Read Online Zigzag by Bill Pronzini - Free Book Online Page A

“Ray was a jack-of-all-trades, so to speak—good at landscaping, good at tree work, good at just about everything we do. So we put him wherever he was needed, whatever project.”
    â€œDo you recall if there was an employee he was particularly friendly with?”
    â€œI don’t, no. I didn’t know him well, you understand. Thirty people working for me, can’t get to know them all.” He sounded regretful of the fact. “But he was a good employee; I can tell you that. Always on time, hardly ever missed a day, liked working with plants, flowers, trees. Never any problems with him until the last month or so before he was arrested.”
    â€œOh? What happened then?”
    â€œWell, he began drinking rather heavily. Not on the job, so far as I know, but he came to work badly hungover three or four times. Missed a couple of days, too. Hal Waxman finally had to give him a shape-up-or-else warning.” Another headshake. “I hate to fire a good man, but when I can’t count on him anymore and his conduct reflects badly on the business…”
    â€œDo you have any idea what caused the sudden binge drinking?”
    â€œNo. Something weighing on his mind, I suppose.”
    â€œYou mentioned Hal Waxman. Who would he be?”
    â€œOur yard foreman. You might talk to him.”
    â€œI’ll do that. Where do I find him?”
    â€œIn the distribution center, probably. I’ll phone over there and tell him you’re coming.”
    *   *   *
    Distribution center was a polite term for warehouse, the largest of the three buildings on the lot. It was crammed with all sorts of landscaping materials and machinery that included rototillers, backhoes, John Deere Gators. A greenhouse attached to the rear was lush with plants, every kind from the bedding variety of flowers to large shrubs, and multiple varieties and sizes of trees in tubs.
    Hal Waxman was waiting for me at the open entrance doors. The yard foreman looked to be in his early forties, a pear-shaped man with a matching pear-shaped face—narrow at the brow, somewhat broad across the cheeks and jawline. He wore a pair of green overalls with Kennedy Landscaping Designs stitched over the breast pocket, had a clipboard in one hand and an empty black-bowled briar pipe clamped between his teeth.
    He saw me looking at the pipe while we shook hands. “I quit smoking fifteen years ago,” he said a little ruefully, “but I can’t get out of the habit of chewing on the stem.”
    â€œI’m an ex-smoker myself. Coffin nails, to my everlasting regret.”
    â€œYeah. You still get cravings?”
    â€œNot in a long time.”
    â€œI do, but only after a big meal. Well. The boss said you wanted to ask me about Ray Fentress?”
    â€œAbout the last month he was employed here, yes.”
    â€œUh-huh. Before he started boozing and his life went to hell. Damn shame. Nice guy, steady, no trouble until then.”
    â€œYou have any idea what happened to change him?”
    â€œNo,” Waxman said. “I asked him straight out the morning he came in still half in the bag, but he wouldn’t talk about it. Whatever it was, it was eating hell out of him.”
    â€œWhen exactly did it start, do you remember?”
    He worked his memory, gnawing audibly on the pipe stem like a dog worrying a stick. “While we were doing a major relandscaping job at the Holloway estate in Burlingame. Fountains, waterfalls, flagstone paths, you name it.”
    â€œFentress worked on that job?”
    â€œFrom the first. About three months.”
    â€œDid anything happen during that period that might explain his sudden drinking?”
    â€œNot that I know of. Everything went real smooth, no problems. Well, except for the Holloways’ young daughter, but her behavior didn’t have anything to do with Ray.”
    â€œBehavior?”
    â€œShe liked to parade around in a