A Dime a Dozen (9 page)

The three of us talked about the whole event, each from our own perspective. As a deacon at the church, Dean’s main concern was with practical issues like church liability and safety. Natalie seemed more worried about Luisa, wondering if the murder was somehow tied in with the stink bombs found in the car.

I hadn’t considered that, but now as I thought about it, I realized that the stink bombs and the murder might be connected, probably with the former serving as a diversion for the latter, though I didn’t know enough about the woman’s situation to have an opinion on whether her car had been targeted specifically or if it had just been a coincidence.

“I’m telling you, this poor woman seems to draw trouble,” Dean said, pushing away from the table and standing. He carried his dishes to the sink, rinsed them, and set them in the dishwasher. “She’s really a good soul, but her life is a mess. She’s already taken up far too much of our time.”

He excused himself to get ready for work.

“Up until last night,” Natalie added as he left the room, “the few odd things that happened to her really have been minor. Spray paint in her driveway, the occasional slashed tire, stolen laundry from her car. But if that man’s murder had anything to do with Luisa directly, then the nature of whatever is going on with her has definitely taken a turn.”

“What have the police done for her prior to last night?” I asked, taking a bite of my grits and savoring the perfect blend of taste and texture. Somehow, cooking grits was never an art I had perfected.

“Not a lot,” Natalie answered. “Like I said, until last night these things weren’t really serious enough to warrant much attention.”

“Do you think it could be because she’s Mexican?” I asked. “Perhaps there’s some anti-Mexican sentiment in town.”

“I don’t think so. There are other Mexican Americans who have settled here, and they haven’t had any problems. Looking at the big picture, it does seem as if Luisa’s being harassed.”

“Does she have any enemies?”

“None that she can think of.”

“What about the teenage son? Maybe he’s involved in a gang or something and Luisa just doesn’t know it. Maybe these acts are meant to be against him.”

“Callie, as far as I know, there aren’t any gangs in Greenbriar. Besides, a few of the early incidents pointed directly to Luisa. Work-related stuff, you know.”

“Yes, you started to tell me about that last night.”

Natalie stirred cream into her coffee, quiet for a moment. I let the silence sit there between us as she gathered her thoughts.

“I’m telling you because I’d rather you hear it straight from me than from some government official. And it’s definitely going to come up in your investigation.”

I felt an uneasy flutter in my stomach.

“What is it?” I asked. “You said she worked for MORE, right?”

“Yes,” she sighed heavily. “Every summer, when the migrants first arrive, we offer free testing for any of the workers who would rather do something other than pick fruit. Then we match up those who tested well with local seasonal jobs.”

“And you offered Luisa a position in your own company?”

“She has a full high school education,” Natalie replied, nodding, “and she tested well for secretarial work. So we gave her a data entry position, and she did such a good job that eventually we promoted her to the position of database technician.”

“What went wrong?” I asked.

She shook her head sadly and looked out the window at a beautiful azalea bush outside that appeared to be just on the verge of blooming.

“When you work with migrants,” she said finally, “there are a lot of county, state, and federal regulations you have to follow. Basically, we have to keep records of everything we do and every migrant we serve.”

“It’s not unusual for a social service agency to track their population.”

“No, but it means a lot of paperwork and a lot of data entry.”

“Okay.”

“That’s the database Luisa worked on, the record of our migrants and all the services we provided for them.”

“So Luisa worked on the database,” I said, dabbing at my mouth with my napkin. “Did she mess it up?”

“No, she was very good at her job. Things went along fine for a while. The problems didn’t start until her husband disappeared last fall.” Natalie took a sip of coffee and then swallowed. “The first incident was terrible, though with all Luisa was going through, I didn’t blame her for being distracted.”

“What happened?”

“What happened is that she left an entire stack of confidential files and records from our office sitting in a chair at the local Laundromat. Someone found them and turned them in to the police, who weren’t sure what they were and handed them over to the County Migrant Bureau. The bureau eventually returned the records to us, but not before citing us for a number of confidentiality violations.”

“Yikes!”

“Tell me about it. Even though Luisa had been in that Laundromat the night before, she swore up and down she hadn’t brought any paperwork with her, that in fact she never took paperwork out of the office.”

“Did you believe her?”

Natalie shrugged.

“I don’t know. She certainly seemed sincere. Dean and I decided that perhaps she had grabbed the papers by accident without realizing it. We agreed to give her one more chance.”

“And?”

“And less than a week later she accidentally did something to the computer that erased large portions of data from our database.”

“Oh, no! How did she do that?”

Natalie shook her head.

“She doesn’t know. Again, she swore she didn’t do it, that it wasn’t her. But there was no one else it could’ve been.”

“Oh, Natalie, that’s terrible. Wasn’t there a backup of the system?”

“There was supposed to be. But the backup discs were blank. It was obvious that Luisa hadn’t been doing the backups all along, though, again, she swore that she had.”

“What did you do?”

“We had to let her go. We had no choice. It was almost the end of the year by then and time for us to start submitting our records to the proper agencies. Unfortunately, we didn’t have many records to submit. As you can imagine, we missed a lot of deadlines, which meant we were in a lot of trouble. In the end, we had to hire someone else to go around and collect data from the local orchards, plus we had to load information back into the computer from the hard copies we had of some of our records, all in an attempt to reconstruct the database.”

“Did you pull it off?”

