Winter had been uncharacteristically courteous to the Twin Cities, if not the rest of Minnesota. There had been no staggering body blows, no flurry of uppercuts or hooks or brutal kidney punches. Instead, we were treated to a few light jabs that barely landed, mixed with a couple of gentle combinations as if, instead of pounding us into the canvas, instead of knocking us out, it was content to win on points. Yet there was no trusting winter. Less than forty-eight hours after posting a high of seventy-two degrees, it sucker-punched us with three inches of snow and temperatures well below freezing. Hell, we’ve had measurable snow as late as June. That’s why even now in mid-April, we viewed each gray cloud as a threat and feared that every stiff wind carried danger.
I saw the clouds and felt the wind while I stood in the parking lot in front of a sign that read PETERSON/SAX ENTERPRISES, INC. HOME OF SALSA GIRL SALSA. I was wearing a brown leather jacket that was too warm for the weather, yet zipped it tightly closed anyway while I conducted a cursory reconnaissance.
The building was located in a sprawling industrial park on the west side of St. Paul near Highway 280. On the north were the heavily traveled University Avenue and the Green Line high-speed train. On the south was the always-congested I-94 freeway. You could hear traffic noises from both like surf in the distance. Yet the park itself was surprisingly quiet. Pelham Boulevard ran along the edge of the park, but it wasn’t particularly well traveled. I saw only a few vehicles on the street and even fewer moving in and out of the park’s service roads. There were no sidewalks and no foot traffic whatsoever.
Inside the building, I was met by a young thoroughbred of a woman with long legs, wide brown eyes, and a flowing mane. She smiled at me and said, “May I help you?”
“I’d like to see Ms. Peterson.”
“Do you have an appointment?”
“No.”
“I’m sorry, but Ms. Peterson is very busy, and—”
“Tell her it’s McKenzie.”
She smiled some more. I smiled back. Apparently it was unusual for strangers to come in off the street and ask for the boss, and she was curious to see how the scene would play out.
“Just a moment,” she said and disappeared down a corridor. It was only a moment before she reappeared.
“This way,” she said.
I followed her. She led me to an office. Inside the office, leaning her backside against the edge of her desk, was Salsa Girl. She must not have believed spring had sprung either, because she was wearing a long-sleeve sweaterdress with a hem that ended below her knees and knee-high boots. Her arms were folded across her chest. She looked like she was actually glad to see me.
Every time I saw Erin Peterson reminded me of the first time I saw her. It was at the arena where we played hockey. She was sitting alone in the stands. I was sitting on the bench with my teammates. You wouldn’t have missed her even in a crowd, which there wasn’t.
“Who is that?” I asked.
None of us knew, yet we were all convinced that she was a guest of one of the hockey players. It was kind of a tradition among us—as soon as a guy became seriously involved with a woman, he took her to a game and introduced her to his friends. It was also a tradition—or a consequence of just how boring we were—that the woman almost never returned to watch us play again.
Finally Dave Deese said, “I think that’s Gotz’s new girlfriend. Erin something.”
We were all impressed by Ian’s good fortune, yet Deese blew it off.
“Just another dumb blonde,” he said.
“You’re basing this assessment on what, exactly?” Bobby asked.
“Well, look at her. She’s blond. She’s dating Gotz. How smart can she be?”
Personally, I hadn’t met that many dumb blondes. Certainly blondes didn’t seem to be dumb in any greater proportion than the brunettes or redheads I’ve known. Meeting Erin in the bar after the game, however, discovering who she was and what she did, pretty much shattered my confidence in the stereotype once and for all. Forget her dress, which was made of some magic material that seemed to both hang loose and cling to her generous curves. Ignore the winter-blue eyes—if you could—and her warm smile. There was a quiet center to her that you rarely see in people, and almost never in someone younger than forty, that impressed me even more. She didn’t greet us as much as absorb us into her life. The way she spoke went beyond mere communication. It was a reflection of a belief system that valued intelligence, grace, and self-control. You’ve heard the term ‘woman of substance’? That was Erin Peterson.
