Bad Company (25 page)

She thought that over. Too much to get her head around, so she ate some steak and focused on the details. “Is it clear that the toxic stuff came from the tie plant?”

“What do you think, Sally? Beavers make dioxin? You sound like Ronald Reagan announcing that trees cause pollution.”

Poor Hawk. He was working on ironic detachment, but stuff like this killed him. She leaned over, touched a finger to his cheek, left it there, stroking lightly. “So back to my original naive question,” she said. “Why aren’t the newspapers all over this?”

They were sharing an order of fresh asparagus. He selected a spear, ate it tip first. “Let’s see. At a guess, how many toxic waste sites do you think there are in the state of Wyoming?”

“Absolutely no idea,” she answered, sipping wine.

“Well, let’s put it this way. There are a shitload more of them than are identified, and out of the ones they’ve listed, only a few are likely to get cleaned up. It costs an ungodly fortune to remediate even one site, and the agencies in charge have to set priorities. A site that looks like it could poison, say, the entire city of Casper will get attention first. One that might affect a major ranch, or some endangered wildlife, or what have you, will be considered a long time before some mess that might be nasty, but doesn’t mess up the scenery and doesn’t appear to be having a direct effect on people or any crucial resources. It takes a ton of time and money to clean up these sites. This one isn’t even on the screen.”

“But if somebody were to build on contaminated ground, and think about drinking the groundwater, wouldn’t that give the state or the EPA or whoever cause for action?” Sally asked.

“Hard to say. My guess is that the Wyoming DEQ is pretty overburdened. And just think about the costs. Not only would they have to do the science, but they’d also have to put people to work tracking down the polluters. As far as I can tell, this Golden Eagle Enterprises just closed up shop and disappeared after 1963. And you haven’t even started the job of cleaning the place up.”

Hawk shivered a little. “If you think this one site sounds like a gigantic job, consider the whole state. Wyoming’s been strip-mined, oil-pumped, dug up, and flushed out for the last hundred years. Some of the dirtiest industries in the world have paid a lot of bills around here. Not to mention the fact that our agricultural brethren have used their share of powerful fertilizers and pesticides.” Now he took a big slug of wine. “Prosperity ain’t pretty.

“Then, of course, there’s the fact that enforcement of even the fairly loose laws on the books depends, as always, on the will of our splendid public officials—the ones appointed to clean things up and, of course, the ones we elect to provide the money for the job.”

Great. Happy Jack was turning into Love Canal, and when it came down to it, the only ones who could save the day were...bureaucrats and legislators. People dependent on the will and the generosity of a Wyoming electorate famous for believing that the government worked best when it hardly ever worked. “What about the feds? Shouldn’t they be called in?”

“Be assured, they’re on the job. That DEQ file was full of correspondence with the EPA regional office in Denver. EPA promised to ‘maintain oversight.’ ”

“Uh-huh. The same way a doctor says, ‘Let’s keep an eye on that cough,’ as if he were going to be sitting around fixing cups of hot tea and listening to you wheeze instead of cashing HMO checks and heading for the golf course.” Sally grabbed Hawk’s hand. “You’ve got to get hold of Molly. This is really important, Hawk.”

“I know.” He took a deep breath. A sip of wine. “I’m wondering why she hasn’t returned my calls. Maybe I should head out to Wood’s Hole tomorrow morning and make sure she’s okay.”

And that was when they both noticed a loud cheerful party, barreling from the front door of the restaurant toward the bar. “Bust out the Dom Perignon, Burt!” shouted Nattie Langham, one arm around Dwayne’s neck, the other around Marsh Carhart’s waist, Sheldon Stover at their heels. “We just made the deal of the century!”

Sally and Hawk exchanged stricken stares. “Maybe not tomorrow,” he said. “Maybe it wouldn’t be a bad thing to head on out to Centennial tonight.”

Chapter 23
An Appreciation for Avocets

God bless Jubilee Days. Law enforcement personnel who might ordinarily be patrolling the Centennial road were otherwise occupied. The speedometer on the Mustang went up to 140, and before the night was over, Hawk might use all of it. The front end was shuddering, and so was Sally.

A distinct clunk, followed by a clanging, rapidly fading off behind them.

