the elevator heading for her forearm like a butcher’s cleaver. Her watch caught on the diamond steel gate, trapping her hand. Inches to go!
She tossed the keys, jerked her hand hard, and broke her watchband.
The keys splashed to the floor of the elevator.
Daphne flattened onto the floor.
Something thumped softly onto her back. Her watch. Frankie had kicked it out of the elevator while bending to retrieve his keys.
“Man, but I’m clumsy,” she heard Frankie say, his voice rising with the elevator. “Damn near lost these.”
“Doesn’t matter,” Taplin said. “I’ve got my key with me.”
All for nothing! Daphne realized, heading back to the stairs and descending quickly. Boldt had the file, and she was anxious to see what it contained.
When she reached her car she leafed through the file quickly, nervously, eyes alert for the document that had become so familiar to her. Buried in the middle, she found it: the State Health lab report—and by the look of it, this was no copy.