“Rushmore McKenzie,” she said. “You honor me.”
“Hardly.”
She came off her desk, unfolded her arms, and hugged me. I hugged her back. The thoroughbred watched. Erin broke the embrace before it became uncomfortable or evolved into something else.
“Alice Pfeifer,” she said. “This is my friend, McKenzie.”
I offered my hand. “Alice,” I said.
She shook my hand. “Mr. McKenzie.”
“Just McKenzie,” I said.
“Alice is the most important person in the building,” Erin said. “Without her, Salsa Girl Salsa would shudder to a halt.”
“That’s not true,” Alice said.
“It is; it is.” As if to prove it, Erin draped an arm around the young woman’s shoulders and gave her a squeeze. For a moment they reminded me of Nina and Erica, the proud mother showing off her daughter.
“McKenzie,” Erin said, “to what do I owe the pleasure?”
“I was in the neighborhood. Thought I’d drop in and see how you’ve been doing.”
“I’m doing quite well, thank you.”
“No problems?”
“None beyond the usual trials and tribulations of managing—wait.” A troubled look clouded Erin’s eyes, and she removed her arm from Alice’s shoulders. “Ian. He sent you, didn’t he?” She turned her attention toward the young woman. Her voice was quiet, almost tranquil, as always. “What is it with men that they have such a difficult time keeping a secret?”
Alice shrugged her reply.
“I should explain,” Erin said. “McKenzie is—what should I call you?”
I didn’t have a ready answer, although I was asked the question all the time. Unlicensed private investigator? Semiprofessional busybody? Unabashed kibitzer?
Bored rich jerk? my inner voice said.
“How ’bout concerned friend?” I said aloud.
“I should go,” Alice said.
“No, don’t,” Erin said. “McKenzie isn’t that kind of friend. Unless something’s happened I haven’t heard about. You and Nina?”
“Nina sends her love,” I said. “She wants to know when you two are going to get together.”
“See, Alice, not that kind of friend. McKenzie, the thing with my door locks—it was just a prank. Kids.”
“Not a chance.”
“Oh? That’s your considered opinion?”
“You’re isolated here. There isn’t any residential housing within a half mile in any direction. No parks. No malls. No stores. Do you honestly think a bunch of kids went out of their way to pull a practical joke on someone they didn’t know in a place they never hang out?”
“It could happen.”
“Did it happen to anyone else in the park?”
“Not that I’m aware of.”
“Well, then.”
“That doesn’t mean I require your services.”
“Yet they’re at your disposal.”
“What kind of services?” Alice asked.
“McKenzie is an ex-cop,” Erin said. “He now works as a kind of roving troubleshooter.”
Roving troubleshooter—I like the sound of that, my inner voice said.
“Maybe…” Alice said.
“No maybes.”
“But…”
“No buts.”
“Erin?”
Erin’s usually calm voice rang with authority. “Alice,” she said.
“Yes, ma’am.” Alice gazed down at her shoes. She might have been the most important person in the room, but she wasn’t the boss. Erin sighed dramatically as if she regretted pulling rank on her assistant.
“Alice always calls me ‘ma’am’ when she’s disappointed in me,” she said. “McKenzie, you’ve never been here before, have you?”
“No.”
“Would you like a tour?”
“Sure.”
“I need—” Erin stared at her watch for a few beats. “I was promised a telephone call from California in three minutes. ’Course, they’re never on time. Alice, do me a favor. Give McKenzie a tour of our production plant, and I’ll join you in approximately eighteen minutes.”
“If it isn’t an imposition,” I said.
“Alice?”
“No imposition at all.”
“Good. I’ll meet you out on the floor. I’ll explain more thoroughly, McKenzie, why you have no reason to be concerned about me. Scoot. Scoot.”
