Save Me - Lisa Scottoline [118]
“Who’s Scotty?”
“Our boss. Frank Scotty. He’s the shift super.”
“Is he around?” Rose hadn’t counted on a supervisor.
“He stops by usually, but he’s crazy with the Harvest Conference. They have their prom with all the muckety-mucks.” Juanita rolled her eyes. “You can meet Scotty when he stops by. We’ve been working together ten years.”
“That’s a long time.” Rose realized that Juanita had been here when Bill Gigot was killed and could still have information about his death, even though they hadn’t been on the same shift. “You know, Trish told me this used to be called the peanut building, back then, right?”
“Yep. We made peanut butter crackers and peanut-filled pretzel nuggets here. Had to keep ’em separate from the other products, because there’s no peanuts in the big plant. You know, for the allergies. We’re not peanut-free, there’s a lot of real complicated rules, so we just go with there’s no peanuts, like lots of companies. But that’s now.” Juanita sent the box on its way, then X-rayed the next one. “Then, we had all sorts of procedures, everything had to be separate. We were so careful, it was a pain. Look.” Juniata pointed to the X-ray screen, and in the corner, there was empty space where a bag should have been. “Missing one. No good, right? Deal with it.”
Rose grabbed the box and set it on the table behind them.
“Good job.” Juanita smiled. “Anyway, back then, the peanut allergy thing was getting bigger. The orders went way down. Schools stopped buying anything with peanuts. Moms didn’t want to take a chance and bring in a snack that could get the other kids sick. A kid can die from a peanut allergy, you know.” Juanita shuddered. “I’d never want to be responsible for a child’s death. I couldn’t live with myself.”
Rose flashed on Thomas Pelal, but suppressed the thought. She had to bring the conversation around to Bill Gigot.
“The peanut business went bust, especially the peanut-filled pretzel nuggets.” Juanita positioned a box in the X-ray machine, then screened it, and sent it on its way. “We had four lines dedicated to peanut products, and we didn’t get the orders, and they’d be sitting still for days. Meanwhile, the chocolate-filled nuggets were selling like crazy, especially in Latin America and the Caribbean, I think because it’s so hot there. With the chocolate inside the pretzel, it doesn’t mess up your hand, like M&Ms.” Juanita turned with a wink. “We didn’t have enough machines in the big plant to fill the orders for the chocolate-filled nuggets, and these machines here, in the peanut building, sat doing nothing, because they could only be used for peanut.” Juanita screened another box. “We were losing money, hand over fist.”
Rose had to get Juanita off the subject, but she was so chatty. “If you were here ten years ago, did you know—”
“Those were the bad old days. The bosses wanted to switch from peanuts to chocolate, make crackers with chocolate and fill the nuggets with chocolate, but it took time, switching over. We couldn’t use the peanut machines right away for the chocolate.” Juanita closed another box. “We had to get them completely cleaned, then we had to get them inspected and whatnot. The machines sat still, like they were broken. We had no work, we worked in the big plant. We ran the tours. We filled in. We swept. But the pay wasn’t the same, and the managers were going nuts and so were the supers. We were down almost six months, this was seven years ago, I remember because my youngest was three, and he just turned ten.”
Rose saw her opening to talk about Bill Gigot. “I heard from Trish that there was even a guy who got killed here, around that time.”
“Yep. Bill.” Juanita’s mouth made a grim line. “He was on the night shift, where you’ll be. I remember, because I was worried sick about Christmas. We didn’t know what we could afford to get the kids or how long I’d have to take less pay.” Juanita eyed the X-ray screen. “Finally, we started back with the chocolate-filled, and even though we don’t make the peanut-filled nuggets or crackers anymore,