Bad Company (33 page)

Authors: Virginia Swift

Sally and Hawk exchanged a look: no big surprise there.

“So what do you leave behind?” Sally prodded.

“Progeny, of course, and land. But from what Josiah tells me, other things. Creosote.” She held up an index finger. “PCBs.” A middle finger. “And dioxin.” Ring finger. “What to do about that was the question. I had several options.”

They waited.

“First,” Molly began, “refuse the land swap, hang on to Wood’s Hole, and sound the alarm about the ground-water pollution. In that case, the state might be forced to consider cleaning up the site.”

“But if you’d done that,” Hawk said, “as an owner of the site when the contamination occurred, you might end up having to pay at least part of the cost of the cleanup. I don’t know the federal environmental regs, chapter and verse, but I do know that whenever they can find the original polluters, they try to make them pay.”

“Correct,” Molly told him, as if he’d just been sent to the blackboard to perform long division, and had not only gotten the answer, but had shown his work. “Al-though, of course, in this case, the tie plant is now on U.S. Forest Service land, so the government would bear substantial responsibility. But it’s possible that between the lawsuits and the ultimate damages, I’d be bankrupted, and have to sell Wood’s Hole to pay the costs.”

“So why not sell now, getting the best price you could?” Hawk said. “I begin to see. And you were willing to risk your own health in the bargain. Why?”

Molly smiled faintly. “There is such a thing as bottled water, Josiah. Even in Wyoming.”

“That’s just one scenario,” Sally interjected.

Molly pierced her with a look, and continued. “Right again. A second possibility: agree to the swap, get the money, but say nothing about the contamination. Put all my assets in trusts for my grandchildren, and live out my days in modest comfort, watching the seasons and the beavers and the birds.”

“And then, even if the government did decide to act, the money wouldn’t be yours. You’d have managed very neatly to sidestep liability,” Sally said. “A Yankee solution if ever there was one. Diabolical, though.”

“Practical,” Molly retorted.

“Which were you going to do?” Hawk asked, his voice low.

Molly looked into his eyes, and sighed. “I hadn’t decided.”

Neither devil nor angel. Like most people. “But now the deal’s off. So what do you do, Molly?” Sally pressed.

Molly smiled. “I made two calls before I rang you this morning. The first was to my attorney, setting up an appointment for later this afternoon. The second was to a friend of mine who works with the Nature Conservancy. I told her that I wished to make a substantial bequest.”

Again they waited.

“My grandchildren will be taken care of—at least they’ll get what they need to go to college. After that, they’re on their own.”

“What about your kids?” Sally couldn’t help asking.

“Philip says God is providing for him—who am I to quibble with that logic? And Alice has never made any secret of despising Wood’s Hole, so I can’t imagine that she’d feel justified profiting from it.”

“No,” said Hawk, eyes on his hands, mouth quirking, “of course not. You wouldn’t want to trouble her conscience that way.”

“So you’re going to give the ranch to the Conservancy?” Sally asked.

“Right away. With the provision that I will be able to live there, just as I have, for the rest of my life, as steward of the land I’ve been trying to restore. I’ve also agreed to donate the remainder of my financial holdings to the Conservancy, and in return they’ll pay me a reasonable salary for taking care of Wood’s Hole.”

Hawk looked up, his mouth still wry. “And what about the land up at Happy Jack?” he said.

“It wouldn’t be a bad thing,” Molly said, “if somebody decided to call up the Sierra Club, or perhaps
High Country News
, and drop a hint or two about a story involving an old tie plant in the Laramie Range.”

“Somebody probably will,” Hawk told her. “And if anything comes of it,” Sally said, “at that point, since you’ll have given away pretty much all of your assets, it’ll be the United States government’s problem. Very nicely done, Molly.”

“It’s only fair,” Molly replied. “This is Wyoming, Sally. Out here, there’s one thing we know for certain. If there’s a problem, it is undoubtedly the government’s fault.”

Chapter 30
Imagine the Rest

“Well, that’s done,” Hawk said, staring at the telephone he’d just hung up. “I told that guy everything including where to park when he goes to Cheyenne to look at the state report. Now it’s up to the intrepid fourth estate to find out most of the facts, and imagine the rest.”

“Amazing that you’d actually find a reporter working this late on a Sunday night,” said Sally.

“Yeah, it is. Makes me think we ought to give a contribution to that
High Country News
investigative reporting fund. Those people must stay up nights praying for a tip like this.”

Hawk had been going nuts all afternoon, having promised Molly that he wouldn’t make the call until she phoned to say that her lawyer had the trusts in the works. He could have waited until Monday morning, but he was worried that things would go haywire again. It had been a harrowing week, and Hawk was up past his bedtime, rubbing his eyes and fighting off crankiness. “Molly’s going to get some bad press out of this,” he said.