We left the office. Erin closed the door behind us.
“California?” I said.
“It’s a long story,” Alice said. The sound of her voice gave me the impression that she’d love to tell it but didn’t think she should.
“You seem more concerned about what happened the other day than Erin,” I said.
Her eyes found mine and quickly darted away. Again I felt she wanted to explain but chose not to. I didn’t press the matter, deciding it would be better to ask Salsa Girl myself. Why risk getting the kid in trouble with her boss?
We scooted down the corridor back to the reception area. Alice deposited my jacket in a closet and pulled out a long white linen lab coat that fell to my knees.
“Put this on,” she said.
I did. She slid into one as well.
“I don’t like to leave the office uncovered,” she said. “We have a couple of other girls who work here, but they’re both part-time. One of them should be here, but she called in sick. If you’re wearing jewelry, take it off.”
I didn’t wear jewelry, but I asked anyway. “Why?”
“So it won’t fall off into the product.”
“That’s a thing that happens?”
“You’d be surprised. Our people can’t wear nail polish or makeup, either.”
Before we went any farther, Alice also gave me a board with a nondisclosure agreement clipped to it. By signing it, she said, I was basically agreeing that anything I saw or heard in the Salsa Girl production plant would remain in the Salsa Girl production plant. I took her word for it and signed without reading the document even as my inner voice told me, Don’t ever tell your lawyer what you just did.
Afterward, I was led into a “staging area,” where I was required to don a white hairnet, wash my hands, and submerge the bottoms of my shoes into a foot bath. From there, I was ushered into the production plant itself. It was brightly lit and had a wall of windows. It was also cool. Most of the employees—I counted over a dozen—wore sweatshirts and sweaters under their white jackets and hairnets. I asked Alice about it.
“The temperature is kept at a constant sixty-five degrees,” she told me. “The salsa itself is kept at thirty-four to thirty-six degrees. The threshold temperature is forty. That’s when spoiling agents start to work. It’s why the cold chain is so very important to us—keeping the product at the correct temperature from the moment it’s packaged until it arrives in the stores. We guarantee freshness for sixty days after purchase, but it’s actually closer to eighty. We estimate five days maximum to move the product to various distribution centers, although it rarely takes longer than three, if that; add another day for warehousing and one more to rotate the stock into the store coolers. That gives us plenty of leeway.
“What you need to remember, McKenzie, is that we don’t sell Salsa Girl off the shelf like Tostitos, Pace, Wild Harvest, Green Mountain, Old Dutch, Newman’s Own, or any of those other jar salsas guaranteed to last twenty years after the apocalypse. Our salsa is refrigerated. That’s why it tastes so good. ’Course, the trade-off is that we often miss out on impulse sales; people don’t usually think to go to the produce or deli section of a store to buy salsa. But for those who do, for those who demand a quality salsa, freshness is paramount.”
The plant was painted white with a concrete floor and a lot of stainless steel equipment. Alice led me across it to a large room in the back. There were huge stainless steel tubs and cabinets in the room, a conveyer belt that led to a washing machine, and a lot of equipment that looked as it would chop off your fingers, if not your entire hand, unless you were careful. There were also cardboard boxes and plastic bins filled with tomatoes, onions, jalapeños, and other fruits and vegetables. An older man, who wore a uniform similar to ours plus rubber gloves and a surgical mask, was examining the boxes and their contents. He looked as if he had done it for a hundred years and expected to continue doing it for a hundred more. He seemed miffed that we interrupted his work.
“This is our prep room,” Alice said. “And this is Hector Lozano, who really is the most important person at Salsa Girl.”
Lozano removed his mask and nodded at Alice as if he believed her.
“This is where we inspect and store all of our ingredients, make sure they’re up to our standards,” she added.
Lozano spoke with a thick Hispanic accent, and I wondered how long he had been in the States. “La Señorita, she will tolerate only the best,” he said.
