Steeled for Murder

title page

Steeled for Murder

KM Rockwood

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An imprint of
Musa Publishing

Copyright Information

Steeled for Murder © 2012 by KM Rockwood

All Rights Reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without prior written permission of the publisher.

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This e-Book is a work of fiction. While references may be made to actual places or events, the names, characters, incidents, and locations within are from the author’s imagination and are not a resemblance to actual living or dead persons, businesses, or events. Any similarity is coincidental.

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Musa Publishing
633 Edgewood Ave
Lancaster, OH 43130

www.musapublishing.com

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Published by Musa Publishing, April 2012

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This e-Book is licensed to the original purchaser only. Duplication or distribution via any means is illegal and a violation of International Copyright Law, subject to criminal prosecution and upon conviction, fines and/or imprisonment. No part of this -Bbook can be reproduced or sold by any person or business without the express permission of the publisher.

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ISBN: 978-1-61937-175-0

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Editor: Alice Loweecey

Cover Design: Kelly Shorten

Interior Book Design: Coreen Montagna

Warning

This e-book contains adult language and scenes. This story is meant only for adults as defined by the laws of the country where you made your purchase. Store your e-books carefully where they cannot be accessed by younger readers.

Dedication

For Bracey, Charles, Darrell, Derrik, Fred, Hosea, Ralph, Reggie,
Scooter, Spig, Steve,Tom, Willie & everyone else,
locked up or back on the street, who got caught up in the system.

Chapter 1

“Hey, buddy. New guy. I’m talking to you.”

Pretending not to hear over the din of the plant floor, I put my lunchbox on the crude lunch table by the vending machines and hung my jacket on a hook on the wall. I walked over to the time clock and punched my timecard. My shift, midnight to eight, would start in a few minutes. The other workers on the same shift milled around, waiting for their assignments.

Keeping my back against the wall, I leaned into a corner next to the time clock, my hard hat tilted away from my face. Closing my eyes went against every instinct I had, but I willed myself to do it. I’d take any chance to avoid a confrontation that might jeopardize this job. Getting hired as a machine operator at Quality Steel Fabrications was a big break for me.

“You. Hear me?” Someone poked my shoulder. Hard.

I opened my eyes. Mitch, the forklift driver. Not the most rational of people. “I’m listening,” I said.

“I asked you why you been staring at my wife.” Mitch scratched a scab on the scrawny elbow beneath the rolled-up sleeve of his flannel shirt. A drop of blood trickled down his arm. He didn’t seem to notice.

No idea what he was talking about. “Your wife? When?”

“Just now.”

I glanced around. The factory floor vibrated with the pulse of dozens of machines. The air smelled of oil and hot steel. Sparks flew. “Your wife’s here?”

“No, jerk. When she dropped me off.”

I shook my head. “Didn’t notice.”

“Hell you didn’t. You was staring when she kissed me goodbye.” Mitch shifted his weight restlessly from one foot to the other.

“Woman in a nightgown kissing somebody when the gates opened? Hard to miss. Didn’t know it was you. Or your wife.”

“You think she’s good looking?”

I shrugged. This could lead to nothing good. “I guess.”

“You just keep your eyes to yourself, buddy.”

“Will do.”

“Or I’ll make sure you’re sorry.” Mitch reached over and grabbed the leg of my blue jeans. He jerked it up a few inches.

I tensed, but I didn’t move.

“Thought so,” he said, grim satisfaction on his gaunt face as he stared at the black plastic box strapped on my ankle above the short work boot. “What are you? Some kind of sex offender?”

I hadn’t spent more than half my life in prison without learning that when a bully persists in picking on someone, he can’t be ignored. He wasn’t going to just go away, no matter how much I wanted him to.

I narrowed my eyes and stared straight into his. They were bloodshot and bleary. “What’s it to you?” I demanded.

He dropped my jeans leg like it burned his hand. He backed up a few steps, scratching his neck.

“I’ll call the parole office and tell them you’re stalking my wife,” he said.

I felt the eyes of the other workers on us. “Be hard for me to do much stalking.” I looked away and lowered my voice, trying to minimize the spectacle we were creating. If Mitch would leave me alone, I would have accomplished what I wanted. “Unless your wife’s been over my place. Home detention. They can pull the records and see I been home or at work pretty much all the time.”

John, our shift foreman, approached, battered clipboard clutched in his gnarled hand. He scowled at us, his bushy white eyebrows meeting over his nose.

Mitch grabbed his timecard from the rack and shoved it in the clock.

“What’s the problem here?” John demanded.