“We managed to squeak by without losing our license,” Natalie said. “Though we were cited for poor record keeping. And now we have a bit of a black eye with the County Migrant Bureau. Frankly, I don’t blame them. These problems made us look very inept indeed.”

I folded up my napkin and set it beside my plate.

“You were right to tell me,” I said, nodding. “This would’ve come out further down the line anyway.”

“Oh, I know. I’m still willing to take some of the blame since we were ultimately responsible, but Dean fully blames Luisa. He feels she let her personal problems affect her work.”

Looking almost relieved that her story was out on the table, Natalie thanked me for my understanding and said she hoped this wouldn’t have any impact on the grant. She finished her coffee and began loading dishes in the dishwasher. I tried to help, but she shooed me away, saying she would be dressed and ready to head to the office in about ten minutes if I wanted to ride in with her.

I went down the hall to my room, feeling very disheartened about Natalie’s revelations. Though it wouldn’t disqualify them for the grant, it was going to affect it somewhat, because one of my criteria was that a place have a good reputation.

Still, at least I had the explanation behind the problem. Now we needed to see if there was anything else MORE could do to improve relations with the agency that held them in such contempt. I would also need to examine the policies and procedures that had allowed such a breach of database security.

Packing didn’t take long at all because I had only brought in one small bag from the car. As I had explained to Dean and Natalie when we were first planning this trip, I didn’t think it was appropriate for me to spend the entire week enjoying the hospitality of the very people I was investigating, even if they were my former in-laws. Fortunately, they understood and had suggested a lovely bed-and-breakfast in town. I had surprised them both by revealing my intention to spend the remainder of the trip in my vacation home. I felt ready to face old memories, and it seemed a bit silly to get a hotel room in town when I owned a perfectly good house up on the mountain. I had already arranged for my stay with the management company. All that remained was to drop by there and pick up the keys.

For now I gathered my things, double-checked the creases on the bedspread, and then walked back up the hall to join Natalie for the drive to the office. Despite the trauma of the night before and the bad news of the morning, I was still excited to do what I had come here to do.

Natalie emerged from her bedroom wearing a sharp navy jacket and skirt, her makeup subtle, her hair just so. I was glad I had chosen to dress up a bit myself in a light cashmere jacket and a pair of tweed slacks.

“Are we ready?” Natalie asked, gathering her purse and keys.

“Yes,” I said, and I
was
ready. I was eager, in fact, to put all of these problems aside for now and go to see the MORE building and the legacy my husband had left behind.

Six

As Natalie drove, she and I talked about the events of last night before the murder. She was still concerned about my welcoming party and apologetic that it had gotten out of control and turned into a spontaneous Webber family reunion.

“Please don’t think anything more about it,” I said. “I would’ve preferred a more subtle greeting, perhaps, but once things got underway, I thought it was great. I was very touched to realize everyone wanted to see me again.”

“You’re still family, Callie,” she said. “You always will be, you know, even when you find someone else and get married, settle down, have kids. We want you to think of us that way always.”

I was surprised by her comment and felt my face flush. She didn’t seem uncomfortable with what she had said, however, and even looked as though she wanted to continue the line of conversation. But I really wasn’t comfortable going there with her, especially not if she were to ask if I was dating again or if there was someone special in my life yet. I had a hard enough time talking about these things to my friends; I really didn’t think I could handle such a conversation with Bryan’s mother!

“So tell me more about yesterday’s bean dip,” I said quickly, trying to change the subject. “Was that your recipe?”

She was easily distracted, and we managed to talk food the rest of the way to the office. As we turned into the parking lot of the muted brick building with crisp white trim, I couldn’t help thinking that the last time I was in town, all they had were blueprints and an empty lot. Now, the facility was up and running, thanks in part to the original $200,000 grant the J.O.S.H.U.A. Foundation had given them.

And it was a lovely place—not huge by any means, but functional and very tastefully done. We parked in front and stepped into the lobby area, and I immediately noticed the large brass plaque that hung in the center of the facing wall. Subtle lighting from a ceiling fixture illuminated the plaque that simply said “This building is dedicated in loving memory of Bryan Davis Webber.” Under his name were his birth and death dates, and under that was inscribed Matthew 5:8:
Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God
.

“That’s lovely,” I said, feeling a lump in my throat.

Dean and Natalie gave me a tour of the building, which included a reception area and separate offices for accounting, records, human resources, fund-raising, and public relations. In the very back of the building was a row of what they called “start-up offices.” There, for a very low fee, any migrant-related service agency could rent, on a monthly basis, one room with a desk, computer, phone, fax, etc. as they attempted to establish themselves. Working out of the MORE facility gave them access to a fully functional office with a receptionist and a very professional atmosphere. Once they were fully up and running, they would have sufficient resources to move into their own space. Dean said that at any one time, about half the offices were kept in use, and that more than one successful agency had been launched that way.

We ended the tour in the conference room. I sat at the big table and let them present their organization to me in its best possible light. Once they had showed me their full program, they brought out information on each of the agencies that came under the MORE “umbrella.” The needs these agencies met included migrant housing, education, child care, medical care, and more. It was all very dazzling, and I was especially pleased to see complete records for every company on the roster. Once the information was all laid out in front of me, I felt glad that my friend and coworker Harriet was on her way to town to help with the financial side of the investigation. This job certainly was too big for one person!