“This is also where we wash everything, peel the onions, de-stem the jalapeños,” Alice said. “Most of our tomatoes and onions are sourced locally; we have a distributor across the river. Some of the other ingredients, the jalapeños, for example, come from Mexico. We bring them up in our own trucks.”
There was an open box filled with large, ripe tomatoes near the door. I reached for one. Lozano slapped my hand. I pulled it back, looked at the swelling on my knuckles and then at Lozano. He adjusted his hairnet as if nothing had happened. Alice laughed, took my elbow, and spun me toward the door.
“That hurt,” I said.
“Hector takes his job very seriously.”
“Still…”
Alice slowed so I could get a good look through an open door into another room, this one filled with carefully sealed ten-gallon buckets and bags with labels that I couldn’t read from a distance.
“This is where we mix our spices, our recipes,” she said.
I noticed that she didn’t allow me to go inside.
We stopped next to a large stainless steel tank mounted on a metal stand three feet above the floor. A man was standing on a ladder and stirring the ingredients inside the tank with a paddle. Alice said that it was one of two mixing tanks. She explained that all of the ingredients were blended together in the tanks before being siphoned to a “filling hopper.” From there the salsa was pulled through flexible tubing called “filler cylinders” and poured into plastic pods. I watched three women working the assembly line, filling the containers, sealing them, and placing labels on the lids. The lids indicated the flavor of the salsa—the company offered half a dozen varieties—and featured an illustration of a smiling Salsa Girl that bore no resemblance at all to Erin Peterson.
“As you can see,” Alice said, “most of the work is done by hand.”
I watched as the containers moved along rollers into still another room, where the batch numbers and expiration dates were sprayed onto the labels with an ink-jet printer. The next stop was a packing area, where the containers were loaded into boxes that were sealed, labeled, and stacked on wooden pallets. One of the men doing the packing eyed me furtively. I was sure I had seen him before but couldn’t place him. ’Course, I’d met and spoken with so many people over the years, first as a cop with the St. Paul Police Department and now as an unlicensed private investigator, that nearly everyone seemed vaguely familiar to me.
Music was being pumped into the plant, most of it in Spanish. Two-thirds of the employees were Hispanic. The rest were African American, Asian, and white, and I wondered if they ever switched it up—one day Latin tunes, the next hip-hop, the next something else. I was going to ask Alice if they ever listened to jazz, but her attention was drawn away by a half-dozen containers that had somehow slipped through without labels. Alice scooped up the containers and carried them back to the woman who was doing the honors. While she was gone, I noticed again that the man packing the salsa was watching me while pretending not to. That’s when I put a name to his face. Tony Cremer, a good-looking kid who once made his living stealing cars that he sold to chop shops, boosting them out of the parking lots of shopping malls and apartment complexes—Hondas, Toyotas, and Nissans mostly, sometimes Ford and Dodge pickups, whatever could be stripped for parts—until I caught him.
“You behaving yourself, Tony?” I asked.
He didn’t like the question.
“You want somethin’ from me, Officer?” Cremer asked.
“Me? Nah? Tell me, though—does Ms. Peterson know about your checkered past?”
“Yes.” The word came out like a hiss. Cremer added that unlike some people he could name, Ms. Peterson believed in giving a guy a second chance.
“Good for her,” I said.
As far as Cremer was concerned, I was just another cop trying to screw up his life. He proved it by stepping close enough to make me feel uncomfortable. “You gonna ruin it for me?” he asked.
I don’t know why I told him, but I did. “I’m not a cop anymore.”
“Don’t mean you’re not still an asshole.”
“How many cars did you boost before I stopped you? And you call me an asshole?”
“What I did—everyone thieves, man. You know that. Some thieve big like the Wall Street guys, some small like me. The only difference is that I got caught.”