“Nothing.” Mitch put his timecard back into its slot.

I shrugged.

“Mitch, you go see if the lift battery needs to be changed.”

With an ugly glance in my direction, Mitch moved off.

“You’re pretty new here,” John said, drawing himself up to his full height of well over six feet and staring down at me.

“Yeah.” I didn’t meet his eyes.

“You want to keep this job?”

“Sure do. Need it for parole.” Not to mention the money.

“Mitch can be trouble. Stay out of his way.”

“Do the best I can.”

John nodded. “You’ve been working out well so far. But Mitch’s been here for a long time.”

“I know. I don’t want no trouble.” That was the truth.

“If he pushes too hard, talk to Victor, the union steward.”

“No point. Better than seven weeks to go before I’m through the probationary period,” I said. “Can’t join the union till then.”

“That’s right. I forgot.” John stroked his short gray beard. “You work the plating room tonight. Plater number two.” He put a check mark on the clipboard. “Always people around in the plating room.”

“Okay.” A change from the wire tree baskets I’d been welding, over in a quiet corner of the shop.

“Plater operators don’t have to talk to the lift driver,” John said. “You just operate the plater. If anybody needs to talk to Mitch, it’ll be the group leader, Hank.”

“Thanks.” I pulled my hard hat down over my forehead and looked toward the plating room. Steam and chemical odors seeped out into the passageway.

“Mitch gets like this sometimes. He’ll get over it,” John said.

“Thanks.”

“And take your lunch. Ask Hank to put it in the office. Wouldn’t want anything to happen to it.”

I grabbed my battered lunchbox—two dollars and fifty cents at Goodwill, including thermos—and went to report to Hank.

Hank wrote my name and employee number on his clipboard. He handed me a pair of gloves. Then he took the lunchbox and tucked it under his beefy tattooed arm. “Office?” he shouted over the noise of the machinery.

I nodded and then turned to watch the operators on the shift that was about to end.

The four electro-platers, huge squat behemoths with their double lines of deep tanks full of chemicals and plating solutions, clanked and groaned as their overhead conveyors lurched in a circuit above them. Ladders led up to steel catwalks that surrounded the tanks. A control panel for each plater took up a good part of the front. Next to the control panel was a big red emergency stop button.

As the overhead conveyor approached from one side, operators standing on wooden platforms in front removed the bright, nickel-plated pieces with their shiny finish from the sets of hooks and replaced them with dull, greasy, unfinished ones. The conveyor continued on, raising them toward the first tank. Raise, lurch forward, dip, raise, lurch. Unendingly.

Down the passageway, I could hear the beep of the lift as Mitch swung it around and headed this way. With an effort, I didn’t look toward it.

Plater number two was running hollow cabinets, about thirty inches square. Probably control boxes of some sort. Looked heavy. The other three platers were running light wire shelving. Figured. Of course the new guy got the worst assignment.

I put on my gloves and watched carefully as the operator heaved a finished cabinet off the plater hooks. He nestled it on a pallet among others and then leaned down and grabbed an unfinished one from another pallet. He lifted that onto the moving hooks. The overhead conveyor jerked it up and away toward the first chemical bath. Another set of hooks, with another finished piece, immediately took its place.

This guy had a practiced swing that I would have to master in mere seconds.

The whistle blew, signaling shift change. I stepped into position.

The guy who was leaving stepped back. “Make sure you get them snugged down good,” he hollered over the noise of the machinery. “They like to fall off.”

I nodded and reached for the piece arriving on the hooks. Even heavier than I’d expected.

I managed to get it off and onto the pallet of finished cabinets, but before I could grab a piece to put in its place, the next finished piece had arrived. Frantically, I snatched that one before it could be carried around to be plated again.

Hank was instantly by my side. He grabbed the next finished piece. “Just do the best you can for now,” he shouted. “Get into the rhythm.”

I struggled to attach the unfinished cabinet while Hank removed the next finished one. I finally got it on. I was reaching for another piece when I heard a screeching sound that ended in a crash.

Hank reached over and hit the emergency stop button. “Fell off,” he said.

The piece had not only fallen off the hooks, it had become wedged at the top of the first tank. As we watched, it teetered on the edge and tumbled in.

“Gotta climb up and fish it out,” Hank told me, reaching for a six-foot-long steel rod with a hook on the end that was leaning against the control panel and handing it to me.

I took it and scrambled up the ladder to the catwalk that surrounded the line of tanks. Steam rose from them. Caustic chemical fumes tickled my nose. I sneezed.