ENCOMIENDA
Chapter 19
Nevertheless, there was one thing I could do: Take Iris home. I went to her room where she was working math problems from another book. She really did have the absence management program worked out.
I knocked and she opened the door.
I said, “Iris, it’s time to go home.”
She scrunched her nose at me. “Really?”
“Really.”
“Just before the action gets good?”
“Believe me, you don’t want to be there.”
“Very well. I’ll get my stuff.”
I waited outside the door. Five minutes later she came out. She was dressed in her usual road attire and carried the backpack like a piece of luggage.
We walked to the car and she threw the backpack behind the seats. I hadn’t expected her to go so willingly, although she sat glumly silently and stared out her window as if I were taking her to prison.
I took the quick route: up I-75. She had me exit into North Fort Myers, past a new subdivision and down a gravel road beside which were ample lots with either an older wooden home or a doublewide trailer.
“Stop!” she said suddenly.
I stopped the car. We were between an old wooden house on the river south and a doublewide trailer off the road north. Iris started to get out.
I said, “I can drive you to the door.”
She pushed the door open and said, “Not necessary.”
“I’d like to talk to your mother.”
“She’s probably not home.”
That eliminated the doublewide, which had a truck and a small car parked next to it. Iris’s home was the old wooden house on the river, no vehicles in the drive, and only a rowboat and a canoe on the bank of the river. The lawn was unmown and some weeds were becoming brush.
I let out the clutch and turned slowly right into the dirt drive leading to the river house. “Close your door.”
She shut the door until we were stopped beside the house.
Then she opened her door and got out and pulled her backpack out. I turned off the engine and got out.
She said, “Thanks for the ride. It was interesting.” She had a defiant glint in her eyes.
“You know I can’t let you hang around because that would be irresponsible. You are only fifteen.”
“So they tell me.”
“Things could get dicey from here on out.”
“At least you won’t be bored.”
“I can’t believe your life is that bad. A lot of kids would give an ear to live on a river. Don’t you have any friends?”
“I have friends.”
“Let’s go see if your mother is home.”
“I’ll go see.” She went up the steps onto a screened porch, pulled open the screened door, dropped her backpack on the porch and disappeared into the interior.
I took the liberty of going up the steps and onto the porch. I knew she was reluctant for me to meet her mother and I wanted some hints as to why. The porch had a musty smell that reminded me of dank alleys in Miami. I looked around the porch and soon realized why Iris was shy regarding her mother. The porch was swept and neat, with two wooden armchairs and a swing couch hanging from rusting chains, a couple wooden tables – all of them could have used a little touch-up paint; her mother was maintaining but not improving things. A trashcan squatted near the door. I went over and looked inside. Beneath some tissue paper and junk mail was an empty bottle of wine – the stale wine odor was what had reminded me of alleys in Miami.
I looked into the interior. The door from the porch led into a living area with worn throw rugs, a television, dusty knick-knacks on wall shelves, a couch covered with a faded blanket, a couple stuffed easy chairs. The interior also had that stale wine aroma, although I couldn’t see any bottles. The smell came from spills and splatters over a long period, stains that had soaked into the rugs and the upholstery, that despite wiping and sponging could not be entirely eradicated.
Then I understood why she was good at interpreting the chatter of intoxication.
I walked back to the front of the porch and looked out. A car was approaching the drive and slowing. It was a fifteen-year-old brown Chevy sedan missing all its hubcaps. It turned with practiced ease onto to the drive and homed in on the house. My guess was that mother was coming home.
Iris came out and said, “Mother isn’t . . .” saw the car pull up and finished, “. . . that’ll be her.”
A middle-aged woman with brown hair got out of the brown sedan, pulled two brown grocery sacks from the car, closed the door, and seemed to notice the Z3 for the first time. She looked at the car a moment, then at the house, saw Iris and me watching her. She shaded her eyes and said, “Iris? You home?”
Iris said, “Yes, Mom. Mr. Jaspers brought me home.”
“Thank god.”
I stepped down to help her with the sacks. I said, “Buck Jaspers. We talked on the phone.”
She smiled and shook my hand. “Nice to meet chya. Olivia Channing.”
Up close she looked older because of her puffy brown eyes and wrinkles. I grabbed the bags and carried them up the stairs for her. One bag contained four bottles of cheap wine. The other had assorted chips and dips – carbohydrates and fat with hints of other food values.
When I stepped onto the porch, Iris took the bags and said, “I’ll take them in.” She went inside. I held the screened door open for Ms. Channing.
She stepped in and said, “Thanks. Would you like something to drink or eat? I owe you something for taking care of my little genius. I hope she wasn’t much trouble. She can be a handful.”
“No, Ma’m. I should be getting back to my job. I just wanted to be sure Iris got home safely. She’s quite a little woman.”