“I’m glad to see that you’ve turned it around, Tony,” I said. “But that kind of reasoning can only lead you back into trouble.”
“Like you said, you ain’t a cop no more.”
“What do you know about the super glue in the door locks the other day?”
“I don’t know nothin’ about that. Why would I? This has been a good place for me. Why would I fuck it up?”
“Just asking.”
“You tryin’ to hang that on me, Officer? You gotta know, a man don’t shit where he eats.”
“I’ll keep it in mind.”
By then Alice had returned. She must have felt the tension between Cremer and me.
“Everything all right?” she asked.
“He was interrupting my work, is all,” Cremer said.
“Sorry,” I said.
Cremer returned to his task. Alice led me away. She whispered, “He makes me nervous.”
“How so?”
“The way he watches me.”
“You are a pretty girl.”
“Not like that. He watches like he’s waiting for me to do something wrong.”
Something that he can use against her? my inner voice asked.
“It’s probably just my imagination,” Alice added.
“Or not,” I said. “Always trust your instincts. We have them for a reason.”
Alice led me to the room where the pallets loaded with packed boxes of salsa were stored. Most of them were wrapped in plastic. Another worker was arranging them near the large back door. It was cold inside; near freezing, I guessed.
“This is the finished-goods cooler,” Alice said. “From here the salsa is loaded onto the trucks. On Mondays we have a truck that takes the product to Texas and New Mexico and another for local deliveries, those within half a day’s drive. For all of our other customers, we have a distributor that picks up the product on Fridays and delivers it to distribution centers across the Upper Midwest and Great Lakes Region. We’re in fifteen states now. McKenzie, I don’t think what happened with our locks was a prank. I think someone wanted to send us a message. Someone who knew how important Fridays are to us.”
I was surprised by the sudden shift of topic and wondered if Cremer had something to do with it.
“What message?” I asked. “Why?”
“McKenzie,” Erin said. I turned and found her standing there. “What do you think?”
“I’m impressed,” I said. “You’ve done very well building all of this.”
“Thank you.”
“I was just asking Alice—how much salsa do you sell?”
“Approximately seventeen thousand units.”
“A week?”
“A day.”
“That’s—”
“Twenty-two hundred and fifty gallons, give or take.”
“Wow.”
“Yes, we think so, too.”
“Exactly how much do you guys make a year?”
“Gross? I’d say between four and six million dollars.”
“In other words, you’re not going to tell me.”
“Why do you need to know? Do you want to invest in the company?”
“Yes. Yes, I do.”
“If I had known you back in the day, I would have taken you up on your offer. You wouldn’t know it to look at his always casual attire, Alice, but McKenzie is loaded. How much money are you worth these days?”
“Between four and six million,” I said.
“Let’s move out of here.”
Erin opened a door, and I soon found myself standing in a corridor that separated the production plant from the outside loading dock; there was a huge folding door that led to the dock. The difference in temperature between the corridor and the finished-goods cooler room came almost as a shock.
“This is where we ship from,” Alice said. “In case you haven’t guessed.”
“What’s that?” I pointed at a large metal cage. There were several boxes and buckets neatly arranged behind the white bars.
“Chemicals,” Erin said. “Mostly cleaning supplies, sanitizers for our mixing tanks. When I was starting out, the Department of Agriculture came for a visit. The first question they asked—‘Do you keep your chemicals away from your process?’ They were afraid we might poison our customers.”
“Sounds like just another unnecessary regulation hampering the small business person.”
“Who are you calling small?”
“Ma’am?” We turned to see a man approaching. He was dressed for outside, not in a white coat. He didn’t seem to know if he should be walking fast or running and settled for something in between. “Ma’am?”
“Is there a problem, Jerry?” Erin spoke as if problems were something that happened to other people, never to her.
“The door locks last week, you know, with the super glue?”
“What about them?”
“Someone did the same thing to the trucks.”