“That noise,” said Sally, “was some part of the car falling off. It tends to happen at high speeds.”

“Car’s still running,” said Hawk. “Guess it was nothing too crucial.”

Hawk was in a hurry. He had, however, insisted on stopping off at home, just long enough to grab his day-pack. It sat on the console between them, top flap flipped back, drawstring opening loose enough for him to get a hand in and out with ease. It hadn’t occurred to Sally to wonder why, until they were hauling ass across the prairie.

“What’s with the daypack?” she asked.

“I copied some of the documents from the DEQ,” he told her. “I want Molly to see for herself.”

“Really?” Sally had a bad feeling. “That’s it?”

“I just like to be prepared,” he said lamely. “Prepared? What the hell do you have in there that you could possibly imagine Molly wouldn’t have?” Sally asked testily.

“Er, the cell phone?” Hawk tried.

“It would’ve been a good idea. We could phone ahead from the road. But it’s not in there, unless you took it out of my pack. We all know what a big fan you are of those things,” she said. “Unless, that is, Smith and Wesson is now making cellular telephones.”

Hawk grinned weakly. “So what are you going to do, Hawk? If there’s somebody out there holding a gun to Molly’s head and making her sign away her ranch, are you going to walk in, yank open your backpack, whip out your pistol, and shoot the fucker? Or are you going to go in there with your gun drawn, and maybe she’s sitting around doing needlepoint, and you scare her to death? Or maybe she’s lying in bed, like any good Wyoming matron, with her own loaded piece tucked under her pillow, and she’s a quick-draw artist, and she shoots you right through the heart? This is a real estate deal, not a duel to the death. What’s the point here?”

“Relax. I’m just being cautious,” he told her.

“Cautious? A gun is cautious?” she persisted.

Hawk ignored the question. “In all likelihood, the worst that will happen is that we wake Molly up. It’ll be embarrassing, but that’s the chance we take. We’ve got to let her know about that underground plume. I hope to Christ she hasn’t actually signed anything. Although if she has, she can probably get the document declared void, on account of bad faith on the part of the sellers.”

Sally had to think about that. “Bad faith? Do you think the people Nattie and Dwayne are representing know about the contamination from the tie plant?”

A quick, sharp, sidewise glance: He was, thank God, keeping his eyes on the road. “Look—Marsh Carhart’s supposed to be such an expert on everything. Either he’s built his rep as a brilliant ecologist on the same kind of bullshit science as his hogwash about rape, or he’s not quite that dumb and he’s all too well aware of what’s seeping down from upstream, but for his own corrupt reasons is pretending that the swap site is clean. Think about it. It took you and me exactly two days to dig up the information on the tie plant. He’s supposedly been studying the site for weeks, at the least. Is it even remotely possible he wouldn’t have spotted the problem?”

“He’s not a geologist or a historian,” Sally said. “And after all, his consultant on the human factor side of things is Sheldon. That alone would be enough to paralyze any possibility of knowing what the hell’s going on.”

Hawk couldn’t help chuckling. The mention of Sheldon did that to him. “Well, even with the considerable handicap of Sheldon, my money’s on Carhart orchestrating, or at least being involved in a cover-up.”

Sally looked at him. “But he saw you up at Happy Jack. And Sheldon followed me to the library, so they know we’re on to them. Do you think Marsh Carhart would follow us out here and try to stop us from talking to Molly?”

Hawk shrugged. “Who knows? One way or another, we’ve got to go tell her what we know. Either Molly’s made her decision and signed off and we can’t change her mind, or she hasn’t, and Dwayne and them are jumping the gun before the paperwork’s done, in which case we have a chance.” He paused. “Just for the record, I don’t mind at all getting you the hell out of town tonight. I don’t like the way guys have been leaping out at you all week long.”

She looked, again, at the backpack between them. “That’s why you wanted a gun. You’re worried that whoever’s been following me, still is. You’ve decided I need a bodyguard.”

“No. You need a keeper,” he grumbled, standing on the accelerator and sending the car into a fit of Jesus shakes.

This, from a man who ordinarily drove with such maddening care that it made her think of rocking chairs and shuffleboard courts. “Please recall that you are driving
my
1964 Mustang,” she told him.

