Bright and early the next morning, Michael pulled into the parking lot of a strip mall, one that had offices instead of stores. He went through the door marked Siddall and Family. It turned out to be a small, well-kept office. The woman at the desk looked up as Michael entered.

Michael smiled at her. "My name's Michael Knight, and I heard you were hiring."

"Any skills in road construction?"

"No, ma'am. I was in the Army, though, so I am no stranger to hard work. Or being yelled at when I get it wrong."

"You aren't any longer?"

"No, ma'am. I put in my time and then took my honorable discharge. I decided to settle in California for the weather. So now I'm doing odd jobs until I find something I like to do and a place I'd like to live."

"Welcome to White Ridge," said the woman, standing up. She was obviously pregnant.

"So . . . you're the family part of Siddall and Family?"

"Both parts, actually," she replied with a grin. "My grandfather started the company and then my dad took over. My husband, Frank Perry, is just an employee who made good by marrying the boss's daughter and now runs the place. I'm Anita Perry."

He shook her hand. "Pleased to meet you, Anita."

"Let me get you the paperwork to fill out. Then I'll see where Frank wants to send you."

Michael filled out the paperwork. Fortunately, his time doing undercover work as a detective for the LAPD had taught him how to develop a cover story he could remember and what information folks were likely to accept at face value without verifying it. He handed the completed forms back to Anita, who looked them over and then dropped them in a in-box to be reviewed more in-depth later. Then, she stood up again and slowly walked across the room, stopping a couple of times, until she reached a radio.

"Hey, Frank, it's Anita. I've got a Michael Knight here. No skills but willing to learn."

"Send him to Merton. Casey could use another set of hands. I'll meet him there."

"Right," said Michael after Frank had signed off, "where's Merton?"

"Oh, you can't miss it. It's just past the Gardiner's place."

Michael laughed. "And for the non-locals?"

Anita laughed, too. "Route 137, two and a half miles past Miller Road. Look for the trailer. And the road construction."

"Sounds easy enough." Michael watched as Anita started back toward her chair. "Would you like a hand?"

"I would love one." Michael helped her to the chair and then to sit down. "I am so ready for this baby to be born. Doctor tells me I have another two weeks, maybe three. I hope I go early."

Michael said goodbye and left. He got into the car and drove off.

"Where are we going, Michael?" Kitt asked.

"Route 137, a couple of miles past Miller Road."

Kitt checked his map to find the route.

"Michael?"

"Yeah, pal?"

"According to my map, we are heading towards . . . road construction."

"Yup, we sure are."

"Is that wise, Michael? You know that dirt, dust, and debris are not good for my circuits. And the delays." Kitt didn't bother to hide the disdain in his voice.

"Ordinarily, I'd agree with you. But we are here to investigate potential fraud in road construction. And Osborne suggested I go to work for Siddall on a road construction site, to learn the ropes."

"I suppose," Kitt reluctantly agreed. "But couldn't you find some other way to get to the work site?"

Michael patted the dashboard in reassurance. Over the past few months of working with Kitt, he had learned that his partner had some definite feelings, even if Kitt denied it. He was rather fastidious and could also be quite anxious. But Michael had also learned how to reassure Kitt. Just like he had learned to work with any other partner, both in the Special Forces and in the LAPD. You learned their triggers and you learned the best way to defuse them when it got to be too much.

Soon, they arrived at Merton: a rural highway with road construction. There were orange cones and flag man, who turned out to be a flag woman once Michael reached her. Ignoring Kitt's sniff of disdain, Michael rolled down the window.

"Hi, I'm Michael Knight. Anita told me I would find Frank here."

The woman pulled off her helmet. "Fancy meeting you here."

"Erika!"

"The boss is in there right now." She pointed at a nearby trailer. "And be careful. That's one amazing car you've got there. Be a real shame if anything happened to it."

Michael rolled the window back up.

"The lady is quite right. You should be more careful with me."

Michael laughed and shook his head as he parked next to the trailer. He again patted Kitt's dashboard before going inside the trailer.

"Can I help you?" asked one of the two men inside.

"Michael Knight. Anita sent me."

"Welcome, Michael. I'm Frank Perry, and this is Casey Starr."

"Ever work road construction?" asked Casey.

"Nope. But as I told Anita, my stint in the Army taught me the value of being a quick study to avoid getting yelled at."

"Then let's teach you how to build a road, from the ground up," said Casey as he grabbed a hard hat from a nearby table and handed it to Michael. Both he and Frank put on their own hard hats. They then walked back to the work site.

Casey brought him over to where two younger men were standing. "Michael, this is Juan Colon and that's Glenn Barnes. They're also new to road construction."

"Hey," said Juan as he shook Michael's hand. "We worked for Summit before coming here."

Casey gave a look that clearly said he wasn't impressed by their credentials. Then, he gave the three of them an impromptu lesson on road building. "Okay, there's a lot that goes into a road. Assuming you are putting in new road – like we are here – and not just patching holes or repaving old road, you start by removing everything down to the ground. We call it subsoil."

"That's what the scraper does," said Glenn, mostly to show he knew what he was doing, despite what Casey might have thought.

"Right. And then we lay down the foundation – we call it aggregate – in layers, compacting each one. And then finally we put asphalt on top. You three are spreading the aggregate around before we compact it."

"How much aggregate?" asked Michael.

Casey was amused. "One mile of interstate highway takes nearly 40,000 tons. But this is just a county highway, so it takes less than that."

"Well . . . guess I know what I'm doing for the next few days," Michael observed.

"Welcome to the exciting and interesting world of road construction."

Casey left and the three men got to work.

Juan asked, "What brings you here?"

Michael gave them the same story he had given Anita. "I was in the Army and finished up my tour. Decided to take my discharge here in California, for the weather."

"How'd you end up on this work site?" asked Glenn.

"I needed money, and they were hiring. And who knows, maybe road construction is the place for me. What about you two?"

"We were working for another company, Summit."

"Doing basically the same thing we're doing here."

"Is the pay better working for Siddall?" asked Michael.

"Not really. But we want to get certified on the heavy equipment. Because that does pay better. A lot better."

"But Summit wasn't offering training. Said they had enough guys with certification. So we thought we'd try Siddall."

"We hadn't realized how much work went into building a road, though."

"Oh?" Michael tried to be casual as he prompted them.

"Yeah. Take the steamroller over there. We thought it was just a pass or two, and you're done. But it's a lot more involved than that."

Michael was intrigued. If Summit was cutting corners like Osborne suspected, then it would make sense that these two guys had no idea of the right way to do things. Or they could just be clueless. It was a bit suspicious, though, that Summit wasn't certifying new people on equipment. That would draw attention to the fact that they weren't doing a thorough job. Perhaps he ought to ask Kitt to do a little checking on the guys working at Summit and their certifications.