Erin closed her eyes and became very still. If she was silently counting to ten, she was counting fast, because a beat later her eyes snapped open.
“Show me,” she said.
Jerry half walked, half ran toward a door. He slowed when he realized that Erin was not running after him but walking casually. Alice and I walked with her.
“McKenzie,” she said. “Have you tried my new recipe?”
“Is that the one with green chilies?”
“No, no. Fire-roasted tomatoes. I originally made it for my customers in Texas and New Mexico. It’s done so well down there, I thought I’d try it in the Twin Cities. Possibly it has too much heat for this market. We’ll see.”
I didn’t say it, but I admired how calm she appeared.
Once outside, we walked to the truck parked with its back end flush against the loading dock. It was painted with the company’s name and colors and the smiling face consumers knew as Salsa Girl. I noticed the refrigeration unit resting above the cab. Normally I wouldn’t have paid any attention to it.
“I left it here last night like always,” Jerry said. He poked his key at the door lock. “See? It won’t go in.”
“I see,” Erin said.
“I checked the other truck. Same thing.”
“I see.”
“I told you something like this would happen,” Alice said.
“Alice, please.”
“I told you that our enemies wouldn’t stop.”
“Alice.”
“Ma’am.”
Enemies? my inner voice asked.
“May I?” I asked aloud. I stepped past Erin and ran my finger over the opening of the lock cylinder. It was smooth.
“I need to make a few phone calls,” Erin said.
“I know where we can get other trucks,” Jerry said.
“We can’t use just any trucks,” Alice told him. “We need reliable refrigerated vehicles. Otherwise we’ll break the cold chain.”
“I am aware of the situation,” Erin said.
“Did you try the passenger doors?” I asked.
Jerry was staring at Erin like a child who was afraid he would be blamed for something he didn’t do.
“Jerry,” I said, “did you try the passenger doors?”
“Huh? Yeah. I ain’t stupid.”
“Let’s take a look.”
It wasn’t that I didn’t believe him; I just wanted to see if the face of the lock cylinder was as smooth as on the driver’s side. It was. I cupped my hands and pressed them against the window so I could get a good look inside the cab. Manual locks.
Erin watched quietly.
“Talk to me, McKenzie,” she said.
“Ideally, if you want to sabotage a lock, you fill it with glue, shove a toothpick in there, and break it off. That way the entire mechanism will need to be replaced. That’s what they did with your door locks, right? But I don’t think your vandals did that here. There are no jagged edges protruding; the glue is smooth. I think they might have just covered the opening, thinking that was enough. It’s possible the lock assembly itself is fine.”
“Meaning what, exactly?”
“Give me five minutes.”
I circled the building to my car parked in front, examining the building and the light poles that surrounded it as I went. I opened my trunk and withdrew a rag and a flat piece of stainless steel, twenty-four inches long and one inch wide, with a notch cut in one end and a rubber handle on the other—a Slim Jim, $9.98 at Walmart. I returned to the truck and inserted the Slim Jim between the weatherstripping and the window, using the rag to protect the glass from scratches. I worked on the passenger side because the driver’s side had wires and other components I didn’t want to damage. I moved the tool back and forth gently until the notch grabbed the lock rod. I pulled up and the door unlocked. I had hoped to accomplish the task quickly to impress the women. It actually took me close to five minutes. They seemed to be impressed anyway. At least Alice smiled, and Erin said, “my hero.”
Jerry pushed past me, climbed into the truck, and crossed over to the driver’s side. He opened the door.
“Hey,” he said.
“You’ll need to be careful not to lock the door again until we can get the lock fixed,” I told him.
“What about the other truck?” he asked. “That goes out later today.”
“I’m on it,” I told him.
I opened the door, but this time it took me over ten minutes. I knew that Tony Cremer would have done it much more quickly. ’Course, he probably would have just smashed the window and climbed in. He didn’t care about the condition of the vehicles he stole; he was selling them for parts, after all.
