CHAPTER 46

“You know, I could’ve taken that old guy. I’ve been threatened with worse,” Stacey said as we drove off from the Wayside Tavern.

He was having a pretty good time at my expense as we drove out of the parking lot. I had to listen to him rib me all the way to our next destination--the TSN facility on the other side of town. If Hoppy wanted me to check out where Stevie died and where he worked, I was going to do it all in one night and get it over with. There was no sense dragging things out, and the sooner I could tell him there was nothing to find, and that maybe he should get an MRI scan for those bones of his, the sooner I could move on and find a place where I didn’t need a sarcastic bodyguard trailing along with me.

The TSN parking lot was pretty empty when we pulled in. The only cars and trucks there probably belonged to the night production staff and late-shift workers. Just the way I wanted it. The fewer people around the better, the easier to snoop and get questions answered.

I had to admit that as much as I disliked Tony, it certainly appeared as if he had created a world-class operation. Even at this late hour, and it was about eleven p.m., a row of exterior security flood lights brightly displayed a clean glass, concrete and orange brick, two-story main building, probably for executive offices, attached to a larger structure at its rear that most likely housed the studio and warehouse facilities. The white, manicured walkways, lined with small shrubbery and domed pathway lighting were immaculate. Three huge satellite dishes sat off to the far left of the building, applying the amazing advances of science that conquered space to beam images of rhinestone jewelry, super-absorbent microfiber cleaning products, and tsotchkes of every kind into the homes of impulse buyers, insomniacs, and agoraphobics twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week.

I’d done my research and knew the mythology behind the TSN or Television Shopping Network Empire that Tony had built. How late one night he was transfixed by an infomercial for a set of stainless-steel knives that never dulled and could chop wood and cut through nails, tin cans, and even rubber hoses without losing their sharpness. How he couldn’t resist the hard-sell, direct marketing pitch that made every knife he’d ever owned seem obsolete and the way the advertiser’s spiel managed to overcome every impulse to change the channel. It was impossible to defy the call to “order now.”

He saw the future and it was around-the-clock product marketing using the techniques so successfully applied to sell those knives. This was just as cable television was in its infancy and air space was relatively cheap, so with a small investment he was able to grow his vision into a multi-billion-dollar business.

We drove around the back of the large warehouse, where tractor trailers were backed up to a series of loading docks. A few beefy guys stood off to the side smoking cigarettes. I asked Stacey to let me proceed on my own, got out, and approached the men.

“Hi, I was wondering if the supervisor was around,” I said as neared them.

They were all wearing overalls with the TSN logo on a patch attached over their left breast. I got the once over from each of them before the oldest looking of the group answered me.

“Dingo? Sure, he’s probably in there somewhere. Only one not wearing overalls,” he said.

“Dingo?” I asked.

“It’s because he’s all bite and no bark,” said the tallest one.

The others all laughed.

“Right, thanks,” I said as I walked over to and up a set of metal stairs the led to an open door. I could hear the sound of forklifts purring and loud music blaring from inside.

It was louder once I was inside. The place was a hive of activity. Men in those same overalls and yellow hardhats carted boxes of all sizes on hand trucks and pallet jacks. Platform stackers pulled merchandise of all sizes off steel shelve racks that towered to the ceiling. Forklifts carrying pallets laden with boxes held in place with stretched plastic wrap scooted across the floor like go-carts.

Across the way, I saw a tall, pot-bellied man wearing brown khaki pants, a white polo shirt, and a white hard hat. He was chewing on an unlit cigar while monitoring the activity with an iPad tablet. That had to be Dingo. I dodged my way across the floor to where he was standing. When I was a few feet from him, he looked up and his eyes flared.

“Who the hell are you and where the hell is your hard hat? You trying to get us busted by OSHA?” he snarled.

If that was no bark, I really didn’t want to experience his bite.

“Um, no, not at all. Should I get one?” I answered.

“Damn right. Something falls on your head, we’ll have lawsuits up the wahoo,” he answered.

“Where are they?” I asked.

He shook his head, let out an exasperated sigh, then looked across at a petite woman in overalls who was standing around talking to two other men in similar attire.

“Hey, Carlisle, if you ain’t too busy shooting the goddamn breeze, grab this guy a hat and bring it over,” he yelled to her.

“Right, boss,” she yelled back over her shoulder. Then she made a remark to the two men, who both laughed and watched her walk away with looks I wouldn’t quite call wholesome. She disappeared behind a long row of shelve racks.

“And, you two, ain’t you got some work to do?” he yelled to the men.

“Yeah, sure, boss,” one of them answered, jumping up into the seat of a nearby forklift.

He said something to the other guy, who looked at Dingo and chuckled. The guy in the forklift drove off, and the other one grabbed a pallet jack and headed in the other direction.

The woman came back into view, carrying a yellow hard hat. She walked over and gave me a flirtatious smile as she reached out to hand me the hat. She was cute, with deep blue eyes and dimples at the corners of her mouth. She had a lovely neck and her the front of her overalls were zipped open down to the point where it was possible to just make out the upper edges of a pink sports bra. She was probably a little young for me, in her early twenties, but I was flustered nonetheless.

I fumbled with the hard hat and dropped it onto the concrete floor. It bounced a few times before coming to rest between us at our feet. We both bent over to pick it up at the same time. She was a little quicker to get to it and when she straightened up, I was still bending over. The top of her hard hat cracked into my nose.

“Ow!” I yelled out, not too loudly I hoped.

