Badwater (The Forensic Geology Series) (36 page)

As he set the donut box on the counter in our mini-kitchen, I rescued the unstable stack of mail under the guise of helping out. Walter started the coffee. I took the mail to my workbench and put my eyes on the particulars.

“Looking for something?” Walter yelled over the grinding of beans.

Just when I think I’ve put one over on him I am reminded that he’s still sharper than anybody I know. I called back, “Yeah, the rebate for that iPod I bought.”

No rebate, just bills and catalogs and the latest issue of the
Journal of Forensic Sciences
. And, near the bottom, the thick envelope I’d been expecting. I hid it in my drawer. Wait until the coffee’s ready so I can broach the subject when his mouth’s full of donut.

Meanwhile, my attention caught on a large manila envelope with my name printed on a label and no return address.

“Glazed or crumb?” he asked.

“Crumb.” I opened the flap and pulled out a sheaf of papers. A blue post-it was stuck on top, and the handwritten note read:
To Cassie, From Hap
. Cassie, not Buttercup. The formality of that greeting put me on alert. In fact, getting mail from Hap put me on alert. Last I’d heard, he was in the hospital. I wondered what he wanted from me now.

I pulled off the post-it and looked at the top sheet of paper. It was a printed form, the boxes filled in with the same neat cursive as on the post-it. My eyes skipped to the signature box at the bottom: Brendan F Miller, Licensed Health Physicist. The formal title chilled me.

My eyes jumped to the block letters printed at the top. NRC Form 5. Occupational Dose Record For a Monitoring Period. My mouth went dry. What the...? Name (last, first, middle initial):
Oldfield, Cassie E
. Monitoring Period:
8-14 to 8-19
. I rushed, a little wild, from box to box—Radionuclides, Intake, Doses. For crying out loud I had an entry in every box. I skimmed the numerals because I didn’t really know if those numbers were high or low or ALARA, and so I skipped to the comments box.
The individual was exposed in the course of an emergency response to an incident. She has received above the recommended maximum yearly radiation dose. Long-term effects are not calculable. Recommend the individual limit future exposures.
Hap had added a postscript, at kindergarten level:
Recommend you take care out there.

Walter set a donut on a napkin on my bench, sequestering it so as not to crap up the open dishes of soil with the crumbs. “What’s this?”

I handed him the second sheet of paper, the form with his name.

Walter sat down, reading. “How could he...”

“Know the numbers?” Scotty’s the one who had our dosimeters, and Scotty had phoned day after we returned home to tell us “no worry.” Scotty promised to send the entire incident report, with our numbers, once the NRC review was complete. But I guessed Hap didn’t need to wait on bureaucracy anymore. Hap could get on the net and download NRC forms and then run his own equations. How many rads in the point source, how close I stood, how long I stood there. Still, Hap wouldn’t have exact numbers to feed into his equations. I said, “He took a guess.”

“And why the devil is he sending them to us?”

I didn’t want to know.

There were three more forms in the pile. I had the urge put them through the shredder. I had the urge to stuff them back in the envelope, along with mine and Walter’s, and return to sender. Instead, I continued to read.

Ballinger, Milton P
. The numbers were huge but largely irrelevant because the neat cursive in the comments box said it all.
LD. Lethal Dose.

Jellinek, Christine C
. Lower numbers than Milt’s, far higher than mine.
The individual’s shallow dose equivalent, max extremities, has required reconstructive surgeries of the hands and arms. Outlook for the individual’s short-term recovery is guarded; long-term effects are of grave concern.

Miller, Brendan F.
Double-digit microcuries, triple-digit rems. I closed my eyes. Breathed in, breathed out, settling my stomach. When I gained the nerve to read the comments I had to follow the arrow and flip the page. He’d needed more room than the comments box provided. Under the heading
Long-term Stochastic Effects
he’d written
odds-on favorite to win the cancer lottery.
Under the heading
Thanks For Asking,
he’d made himself a diary:

Tuesday
: Thought my latent stage would last longer but this morning when I rolled over I left my hair on the pillow. People think the hair falls out but what happens is it gets thinner and thinner and then you can’t even roll your head on the pillow without breaking it off. Here’s a health physics lesson for you—the parts of your body where the cells keep dividing are bullseyes for radiation. Like hair.

Wednesday
: Still trying to maintain my morning schedule. Been reading the papers. Guess what? Our story made page one of the Vegas
Sun
today. I know you disapprove of my demonstration, Buttercup, but you have to admit it made a point. Even interrupted. Wish I could sit across the breakfast table from John Q Public, watch him reading what nearly happened to the water. See how that goes down with his morning coffee. To be frank, not really feeling up to morning coffee myself.

Thursday
: Nurse put a diaper on me since I can’t seem to make it to the john. The cells that are supposed to maintain my intestinal integrity aren’t doing their job. Man in diapers talking about intestinal integrity—that strike you as funny?

Friday
: Too bad it’s not Halloween because I’ve got bloody fangs. Scared the nurse anyway when she made me go aaahhh. Mouthful of lesions. Yuck. Stem cells in my bone marrow went on strike—how’s that for loyalty?

Saturday
: Coughed up a hairball last night. (Jess funnin youse) Was the mucous membrane in my mouth sloughing off.

Sunday
: Can’t write much more. Nurse will get your address and mail stuff for me. She’s a peach. Come tomorrow, only going to have one hand left. My drawing hand thank the good lordy. Right now I’m going to use it to sketch my left patty-cake so I don’t forget I had one. Infection’s gone gangrene. Where the knife went in—you remember.

