Badwater (The Forensic Geology Series) (4 page)

This cask was supposed to contain highly radioactive resins. But it did not. So said Hap Miller’s Geiger counter. So said Scotty Hemmings, when he took his first look at the spill:
that’s not resin beads
.

This cask was an enigma.

Scotty was now examining the lid, which jutted askew. “Looks like the hold-down bolts came loose. Could be the top wasn’t torqued.” He gave Walter and me his considered thumbs-up.

I gave a glance downhill where CTC workers were recovering another cask. So far—so Miller had said—the other casks held precisely what they should.

I returned my attention to the enigma cask. Walter and I approached.

What had I been thinking? It looked nothing like a tin can.

It was a steel cylinder, about four feet long and three feet in diameter. It had flanged collars and lifting lugs. A severed tie-down cable spooled from one of the lugs. I could not help reading the yellow labels on the steel skin: IXResin, Radioactive III. Contents: Cs-137, Co-60, Pu-239, Sr-90, Be-7. Whoa. The labels said this stuff was tripleX hot but, in fact, the contents were not as advertised.

Whatever it was, it was not hot and we were encased in protective clothing and therefore there was no worry.

I squatted at the breached lid assembly.

Scotty was behind me. “What in hell is that stuff?”

Big spotlights washed the scene. The lid opened like a surprised mouth, baring rubbery gasket gums. White ashy stuff spewed from the mouth and dusted the ground. Stuff that had nearly given me heart seizure. Now, as I studied it, I knew what it was. And it made no sense. I fumbled my loupe out of the kit and looked through the high-power lens.

“What is it?” Miller this time.

Trivial to ID but just to be sure I looked again. Pearly, with a nonmetallic luster. Walter was beside me with his own lens, shaking his head like he could not believe it.

“Geologists?” Soliano now.

I said, in wonder, “It’s talc.”

O
n the way back to the RERT van Walter said, “Characteristics?”

Straight to work, then. Good enough. So, what do the characteristics of talc tell us about this scene?

I began. “Firstly, of course, talc is the softest mineral.” Baby soft; I could vouch for that. “Streak white, luster pearly, cleavage basal, fracture lamellar, particle size...uh, extremely fine...” And what did this tell us so far? “I’ve got nothing,” I admitted. Too much adrenaline. Too little sleep. Thoughts scattering like a puff of talc.

Well then, how about
dispersion
for a defining characteristic? I knew it well. Me, age nine, choking on a talc cloud, backing away from the changing table. Mom dusting my baby brother Henry’s butt so the diaper won’t rub a sore on his delicate skin. Won’t lead to a bleed.

I shook off the memory. Yeah, talc’s highly dispersible. Tell me something I don’t know.

Walter and I walked on toward the van. Booties scattering gravel.

Memories still rolling, Henry always good for a wallow. Me, age eleven, taking Henry, age three, for a walk. And I’d let him wear his flip-flops and his toes met a rock. Blood. Screams. A crowd gathering. I pocket the rock, hide it. Phone home. Mom and Dad speeding up in the Ford, scooping up my brother. Walter’s there; crowd’s just outside his lab. Walter’s just some adult I’ve seen around town but my parents know him and they pass me off. The Ford squeals away toward the hospital. Walter shepherds me into his lab. I’m awkward with this old guy—he was middle-aged back then but to me at age eleven, he was old. And the old guy listens when I do a core dump—guilt, resentment, worry. I bring out the rock. Call it a shitkicking rock. In actuality, Walter says, that’s basalt. He washes off the blood. He puts it under the microscope. By the time Mom calls from the hospital—Henry’s bleeding stopped, send Cassie home—I don’t want to leave. I want to find out how that rock came from a volcano. And in the weeks and months that follow I want to find out how a rock is evidence that helps solve a crime.

And now, eighteen years later, I’ve got a double masters in geology and criminalistics but at heart I’m still the eager beaver Walter created in his lab. I want to repair the rip in the safety net that allows us to go about our daily lives.

I want to find out if this talc evidence will help solve this crime.

I
n the RERT van we began to strip down to our street clothes.

“We have a puzzle,” Soliano said, easing off his gloves. “And we have here a collection of people with unique expertise. Shall we put our heads together?”

Was that a request? Soliano didn’t strike me as the type to request. More like the type to require.