When I finished, Erin said, “I’m grateful.”
“You’re welcome.”
“Let’s talk.”
* * *
Salsa Girl and I returned to her office; Alice remained on the loading dock to supervise. Erin told me to take a seat in front of her desk. I did. Meanwhile, she opened a drawer of the credenza behind her desk and pulled out a bottle of Woodford Reserve Distiller’s Select Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey. There was enough gone from the bottle to suggest that this was not an uncommon occurrence, and my inner voice asked, When was the last time you saw a woman drink straight bourbon? I didn’t have an answer.
“Drink?” Erin said.
“No, I’m good.”
“When have you ever turned down good bourbon?”
“I have a long day of antiquing in front of me.”
Erin filled a glass with two inches of liquid.
“Have you ever actually bought anything while antiquing?” she asked.
“Me personally? No. I’m not really interested in antiques. I find it all kind of boring, to be honest.”
“You’re telling me that you go just because Nina wants you to go?”
“That’s right.”
“Sounds like true love to me.”
Erin drained half the bourbon from the glass, closed her eyes, sighed dramatically, opened her eyes, and refilled the glass. She returned the bottle to her credenza and sat in the chair behind her desk.
“Apparently, I’m being—what’s a good word?” Erin gazed out her window across the parking lot to the bridge that allowed Pelham Boulevard to cross I-94 while she searched for one. I offered my own.
“Harassed,” I said.
“I was thinking something stronger.”
“Tell me the worst thing that could happen to you and work backward from there.”
“The worst thing would be a recall. If my salsa became contaminated with something, listeria monocytogenes, for example, and I had to pull my products from the stores. That’s not counting the additional fallout from potential lawsuits. Listeria causes food poisoning. Adults and healthy children might become ill, but it’s rarely serious. In pregnant women, though, the infection can result in miscarriage, premature delivery, serious infection of the newborn, even stillbirth.
“What’s next?” Erin went on. “I suppose an employee could deliberately damage my equipment to the point where it takes me a few days or weeks or months to fix or replace it and I would be unable to meet my obligations … A vendor might miss delivery of my boxes, my containers … My suppliers might not ship quality fruits and vegetables in a timely fashion … If I develop a reputation for unreliability, for a lack of quality control…” Erin sipped some more bourbon. “Things can go bad in a hurry, McKenzie. You could lose your business in a minute.”
“On the plus side,” I said.
“There’s a plus side?”
“The damage done to you so far has been external, not internal. Your doors, your trucks, but not your equipment, not your product. Also, it’s been superficial. He could have burned your trucks to the ground. He could have blown up your building.”
“He?”
“It could just as easily be a she. Alice said you have enemies.”
“She was speaking generally. Whoever is doing this is my enemy.”
“Whoever is doing this knows how important Mondays and Fridays are to you; he knows when you ship your product. Have you fired anyone recently?”
“Not for three years.”
“Reprimand any employees? Threaten their jobs unless they shaped up?”
“I haven’t. Alice or my production manager—if they’ve had words with any of my people, they haven’t mentioned it to me.”
“Would they have?”
“Not necessarily, but McKenzie—I have only twenty employees including part-time. I pretty much know what’s going on with them all the time.”
“Have you passed over anyone for promotion lately? Failed to pay a bonus or give a raise to employees who thought they deserved it?”
“No.”
“Changed vendors?”
“I went with a more reliable packaging company for my containers, but that was eighteen months ago. My other vendors—you’re always trying to bargain for a better price, better quality, better service, of course, and negotiations can sometimes become contentious. However, I’ve used these people for a long time. Bernal Mexicana in Delicias, Mexico, has been with me for over five years.”
“Have you pulled your products from a store?”
“If you knew how difficult it is to get my products into stores you wouldn’t ask that.”
“Have you broken up with a boyfriend recently?”