Monday
: I’m scared Buttercup.

I understood now why he’d sent the forms to us. He’s scared, alone, and he wants company. And, I thought, absolution. I couldn’t give him that.

I got off my stool and went to the window to shield my face from Walter. I stared out at the forested flank of the Sierra. If I was a kid I’d go up into the trees and hide. Do my crying there.

Walter made a lot of noise, letting me know he was picking up the forms on my bench. Then he went quiet.

When he had finished reading I headed him off, in case he wanted to discuss Hap. I said, “My numbers are okay. Just means I need to be careful in the future.” Like I’d go anyplace near unshielded shit without full hazmat and a ten-foot tallywhacker. “And you’re fine. You didn’t pick up any dose.” Thank God. Thank Scotty, and even Hap—I’d thank the devil himself if he’d had anything to do with keeping Walter from sucking up dose.

Walter said, “Never again.”

“Never again what? Never again take a case where we need to wear full hazmat?”

He nodded. And then he grunted.

I knew that grunt. It meant, never again unless a case comes along that cries out for justice, in which case we’ll goddamn likely end up taking it.

We got coffee to go with our donuts and went back to work on the plastics case. I left the thick envelope in the drawer. We worked until one-thirty and then I suggested lunch. When he looked up I brought out the envelope and laid it on his workbench. “It’s that conference,” I said, “on soil forensics.”

“Dear, it’s too far. We don’t have the budget.”

“Yes we do. I got a deal.”

“What kind of deal?”

“Internet special. It’s off-season in Belize. And don’t forget frequent-flier miles.” I folded my arms. “So here’s what we’re going to do. We’re going to that conference because it has a session on geostatistics that I’m dying to attend. And we’re staying in this funky hotel I found—right on the beach. Meals included. And in our down time, we’re going to learn how to dive. Don’t worry, hotel’s got a certified instructor.” I leaned forward, nearly coming off my stool. “Walter, we’re going to get back in the water. With breathing tanks and faceplates. Only this time it’s going to be fun.”

Walter opened the envelope. He paged through the lime-green hot-pink brochure, studying it as if he’d never heard of an Internet special. He spoke, finally. “This diving instructor? He’s young and good-looking? And kind? And intelligent—you’ll want someone you can have a conversation with.”

I groaned.

He smiled.

I relaxed. “And we’re going to drink margaritas and eat lime-baked chips.”

“With salsa?”

“Yup. I’m not giving up salsa.”

He said, firm, “No seaweed, though.”

“Only in the water.”

“Only when the conference is not in session,” he amended. “I’ll want that deduction on income tax.”

I got off my stool and came to him and extended my fist, to seal the deal. He knew what to do. We bumped fists. Very cool. But then I couldn’t help noticing the age spots on his hands. Suddenly I could hear Hap’s voice, clear as if he were here in the lab assessing Walter.
Your cells are already in the decay mode.
I shook Hap off. I didn’t need a health physicist to tell me to wear a hat and shades and sunscreen out there. SPF-50.

I said, firm, “It will be fun.”

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THE END

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~ O
ther books in the Forensic Geology Series ~

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Q
UICKSILVER (Prequel)
http://amzn.to/18QsAbM

A young man disappears in the wilderness of the California mother lode. He leaves behind a gold-flecked rock and a vial of liquid mercury. He is a misfit in the modern world, a throwback to the Gold Rush days.

A venture capitalist—whose gold country is Silicon Valley—hires forensic geologists Cassie Oldfield and Walter Shaws to track his missing brother.

Following one of the 'lost rivers' of California, Cassie and Walter plunge into the dark history of the legendary lands, into the dark past of the brothers, into a poisonous sibling feud that threatens both lives and the land.

And the question then becomes: which brother is on the hunt?

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V
OLCANO WATCH (Book Two)
http://amzn.to/10wAa4H

NO WAY OUT—so says the note in the pocket of the murdered mayor.

The volcano beneath her town is seething, and the fate of Mammoth Lakes now rests in the hands of emergency planner Adrian Krom.

But Krom has his own agenda.

Investigating the case, forensic geologist Cassie Oldfield tracks mineral clues to discover how the mayor died—and what she found. As the volcano moves toward red alert, Cassie races to prevent 'no way out' from becoming a prophecy.

I
want to thank the following experts in their fields for information, education, reading the book, and giving me terrific suggestions and support: David Lochbaum, Marvin Resnikoff, Terry Fisk, Gregg Dempsey, John Thornton.

If there are factual or technical errors in BADWATER, they are mine alone.

Thanks to following for reading and commenting on my book, and for ongoing friendship and support: Lisa Brackmann, Marcia Talley, Patrick Price.

I want to thank Jack Barnes, Don Dwiggins, Russell Dwiggins, Dan Kolsrud, Del Roy, and Sue Worsley, for reading, for detailed suggestions, and for much-needed encouragement.

To Molly Williams, thanks for enthusiasm, support, and asking how it’s going.

To Emily Williams, thanks for reading and commenting and explaining to me that “playa” refers to a person who has enough “game” to be a major player in a group. Still, I like the geological definition—“a desert basin from which water evaporates quickly”—and I’m sticking to it.

To Chuck Williams, thanks for reading, formatting, supporting, being there, and a boatload of everything else.

O
n the following pages are two maps:

Death Valley, overview

Death Valley, showing sites and roads mentioned in the story