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released the order if it was on hold.”
    “As I said, we were slow to act, but the product should not have been moved. Who authorized it?”
    “A company called Seafood Partners.”
    “Have you done business with them before?”
    “Actually, no. We got the business through a freight broker. We never talked to them.”
    “Where did the product go?”
    “Biloxi, Mississippi,” he said.
    “Where in Biloxi?”
    “The Garcia Shrimp Company.”
    “I would like an address, phone number, and contact name for that firm.”
    “I don’t have it at my fingertips. Can I email it to you later?”
    “No, I’ll wait.”
    She heard him mutter and then put the phone down. The next voice she heard was that of the receptionist, who gave Ava the information she wanted. Their contact at the Garcia Shrimp Company was a man named Barry Ho. What was a Chinese guy doing running a shrimp company with a Mexican name in Mississippi?
    She dialled the Biloxi number Collins’s receptionist had given her. The phone went directly to voicemail. She debated about leaving a message, but in the end she did, emphasizing how important it was for someone to get back to her.
    Twenty minutes later her cellphone rang. “Carla Robertson, FDA.”
    “This is Barry Ho.”
    “Thanks for returning my call so promptly.”
    “When it comes to the FDA, we take things very seriously,” he said, with a slight trace of a Chinese accent and a stronger trace of stress.
    “We appreciate that. It makes our job a lot easier when we get cooperation.”
    “So what can I do for you? Your message said it was important.”
    “Do you do business with a company called Seafood Partners?”
    Ho hesitated, and Ava swore she could hear him wondering whether he should try to bullshit her or not. “Yeah, I do. Not that often.”
    “According to our sources, they trucked a substantial amount of shrimp to your plant about eight weeks ago.”
    “That’s right.”
    “Why did they ship it to you?”
    “They needed it repacked. That’s our specialty — repacking.”
    “Repacked how?”
    “They had a couple of problems.”
    “Such as?”
    “Ms. Robertson, I’m not sure I should be talking to you without their permission.”
    “Mr. Ho, we inspected this product just before they moved it. We were about to put it all on hold, but they beat us to the punch. Now, there’s no way you could have known that, and we’re not going to hold you responsible for acting as if everything was above board. But let me assure you, it would be beneficial for you to tell me what you know.”
    Ho sighed. There was no upside to refusing her. “Well, the product was packed in retail bags for sale at Major Supermarkets, and it was short weight. We repacked a lot of it for another retail chain, and the rest we put up in a Seafood Partners bag.”
    “With the correct weights?”
    “Of course, and it wasn’t easy. Usually we need to overpack by about five percent to make up for glaze. This time we were at ten percent and more.”
    “Who was the retailer?”
    “G. B. Flatt.”
    “In their bags?”
    “Yeah.”
    “How much product?”
    “Twenty truckloads.”
    “Do you still have any of the product?”
    “No, no, we shipped it out as soon it was repacked.”
    “Where did the G. B. Flatt product go?”
    “To their central distribution centre in Houston.”
    “And the balance?”
    “To a warehouse in Seattle.”
    “Which one?”
    “Continental. They only have the one freezer.”
    “Care of?”
    “Seafood Partners.”
    “Have you been paid?”
    “We wouldn’t let product leave our warehouse unless we were paid.”
    “By cheque?”
    “Yeah.”
    “From Seafood Partners?”
    “Yeah.”
    “You wouldn’t have a copy of that cheque handy, would you?”
    “Sure.”
    “Please get it for me.”
    She heard a filing cabinet opening and closing, paper rustling.
    “I have copy in front of me,” he said.
    “Give me the particulars,” she said.
    It was from Northwest Bank, a major