“Our puzzle,” Soliano continued, “begins with a truck leaving the nuclear plant, carrying a shipment of radioactive resin beads. The truck is bound for the CTC waste repository. En route, there is a crash. I am called to the scene. I make my initial evaluation—attempted hijacking. Mr. Hemmings and his RERT colleagues arrive to monitor the area for radiation hazards. CTC sends its people to recover their property, and its health physicist Mr. Miller to protect its people. My geologists arrive. We investigate. We find, by accident, that one of the casks does not contain resin beads. It contains talc.” He regarded us, one by one, with the same exacting focus. “How is this possible?”

“Alchemy?” Miller said.

“Thank you for the levity,” Soliano said, without a smile. “Let us consider, instead, that we have a ‘dummy cask’—to cover the theft of a resin cask.”

“Jesus,” Scotty said, “you mean a swap?”

“This is possible?”

“Swapped where?”

Soliano considered. “Perhaps at the nuclear plant. Perhaps somewhere along the driver’s route. With the driver, possibly, an accomplice. How would this be done?”

“To start with,” Scotty said, “they’d need a crane to handle the casks.”

“Very well. What else would be needed?”

Walter said, “Talc, evidently. It’s chemically inert, easy to handle...” He glanced at me.

Yeah, I’m on it. Talc’s characteristics. What else do they tell us?

“And where does the perp acquire this talc?” Soliano asked.

I said, “You don’t get that much talc just anywhere. You’d need a source like a mine.” I pictured it. The perp shoveling up talc to fill a radwaste cask—which is a damn misuse of the geology. What kind of scumbag thinks that up?

“And how does the perp acquire the empty cask, to fill with the talc?” Soliano eyed Miller. “This is your cask, I am told.”

Miller raised his palms. “Comes from the dump where I
work
. We supply the casks to the nuke plant. They fill em, ship em back to us. Cask ain’t mine in the sense of bought and paid for.”

“You quibble. I mean yours in the sense of responsibility.”

“Yowza, I quibble. Responsibility-wise, it’s Milt Ballinger’s cask. He’s dump manager.”

“Christ,” Scotty said, “who cares who’s in charge? If it’s a swap then we got a cask of hot resins running around out there.”

Miller grinned. “On little cat feet?”

“You could try taking this damn serious, Miller.”

Soliano snapped, “Gentlemen.”

Miller bowed and unzipped his suit, rolling it down. I was able to smile and Walter chuckled and Scotty scowled. Soliano studied Miller’s street clothes with distaste. Soliano himself was FBI informal in khakis and a short-sleeve linen shirt. Walter and I wore our lightweight summer gear. Scotty’s street clothes were snug black jeans and a green polo shirt. Miller was in a league of his own. He wore baggy shorts in screaming yellow-orange plaid and his T-shirt had a drawing of Bart Simpson with the caption
There’s No Way You Can Prove Anything
. Miller didn’t look anything like bug-eyed buzz-cut Bart. Miller had wild red hair, a pale heart-shaped face, and blue eyes set deep as cave pools. But Miller and Bart did share that same no-shit look.

“To complete the scenario.” Soliano waited until he’d regained our attention. “Had the crash not occurred, the driver would have made his delivery of the dummy talc cask—along with the rest of the shipment—to the dump. And the swap would have gone undetected.” He regarded Miller. “This is possible?”

“Perp’d need some serious mojo.”

Walter said, “There might be a way to test the theory.”

“Yes?” Soliano said.

“If the perp does have the necessary mojo,” Walter said, “perhaps he tried the swap before. On a previous shipment. And that time things went as planned and the talc cask
did
arrive at the dump. In which case, it could be located?”

Miller shook his head. “Too late now. Casks get buried right away, way down deep where the sun don’t shine.”

My gut constricted, down deep. I hated Walter’s idea. Because if the perp tried the swap only once, tonight, and screwed it up—as he clearly screwed up tonight—then there was some hope he’d fail at whatever plans he had for that cask of hot resins.

I got a crazy vision of the cask on little cat feet chasing the stick figure. The stick’s not laughing. Stick’s scared shitless.

I wasn’t laughing either. I dearly hoped the perp was a one-shot screwup with deeply flawed mojo. Because if he’d tried this before, and succeeded, that level of competence did not bode well for our side. I hated Walter’s theory but it was a good one, and testable. I had to give due credit to my mother and brother. I said, “Ever put talcum powder on a baby?”