“Ninteen sixty-four and a half,” he replied primly.

“Exactly. I want you to know that if you wreck this thing, and we end up as hamburger all over the highway, I will personally hunt you down, in heaven or hell or whatever rodent body you’ve been reincarnated into, and kill you all over again.”

He flashed a grin. “This was supposed to be our romantic night. Sorry, baby.”

Sally leaned back in her bucket seat, closed her eyes, and sighed. “Well, at least we had a couple of good steaks.”

Hawk backed off the pedal, slowing the car to a manageably maniacal speed. High above, the sky was black and very clear, and this far from the lights of town, a million stars shone bright. He eased out a hand and stroked down the front of her body, chin to inside of her thigh. “The night is young.”

For a time they drove on in silence. At last Sally said, “I wonder where Bone was today?”

Hawk grimaced. “No doubt pursuing his own inquiries in his engaging way,” he said.

She took a breath. “You know, it’s occurred to me that he knows who pushed me into the bucking chute.”

“I thought he asked
you
who’d shoved you,” Hawk said.

“Not exactly. He asked me if I knew anything about who had. As Bone himself pointed out to me, he’s spent his share of time conversing with the cops. He’s a maggot, but he’s not stupid, and he knows a thing or two about getting information without giving any. The main thing he learned from our little encounter yesterday morning was that I didn’t know anything he hadn’t already found out. And the main thing I learned was that he thought Monette was blackmailing someone, and that he’s looking for ‘payback.’ Whatever that means— maybe money. Maybe revenge.”

“Maybe both,” said Hawk, looking at the bruise on Sally’s arm, the souvenir of her morning in the park with Bone. “Why not? You know, honey, I’ll be just as glad if you don’t run into him again. He’s got his own agenda, he appears to be loaded most of the time, and I don’t think he’d take kindly to anybody getting in his way. I think it’s time we left the murder to the cops. You don’t need to treat this as your own personal crusade on behalf of all honky-tonk angels, retired and active.”

Hawk had a point. And for now, anyway, they were headed in another direction. The Mustang fairly flew down the dirt driveway to Wood’s Hole. Molly’s Expedition was parked in the turnaround, and next to it a late-model, dark green sedan with Colorado plates: rental car. A few lights were on in the house. Hawk slung his daypack over his shoulder.

“Easy, big guy,” Sally said to him. “If somebody besides Molly answers, what are you going to tell them?”

“Oh boy, glad you thought of that,” he said. “We do need a cover story. I can just say I’m a friend who got worried when she didn’t respond to any of my phone messages.” With that he was out of the car and on the way to the front door. As cover stories went, Hawk’s was at least a marvel of simplicity.

Sally caught up with him as a woman opened the door only as far as a chain lock permitted. She was about the same age as Sally and Hawk, petite, dark-haired. Her fierce, penetrating blue eyes told the rest of the story. Obviously this was Molly’s daughter, Alice Wood, and she was clearly wondering what the hell two strangers were doing coming to her door, way out in the country, after ten o’clock on a Friday night. “Yes?” she said.

“I’m Josiah Green,” Hawk told her, his voice muted, “I’m a geology professor at the university, a friend of Molly’s. I’ve been trying to get in touch with her for a couple of days. When she didn’t return my calls, I started to worry, and thought I’d better come see if she was okay. This is my friend, Sally Alder.”

“Oh,” said Alice. “You’re the one who’s been leaving the phone messages.” She shut the door, and they heard her take off the chain. She introduced herself. “Come in. I’m sorry, my mother isn’t here. There’s been an accident.”

“Oh no!” Sally said. “I hope it’s nothing serious.”

“Too soon to tell,” Alice answered, a little abruptly for Sally’s taste. “I came into town yesterday—we have some pressing family business. And this afternoon my mother fell and broke her ankle. I took her to the hospital in Laramie. The doctors are doing tests. There’s some fear that she might have had a stroke.”

“A stroke? Why would they think that?” Sally asked. “It’s a pretty common cause of falls in older people. My mother likes to think she’s immortal, but none of us is,” Alice explained.

“So is she having trouble moving or speaking?” Hawk inquired.