Sally leaned over his back and put her arms around him. “I don’t think she gives a rat’s ass. Looked to me like she worked things out according to a combination of New England logic and Wyoming government blaming. And in the meantime she’ll be out there in Centennial, nurturing her grass and enjoying her avocets. What could be more satisfying?”

Crankiness won. “You do realize that Sheldon will probably be able to hold up the feds for twenty times what that property of his is actually worth?” Hawk asked her, looking over his shoulder and peering into her face. “Any way you cut it, he ends up making out.”

“Hey—out here in the Wild West, we believe everybody deserves a little slurp at the federal trough,” Sally said. “Especially when we can revile those bastards in Washington at the same time. Pure bliss.”

The telephone rang again. “You answer it!” Hawk said, tossing her arms off him and jumping up. “I hate the goddamn phone.”

It was Scotty Atkins. “Hey, teacher.”

“You sound bloody cheerful,” Sally said.

“My life is beautiful. I’ve had five solid hours of sleep, and thought you’d like to know that our friends in South Dakota have some outstanding warrants against Pettibone Bandy for assaults and burglaries in Rapid City, back in 1997. Guess he went on a bit of a bender there, and they’re happy to catch up with him. What with this and that, he’s liable to do enough time to keep him out of trouble.”

“Now I feel more cheerful,” said Sally. “How’s Nattie?”

“Sleeping, I hope. We sent her home with Dwayne an hour before I left the office. Dickie and I managed to persuade the D.A. to agree to immunity, in return for everything she’s got against Carhart. She’s going to need a good shrink and a new line of work.”

Therapy, okay. But Nattie without real estate? Un-thinkable. Ruthless drive, and the willingness of most businesspeople to overlook past trespasses in the face of present wealth, would heal Nattie’s reputation, slicker than elk snot. “How about Dwayne?” Sally asked.

“He blows my mind. If it were me, I’d be kicking her butt all the way to Rawlins, but for now, anyway, he says his main job is to help his wife through her crisis. The man’s a mystery.”

“So I’ve thought for twenty years. What does Dickie say?”

“Dickie’s busy. When I left he was in the interview room. He’d gone through two packs of cigarettes and a gallon of coffee, questioning Marsh Carhart. When I got back neither one of them had moved, but he’d smoked most of another pack, filled up a wastebasket with fast-food trash, and was talking about sending a deputy down to the Wrangler for refreshments. He didn’t even look tired.” There was admiration in the detective’s voice.

“What about Carhart?”

“He looked tired.”

Sally chuckled. An awkward pause.

“Well,” said Atkins, “I just called to bring you up to date, and to tell you that you’re a big pain in the ass.”

“Nice mouth,” said Sally.

“Coming from you, that means something,” he replied. “I want you to promise me that I’ll never again find myself slamming a chokehold on some shithead who’s getting ready to put a bullet hole in you. I will admit that you were smart enough to figure it all out, but from this second forward, you’re officially out of the crime-fighting business. Go back to your books.”

“You’re the second man today who’s given me those instructions,” Sally said. “Lucky for all of us, school starts soon.”

“Put Hawk on the phone,” he told her.

“Hey Hawk!” He’d stalked off to the bedroom, but now he came back. She handed over the receiver, but stayed right there, leaning against him, close enough to hear Scotty through the wire.

“Hoops tomorrow?” Scotty asked.

“Why not?” Hawk said.

“I just told your woman she’s a giant pain in the ass,” said Scotty.

“Was she shocked?” Hawk asked, one arm stealing around Sally.

“She acted like she’d heard it all before,” Scotty said. “At her age, she’s not likely to change,” said Hawk, yawning. “But she’s got her good points.”

“I don’t want to hear about it,” Scotty said. “Fine,” Hawk answered, grinning sleepily when she kissed him. “We’ll leave it to your imagination.”

About the Author

V
IRGINIA
S
WIFT
is a history professor at the University of New Mexico. She also writers nonfication under the name Virginia Schaff. She lives in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

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MUSTANG SALLY IS A WINNER!
High praise for
VIRGINIA SWIFT
and
BAD COMPANY

“Swift’s second mystery . . . bucks off the pages. The characters are engaging, the multileveled plot devious, the pace unrelenting. The dialogue is exceptional ...Just read it.”

Tulsa World

“Swift’s forte is comedy of manners, frontier style, and her vest-pocket view of Laramie’s outspoken individualists at their native rituals is better than a front-row seat for the bull riding events at Jubilee Days.”

New York Times Book Review

“A refreshing piece of work by a strong new talent.”
Publishers Weekly

“Frank, funny, and erudite, [Sally is] a woman to watch.”

Denver Rocky Mountain News

“Virginia Swift threatens to do for Wyoming historians what Janet Evanovich has done for New Jersey bounty hunters.” Stephen White, author of
Warning Signs

Also by Virginia Swift

B
ROWN
-E
YED
G
IRL

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

ISBN: 0-06-103029-5

EPub Edition © OCTOBER 2011 ISBN: 9780062133526

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