“Oh, I’m so sorry. Did I hurt you?” she said, holding out the retrieved hat cautiously.

My eyes were a bit watery from the blow to my nose, but it didn’t look like she was sorry. There was just the trace of a smile on her face. I took the hat from her without any further incident.

“No, no, I’m okay. Thanks,” I said.

“You’re welcome. I don’t see any blood,” she said, studying my face. “Maybe I should get some ice.”

“Maybe you should just get back to work,” Dingo said sternly.

“Yes, boss,” she said, putting an emphasis on “boss” before she turned and sauntered away. I wasn’t sure, but it looked like she was laughing to herself.

“She has that effect on all the men around here, but what can I do? She’s my daughter,” he said as we both watched her walk off.

“Well, she seems very sweet,” I said.

“Yeah, you could say that,” he answered with a very intimidating look. His message couldn’t have been clearer if he had an uncocked double barrel shotgun draped over his forearm--“Look, but don’t even think of touching.”

I quickly put the hard hat on. The plastic headband on the inside was too small, so the hat wobbled precariously on my head. Best to get right to the point.

“Um, I’m here because I’m a friend of Mrs. Augustino, Tony Augustino’s wife. Seems she just found out her brother, Steve Darby, used to work here, and she asked me to come by and see if he had left anything that belonged to him in a locker or anywhere.”

I handed him an envelope with a signed note that I had gotten from Sue Ellen earlier in the day giving me authorization. Dingo took it from me, opened the envelope, and read the note.

“Darby--he was the boss’s brother-in-law? Had no idea,” he answered, handing me back the note.

“Well, I don’t think he wanted anyone to know, probably didn’t want any special treatment,” I said.

We were interrupted when a forklift with a loaded pallet pulled up. Dingo shifted the cigar to the other side of his mouth without using his hands. He looked at the large, bar-coded label glued onto the plastic wrapping and scanned it with his iPad tablet. The screen displayed information on a digital form that he scrolled down with his finger.

“Okay, that goes on the truck at bay four,” he said to the driver, who drove off toward one of the waiting trucks. Dingo touched the screen and the form disappeared.

“Wow, you guys really are state of the art,” I said. “I’m surprised there are so many trucks here, though. Would have thought everything was sent out by UPS or DHL.”

“The day shift uses them for domestic. At night, we pack up all the stuff going overseas and we truck that to the docks ourselves,” he answered.

“Overseas? Really? I had no idea the station was that popular,” I said.

“Oh, yeah. Very big in Europe, especially Eastern Europe. You name it, they’re buying it,” he answered.

Another fork lift drove up. Dingo shifted the cigar back to the other side of his mouth and repeated the scanning process. This time, I watched a little more intently. There was a digitalized official looking form with a Department of Homeland Security seal in the upper left corner and US Customs and Border Protection in typeface across the top. Information gleaned from Dingo’s scan of the packing label filled in the fields of the form in seconds. He scrolled down and approved the information by touching an empty signature block at the bottom of the form. That form disappeared from view and a new blank one appeared in its place.

“Bay two,” he said to the forklift driver, before turning his attention back to me. “So anyway, about Darby’s stuff--I’m afraid you’re too late. One of his friends that worked here asked me if it was okay for him to take it, said he’d give it to the family.”

I could only think of one person who might be interested in Stevie’s stuff.

“Was that friend Puddy Salvatore?” I asked.

“Yeah, then he goes and gets himself killed. I tell you, it’s been quite a month, first Darby, then Salvatore, and then Tiffin. Of course, they say deaths happen in threes.”

“Tiffin. Do you mean Bones--um, I mean Ricky Tiffin?”

“Yeah, it was in the news. He was one of our truck drivers. State police arrested him for something and somebody ambushed them right in broad daylight.”

“‘Bo--er, Ricky worked here too, as a driver?”

Dingo gave me a quizzical look. “Yeah, had the route to Baltimore. You know him too?” he asked.

At last I’d found something that linked Stevie, Puddy, and Bones. They all worked together here at TSN. Unfortunately, it was all I had.

“Well, not that well. Bumped into him a few times, just surprised to hear he worked here is all,” I answered as nonchalantly as possible. “Like you said, a little weird that three people who worked here died so suddenly.”

“Yeah, well, I guess it happens, but speaking of work, since there’s nothing of Darby’s to collect, guess we’re done here?” he said. It was more of a statement than question.

“Sure, sure. I’ll tell Stevie’s sister. Probably nothing too valuable anyway,” I said. “Do you want this now, or do I have to wear it until I get to the door,” I asked, indicating my hard hat.

“Rules say hard hats to be worn inside at all times so keep it on and put it on that table over there by the door just as you’re leaving,” he answered, just as another forklift carrying a pallet pulled up. Once again he scanned the packing label and ran through the process like before. I waited for him to finish.

“I want to thank you for your time. You’ve been very helpful,” I said.

Actually, what I’d found out tonight only muddled things up. Sure, while working together, Puddy might have let it slip out about the car theft ring to Stevie, who in turn blackmailed Bones. Stevie underestimated whom he was dealing with and Bones killed him rather than pay out, and, after killing Tina for returning my car, Bones then murdered Puddy for telling Stevie in the first place. But what about the different knives? What about Bones, if he could be trusted, denying killing Puddy? What about the fact that Stevie’s killer was a good three inches shorter than Bones?

Instead of getting answers, I was only coming up with more questions. It looked like getting out of East Hastings was going to be harder than I thought.