“Obviously she’s not moving very well, with a broken ankle,” Alice said, “but I’m afraid it would take more than a small stroke to prevent my mother from speaking.”

“I guess that’s reassuring, but I’m so sorry,” said Hawk. “Is there anything we can do?”

“Not at this point,” said Alice. “They’ve made her as comfortable as possible, and we did, thank God, manage to get her a private room. I’ve been there most of the day, and my brother will be here tomorrow. We’ll get by.”

Why did Sally have the distinct feeling that Alice viewed her mother’s medical problem as an inconvenience, rather than a personal and emotional trauma? “Is she conscious?” Sally asked.

Alice snorted. “She wants to be running the show. I’m sure she’s in a lot of pain, but she won’t let them give her anything. I’ve tried to convince her to take something, but she won’t listen to me—never has.” Alice shook her head, then looked at the ceiling, then sighed, shoulders heaving. “It’s been an exhausting day, but there’s nothing more to do, so I thought I’d come out here, catch some sleep, and pack up some of her things to take back in the morning.”

Alice looked worn down, no doubt about it. But Sally knew that if it was her own mother lying in a hospital bed in agony, she sure wouldn’t be way out at the ranch, complaining. She’d be sitting in a chair in the room, bothering the nurses for ice packs at the very least (and probably hassling Molly, as Alice evidently had, to quit being such a hero and take some painkillers).

“Listen,” said Hawk. “We’d like to send her some flowers . . .”

Flowers! Sally’s eyebrows went up. Hawk didn’t send flowers. The thought just didn’t occur to him. He installed computer software, changed her oil, surprised her, on special occasions, with things that made her life easier, and she’d even managed to persuade him that gifts of jewelry were never a bad idea. But not flowers. She’d hinted, tried the ploy of sending
him
flowers, even harangued him outright, but it didn’t do a damn bit of good.

He tossed her a silencing look. “. . . and maybe we could visit Molly later in the week if she has to stay there,” he continued. “Can you give us her room number?”

“Three twenty-eight,” said Alice. “As I said, it’s one of the few private rooms in that little motel you people call a hospital.” And then she hesitated. “Say, Josiah. How do you happen to know my mother anyway?”

“Birdwatching,” he answered smoothly. “We share an appreciation of avocets.”

An appreciation of avocets. Great. What next, a suspicion of sapsuckers?

But Alice wasn’t paying attention. “Oh,” she said dully, and then yawned. “Listen, I really need to get some sleep.”

“Of course!” Sally exclaimed. “We’re sorry we bothered you. But please don’t hesitate to call if there’s anything we can do to help.”

“Yeah, sure,” Alice said, all but pushing them out the door, shutting it quickly behind them.

“She didn’t even take our number!” Sally huffed as Hawk started the car.

“She has absolutely no interest in us, or anything about her mother’s life. She acted like Molly was nothing but a hassle for her. If it were my mother who’d had a stroke . . .” said Hawk.

“I know. Me too. I’d be down there drinking crummy coffee and screaming at the nurses. You’re right. Alice wasn’t showing a whole lot of what I’d call family feeling. Maybe the brother will be better,” Sally tried.

“I hope so,” Hawk said, and fell silent. They were both pretty beat; they both knew it. But then, finally, he asked, “How would you feel about going to the hospital, right now, just to check on her?”

Tenderness for him spread warmth and new energy from her head to her toes. “I would feel,” she said, “like telling you how much I love you.”

It was closing in on midnight by the time they got to the Ivinson Memorial Hospital. Sally heard their heels clicking down the hallway, registered the bad lighting, the linoleum floors, the walls painted colors intended to cheer and soothe, overlaid with a grimy patina of sickness and worry and pain. Under ordinary circumstances Hawk set a comfortable walking pace, but tonight Sally was hustling to keep up. No one intercepted them to quibble about visiting hours. This was Wyoming.

Light and sound spilled into the dim hallway from room 328. Molly had her bed cranked up into a sitting position, her left foot propped up and swathed in a fiber-glass cast. Her skin looked papery, pale and thin, and her blue eyes glittered with the pain she evidently refused to mask. She was gripping a remote control and staring at a television mounted high on the wall. David Letterman was laughing at one of his own jokes, but Molly’s mouth was grim.