Silence. Nobody had, it seemed.

Come on, I thought, it’s a defining characteristic. “Talc’s highly dispersible. It gets on the changing table too.” I pictured white talc on steel cask skin. “And then you track it all over the place.”

J
ersey wouldn’t sit still.

When Roy Jardine had returned home two hours ago from his reconnoiter, Jersey as usual bounced like a windup toy. He’d petted her, fed her, welcomed her onto his lap when he settled into his Lazy-boy. But she wouldn’t calm down. He’d finally had to toss her onto the floor so he could work.

She paced. She felt his jumpiness. Normally he’d appreciate that, her understanding him. Poodles were smart as pigs and his bitch Jersey was the smartest poodle he’d ever owned.

“Sit, girl,” he said, and she quieted, giving him her adoring look.

It was like normal—Roy and Jersey holed up at home. His place was a tidy little homestead, a pink stucco box of a house with a red tile roof. Colors like Jersey’s belly. His place was isolated, at the far end of town. And Beatty was a desert town with nothing around it. He blessed hick towns.

Of course once you left Beatty you went into the action zone. Six miles down the highway from Beatty was the CTC dump and beyond that, another six miles or so, was the crash site. Lights, action, busy busy busy.

He got up, checked the front door lock, sat back down. Jumpy as Jersey. He didn’t feel safe at home anymore. Maybe he’d better go to the hideout in case things went critical again.

And they would, one way or another.

Jersey barked. He shushed her. He had work to do.

He picked up the yellow notepad. For the past two hours he’d been chewing over what he had learned at the crash site. Now he was ready to draw up a plan. He made two columns, one marked
Enemy
and the other marked
Roy’s Action Items
. In the
Enemy
column he wrote
Sheriff, Fire Department, RERT, CTC, seven unmarked vehicles, one FBI helicopter.
In the
Roy
column, he wrote
Find Out What They Know About Roy Jardine. Find Out What They Are Going To Do Next
.

He put aside the notepad in disgust. He’d learned almost nothing. His action items lacked implementation details. Find out
how
?

He went into the kitchen and got a pint of strawberry ice cream.

Jersey was on his heels.

He took the pint back to his Lazy-boy and fed the first spoonful to Jersey. Pink ice cream on pink dog tongue. He took the next spoonful. Technically, sharing the spoon was unhygienic but he’d been sharing with Jersey for years and never got sick. Of course he bathed her every other day and never let her into anything disgusting like the trash can. He fed her two more bites and then no more. He didn’t want to upset her stomach. “Mine now, girl,” he said, and the smart bitch stopped begging. The ice cream cooled his mouth and sugared his belly and by the time he’d worked his way through the pint he knew what to do.

More recon. Reconnoitering, he meant, but he liked calling it recon. It would have been foolish to write some Rambo action in his
Action Item
column, just to look ace. He bet outlaws reconned in detail before they launched an operation. At least, the smart ones in the history books did.

The limitation of his recon at the crash site, he realized, was that he’d been too far away. He needed to get close where things were happening to get actionable information. And things would sure be happening at the dump. He pictured it. He’d worked at the dump for three crap years—job eighteen—and he knew exactly what everybody would be doing at any given time. Except this morning. This wouldn’t be a regular morning, this would be an emergency morning. So how should he act? Normal, he thought. Just go into work and act normal. But in reality, doing recon.

Was that doable?

The ice cream soured his gut. What if he was already a suspect? What if the cops were at the dump waiting for him?

Jersey whined. When he didn’t pet her, she started barking.

“Enough, girl.” He had to smack her, lightly, on the rump to shut her up.

Now
think
Roy. He thought.

He picked up the phone and called his shift mate—not a buddy, Jardine didn’t have buddies—but a dim dude who sometimes swapped shifts with him.
Sorry it’s so early but would you mind taking my shift this morning?—I’m hungover.
Jardine wasn’t, he’d never been, but this was an excuse any of the guys would buy. What the excuse bought Jardine now was an info dump from his shift mate.
Oh Roy, man, ya gotta come in cuz Ballinger’s callin in everybody cuz—shit man you dunno?
—and then the dimwit went on to tell Jardine what three other guys had told him.