“Character, you mean.”
“She’s someone with a lot of promise.”
“I’m glad you think so. Right now, she’s just a lot of trouble.”
“She’s determined, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing.”
“Stubborn and willful, you mean.”
“Well, nice meeting you. Goodbye.” I went down, got into my car and drove away. I saw no point in prolonging a painful conversation. The bright teenaged daughter and her middle-aged alcoholic mother would be at odds for some years until the daughter had matured enough to love her mother for who she was despite her flaws. My small part in their lives was over.
I drove the straight route back to the motel in Naples, stopping only to refuel the car.
Scotty and I waited. Scotty had told his men to call in every hour if possible and make the first report at eight o’clock.
The first call was from Joe, who reported that the buses made no stops from Beanland’s compound until they reached the fields that they would work that day. He said, “However, there are many places for ambush: wayside rest parks, side roads, turnoffs. I’m mapping each of them and noting their positions on my map”
Mario called in a few minutes later to inform us that not everyone had left the compound. “Cocker and Beanland stayed behind. Beanland’s truck is still here. The other guard, the custodian and the cook drove three of the buses. The cook’s wife drove the van. The fourth bus was driven by one of the workers. The dogs are in the pens.”
An hour later, Joe called again. “The least likely scenario is taking them in the fields. I’ve been watching with binoculars, but I haven’t spotted the boys for sure yet. But the buses are not all parked in the same spot, and most of the workers are at least a quarter mile from the highway. The workers are scattered over different fields, plus there are guards at the entrances to the farms. Taking them in the fields has the least chance of success.”
Then Mario called. “Beanland has left his trailer. He took out the hound and the shepherd to do a tour of the camp with him. Cocker is sitting in a chair in front of his trailer, listening to music and smoking.”
To make things even more taut, around 9:30, Suarez called. A farm worker was in his office and he had a serious complaint against Beanland.
Suarez gave the following account:
His wife had disappeared. One day about two months ago his wife hadn’t gotten on the bus with him to go to the fields. He thought that maybe she had gotten on the wrong bus. But she didn’t appear in the fields that day. And when he returned to Beanland’s compound, she wasn’t there.
This man at first thought she had left him. His wife and he had had a rather combative relationship. She had left him several times before. He spent several days going throughout Immokalee to look for her, but no one had seen her. Then he thought she might have gone back to her family in Mexico. He called to her home village, but she hadn’t appeared there and no one had heard from her, not even her older sister with whom she was closest.
Then someone else told him that Beanland sometimes took people to work in his special fields. This informant didn’t know what these special fields were or where they were, but he knew that if anyone went into the special fields, they had never come out.
The husband also claims that Beanland is rumored to have taken women for his own pleasure and the pleasure of his associates. Of course, his complaint revolves around that rumor. He thinks that Beanland raped his wife and sent her to work in the special fields. But he has no proof.
I said, “What do you think?”
Suarez said, “My gut feeling is that he’s sincere. But, once again, there is no proof.”
“But there’s getting to be a lot of evil smoke for there to be no evil fire.”
“I agree. I’m going to take this guy to the morgue. If he can identify the female body we found as his wife, then I have cause to act. By the way, the coroner’s report names blunt-force trauma as cause of death.”
“Those ‘special fields’ – could they be marijuana fields?”
“That’s interesting, too. Last night I got a call from the DEA. They said there’s been a spike in Florida-grown marijuana being distributed throughout the Southeast and wanted us to keep a look out for any unusual activity.”
“Thanks for the info, Lieutenant. Let me know what happens at the morgue
End of Chapter 19
My family doesn't have too many alcoholics. In fact, the only one I remember is my maternal grandfather. By the time I was old enough to remember him and encountered him, he was 72 and living in a nursing home near Jasper, Alabama. He was extremely thin and walked with the aid of a cane. His hands shook with a steady tremor. He coughed a lot and spit phlegm into a handkerchief. He had trouble maintaining a conversation and often nodded away and had to be brought back to the rest of us. Part of the conversation was explaining who we were, although I suspected that I could have come day after day and would have had the same conversation each time. "I am your daughter's son. My name is Jerry." He may have had a touch of alzheimer's to abet the debilitation of alcohol.
None of his children or grandchildren were alcoholics. His son Spencer Jr. served in World War Two, worked as an engineer most of his life, became mayor of Oakman, the family hometown, and died at 92 and was reputed to have been lucid to the end.
Grandfather had been a blacksmith. My theory is that as the twentieth century progressed and automobiles replaced horses and mules, he lost some self-esteen as he became less needed, got a little bored with the time on his hands and started drinking. He was also a philanderer, which is another way to make the time pass and refurbish an ego.
Below are some items related to this blog.alcoholism
No comments:
Post a Comment