Instead of giving a quick response, Erin looked at everything in her office except me. She was going to lie, as Nina predicted, and I waited for it. While I waited I noticed that there was nothing in her office that could be labeled personal. No photos of Mom and Dad, no pics of Erin and her friends. Just a couple of Scovie Awards—whatever they were—and a few framed newspaper and magazine clippings extolling her company, all of them with photos of Salsa Girl but not of her.
Finally Erin fixed her blue eyes on me. “Like I have time for a boyfriend,” she said.
“Refused someone who wanted to be your boyfriend?”
Erin shook her head slowly.
“A hookup that went badly?”
“McKenzie, please.”
“Well, you pissed off somebody.”
“I don’t know who. I don’t know how.”
Alice knocked on the opened door and stepped inside Erin’s office.
“We’re good,” Alice said.
“Are we?” Erin asked.
“The truck is on its way to Texas. We didn’t lose much time; Jerry said it’ll be easy to make up. I spoke to Doug.” Alice pivoted toward where I was sitting. “Doug is our maintenance man. While they were loading the truck, he used acetone to remove the super glue from the locks. If it had actually been injected into the locks like it was with our building doors, he said it probably wouldn’t have worked; that we would have had to replace the locks like you said.” She turned again to face Erin. “I was thinking: if this happened on the road, if the locks were sabotaged while the driver was at a rest stop or in a diner having a bite to eat…”
“You have a vivid imagination,” Erin said.
“She does,” I said. “Alice is also right. If your truck was forced to sit for as long as it took to repair it; if your cold chain was broken…”
“I’m aware of the ramifications, McKenzie.”
“Erin, your security’s a joke. I took a look around your building, the parking lot. There are no closed-circuit TV cameras anywhere. No gates. Your neighbors are at a distance. Do you have a security company keeping watch on your facility? Vehicle or foot patrols?”
“The landlord inspects the grounds a couple times a week, but that’s more to check on the tenants.”
“Swell.”
“Up until now, security wasn’t an issue.”
“Times change.”
“So I’ve been led to believe.”
“Police,” I said.
“No.”
“Bobby Dunston.”
“No.”
“You’re a tax-paying citizen, Salsa Girl. If you ask for help, he’ll quietly arrange to expand some officer’s beat to include the industrial park. There’ll be a police presence.”
“I said no, and I wish you wouldn’t call me Salsa Girl.”
“What are you going to do, then?”
“What are you going to do, McKenzie?”
“Me?”
“Doing favors for friends is what you’re all about, isn’t it? Isn’t that what leads you on all those grand adventures I sometimes read about, that Ian Gotz tells me about?”
“Yes, but…”
“The question is—are we friends, McKenzie? You only know me through Ian because he’s escorted me to parties and gatherings with you and Bobby and the others, the hockey players, your buddy with the FBI.”
“We’ve known each other for a long time, Erin.”
“Yes, but does that make us friends?”
“Sure.”
Erin took a deep pull of her bourbon while she thought about it. She was gazing at Alice when she said, “I’d like to take advantage of your friendship.”
“Okay.”
Erin’s eyes found me again.
“One thing,” she said. “If at all possible, I don’t want the world at large to know what you’re doing or why. The reason I keep saying no to the police, if word gets out, the story won’t be about a small business person being victimized by vandals. That’s not how it’ll be played. Instead, the headlines will read ‘Salsa Girl Assaulted’ or some such thing. That’s unacceptable. I can’t have that.”
“I’ll do the best I can.”
“Where do we start?”
“We start with installing a decent surveillance system. I know some people.”
“This is going to cost me a lot of money, isn’t it?”
“Yes, but my services are free.”
“What else besides cameras?”
“I’ll make some discreet inquiries.”
“Discreet inquiries—I like the sound of that.” Erin finished her drink and gazed up at Alice. “Happy now?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“One last time, McKenzie—are you sure I can’t offer you a drink?”
“A short one, for the road.”