Lunch with Dolly and Agent Lo was fast and busy. Two cups of tea straightened me out after a troubled night. When we asked around the restaurant for names of farmers we might talk to, Eugenia, Gloria, and the other customers in EATS, all had names of people to go see or a number for organizations that helped migrants. Jeffrey took names and telephone numbers and whatever else they had to offer. Dolly worked the phone book. Soon we were down to how we would handle all of it.

“Look, let’s each take an area. Okay? I’ll do Mancelona north—get the farms out there. Emily, you do these farms.” Dolly held up a map that put me west of Leetsville. “And Agent Lo, you do the migrant service places in Traverse City. That all right with everybody?”

Agent Lo frowned. “I don’t feel good about you women doing any of this alone. There’s already been one woman murdered and a family missing. Whatever this is about and whoever’s involved, they aren’t playing games.”

I kind of agreed. Nobody should be taking on any of the investigation alone.

To my surprise, Dolly went along. “Don’t want them killing off a reporter,” she said, gave a strained laugh, and grinned at Agent Lo. “Make me look bad.”

“Nor a Leetsville deputy,” I countered.

“What we’ll do until we see how things go, is stay together,” Lo said. “One car. Three people. Numbers rule. The INS is watching this closely. We don’t take well to an agent being murdered. I’ll give them one call and we’ll have plenty of help, if we need it. You should put that in the paper, Emily. We want these guys to know who’s coming after them. And the migrants too—let them know they aren’t alone.”

We agreed and we were off. First it was out to George Sandini’s place, up by Petoskey, to see if that Carlos Munoz might have something for us. What we needed was a way into this mess; a path to follow. There was such a cloak of secrecy tying tongues among the migrant workers. We needed one break; one peephole into what was going on and what they were all afraid of.

_____

At Sandini’s place we found George with his head stuck under the hood of a huge John Deere tractor. He came out reluctantly, wiping grease from his hands with a large red rag. His gray hair stood up at the back as if it hadn’t been combed that morning. The man didn’t look thrilled to see a cop and a reporter, and even less thrilled to meet Agent Lo.

“INS? That’s immigration.” He gave Lo a suspicious look.

Jeffrey nodded.

“So, something really is going on. You three got any ideas?”

“The woman who was murdered was an emigration agent from Mexico, worked for the Mexican government. Yeah, I’d say something was going on here, at least intimidation and death threats; murder.”

“Whew.” George Sandini ran a hand through his thick hair. “Wish I could help …”

“We wanna see Carlos again,” Dolly said. “Maybe he remembered something.”

George shook his head. “Gone. Just up and took off. Like so many of ’em …”

“When?” Jeffrey demanded, his face darkening.

George shrugged. “Yesterday. A couple guys came to see him and he left. His family went a few days ago. I think that was to Carlos’s brother in Texas.”

“You know where in Texas? Maybe we could call him …”

“Not a clue.” George toed the churned earth at his feet. “This keeps up we ain’t going to have a single worker here for harvest. Don’t know what we’ll do. Without those guys we’re up the creek. Depend on ’em …”

“Only way to help yourself is to help us. We’ll put a stop to whatever it is …”

“You think it’s about some Mexican gang after them? That’s what some of the other farmers have been saying. You know, like they owe money or something?”

We all shrugged.

“I don’t think it’s about drugs. Not these workers. Family men—all of them. Been coming up here for years. I don’t think …”

“We don’t know anything, George,” Dolly said. “It’ll take help from you or other farmers who know or hear something.”

He nodded, then nodded again. “Why don’t you all come in the house? I’ll make some phone calls. See what I can get for you.”

Sounded like a good idea. We followed the man into a kitchen where he waved us to seats at a scrubbed oak table, excused himself, and went into another room to make phone calls.

“Better than nothing.” Dolly leaned toward Jeffrey.

He kept his voice low. “You got any ideas, Emily?”

I shook my head. Out of ideas, but I had the feeling we were on the right path. At least some path.

George was back in a few minutes. He stood in the doorway looking from one to the other of us, making his mind up about something. He came over, pulled out a chair at the table, and sat down. We watched as George Sandini went through a few minutes of tortured soul searching. Obviously he knew something but wasn’t sure he could trust us.

The man finally rubbed his rough hands. “Well, I called a couple of other farmers going through this. We didn’t want to say anything to anybody … but … well, you see now, Carlos and some of the others didn’t really take off.”

We looked at each other, puzzled.

“You gotta understand. These men been with us a long time. Like friends, they are. We aren’t about to let anything happen to ’em and we didn’t think we could protect ’em the way things were.”

We waited. This wasn’t easy for the man.

“So, what we done is get ’em together. We’re hiding them until whatever’s going on is over. We need them and they need us. You get the picture?”

Jeffrey, voice low and encouraging, asked, “Hiding them? You mean they’re still around?”

George made a face. “Not their families. They’re gone where it’s safe.”

“Can we talk to them?”

“Guess you’d better.”

“Where?”

“Right now they’re out to Dick Crispin’s orchard, the other side of Northport. We got together, we’ll move ’em around if it’s necessary.”

“Is this Acalan Diaz family with the others?” I asked.

George thought a minute then shook his head. “Don’t think so. Nobody’s heard a word about them.”

“I’d like to get out there,” Dolly put in.

“ ’Course. That’s who I called: Crispin. He says for you guys not to say a word.” He looked hard at me. “Better be nothin’ in the paper.”

I agreed. Nothing.

“He’ll be waiting at his house and take you to where they’re hidin’.”

We got up, thanked George, got an address, and were off again. A long, long trip around Lake Michigan, through Traverse City, and out the Leelanau Peninsula to Northport and beyond.