Free Sendoff for a Snitch by KM Rockwood Page A

might not show up until the warehouse was inventoried, and by then, no one would be able to figure out what had happened to a single missing crate. I wondered why he hadn’t just kept his mouth shut.
    “That guy Aaron, who works here. You seen him tonight?”
    I looked warily at the driver. “Didn’t show up for work tonight. But it’s overtime. He don’t want to, he don’t have to work it.”
    Aaron had been missing a lot of work lately. Anybody else would have been fired. Anybody who wasn’t a police informant.
    “Damn,” the guy said. “He told me he’d be here tonight.”
    Kelly was busy loading root baskets at the other end of the dock, so I found his shipment, which I’d assembled earlier, and swung the lift around to pick up the first pallet.
    The driver pulled out his log book and a pen and sat down at a rough-hewn table the packing crew used for breaks. “Gonna write me some fiction here,” he said.
    When I looked over, he was slumped over the table asleep. I wondered if he was looking to buy some crystal meth from Aaron so he could keep awake. And how safe he would be out on the road. Either with the meth or without it.
    I finished putting the last bit on the truck and went over to shake his shoulder and wake him up.
    “You can’t be done yet,” he said. “I just sat down here.” He insisted on taking the packing list and scrambled over the load, checking every pallet. I called John over to okay it.
    That part wasn’t totally necessary, but John was right there, and if it made the driver happy and meant he was less likely to complain later, it seemed like a smart move.
    John initialed the packing list and stepped over to straighten out the top row of a crate by the packing line. The crew was working a man short and had to hustle to keep up with the conveyor belt delivering the finished parts.
    The driver slammed the doors to the trailer shut. “You tell Aaron I’ll be back here one night next week, hear? And that Denver wants to see him. That’s me. Nick sent me. We got business to finish up.” He rubbed his red eyes with the back of his hands. “He can’t hide forever, and there’s a lot of people looking for him.”
    I nodded, even though I had no intention of conveying the message. I wondered what kind of trouble Aaron had managed to get himself into now. He sure had a knack for it.
    Tearing off the sheets that the dispatcher would need in the morning, I slipped them through the slot in the door of the locked office. John watched the semi’s taillights disappear through the gate and then walked to the edge of the loading dock and peered down. “Oh, my Lord.”
    I went over and looked down with him. At least a foot of dark, foul-smelling water was pooled against the building at the foot of the bay.
    John shook his head. “Them storm drains must be completely backed up. It’s been years since we’ve had flooding anything like this. I just hope they don’t overflow into the regular sewers. That’d be a real mess.”
    Remembering the water on my apartment floor, I had to agree with that assessment. I fervently hoped the same thing.
    Near time for us to punch out. Day-shift workers were milling around the time clock, gloomy at the prospect of spending an entire Saturday at work, even if it was time and a half. But they’d be glad they’d done it next Friday when the paychecks came.
    Everything was running as smoothly as it could. I made a round to make sure all the work stations had what the machine operators needed to start the new shift and cleared a few pallets of finished goods back to the warehouse. There were a few wet spots on the floor, and as I watched, big drops splashed from the ceiling at least thirty feet overhead and plunked onto the worn wooden floor. The roof was leaking. I’d never seen it do that before.
    Satisfied that everything was taken care of for the minute, I parked the lift, leaving it running, and made a quick stop in the men’s room.
    The jacket that