Zero Day (21 page)

P
ULLER AND
C
OLE
left about thirty minutes later. Puller sat in the passenger seat of the truck and gazed out the window. He was full of questions about the evening, but he wasn’t going to ask any of them. It was none of his business.

Cole finally said, “Well, that was a lot of fun.”

“Families usually are.”

“I’m sure you have questions.”

“I don’t like people prying into my stuff, and I’m going to show you the same courtesy.”

They drove on in silence for five more minutes.

Cole began, “Our parents were killed when a boulder dislodged by a mine blast from one of Roger’s operations crushed the car they were in.”

Puller turned to look at her. “About five years ago?”

“About, yes.”

“And Randy took it hard?”

“We all took it hard,” she said fiercely. Then her look and tone softened. “But Randy took it the hardest of all. He and our parents were always close. Especially he and Daddy.”

Cole drove for a few more miles in silence. Puller looked around the truck’s interior and noted the new vinyl seats and the rebuilt dashboard with what looked to be original equipment. Even the floorboards looked new, with not a trace of rust.

“Did your dad redo this truck?”

“Yeah. Why?”

“Reminds me of the cottage. Did you buy it along with the house?”

“Yes. Paid the money into the estate.”

“Is that what Randy lives off? Jean obviously doesn’t need the cash.”

“Yes. That’s how we set it up. Randy needed it more than me.”

“I can see that.”

“It’s funny. No one thought Roger Trent would amount to anything.”

“So how did he end up where he is today?”

“I have to admit, he worked hard. And had some vision. And some luck. He worked his way up in the coal business. He’s ruthless, arrogant, but he’s got a sixth sense for making money. And my daddy and brother did find a lot of coal for him. Even if it’s destroying the land.”

“But I guess it provides jobs.”

“Not nearly as many as it used to.”

“Why? Is the coal running out?”

“The coal is always running out. From the first scoop you take. But all mining operations in Drake and a lot in West Virginia are now surface mining.”

“Where they basically blow up the mountains to get to the seams?”

“Coal companies will tell you the decision to do surface versus deep mining is based on geology, topography, and pure economics. The lay of the land, depth and configuration of the coal seams, the cost of extraction versus the available profit, stuff like that. The reality is you need fewer workers to do surface mining. Which means more profits to the coal companies. Now, Trent will argue that a lot of the surface mining is covering ground that was already deep-mined. They’re just coming back to get what the deep mining couldn’t. So it’s a second shot and at least some economic activity and jobs are created. And he may be right about that. But it’s not a compelling argument when there’s no food on the table or a roof over your head.”

She stared over at him. “I have no idea if it will turn out to be relevant to the investigation, but it might make sense for you to learn some things about coal country.”

Part of Puller wanted to say no. He had little interest in the intricacies of coal mining and he felt the focus on the investigation slipping some. But he could sense that Cole wanted to talk about it. And the Army had drilled into him the value of knowing the field on which the battle will be fought. He found the same to be true for the investigative side.

“Okay.”

T
WENTY MINUTES LATER
she stopped the truck and pointed up ahead. The moonlight was especially strong tonight and Puller could easily see what she was trying to show him.

“What do you make of that?” she asked. The object was a three-hundred-foot-high mound that looked startlingly out of place between two other peaks.

“Tell me.”

“That’s what’s called a ‘valley fill.’ What they fill it with the coal companies call ‘overburden.’ That’s basically everything they tore off the land: trees, soil, and rock that the coal companies sweep away to get to the seams. They have to put it somewhere. And since West Virginia has a reclamation act, meaning the coal companies have to put the land back close to how they found it, the companies take the overburden, dump it in a valley, hydroseed it, fertilize it, cover it with mulch, and go on their way. Problem is, when they dump the overburden like that they’ve turned the geology upside down. Topsoil is on the bottom and rock that was on the bottom is now on top. Native plants and trees won’t grow in it. So they introduce non-native plantings that are royally screwing up the ecosystem. But they’ve met the letter if not the spirit of the law and they move on. And this dumping also changes the topography of the land. Rivers get redirected. Flash floods occur. Mountains fall down and crush homes.”

“I didn’t really see that many folks living around here.”

“That’s because Trent has bought out entire neighborhoods.”

“Why? People wanted to sell?”

“No, they just didn’t want to live next to a mining operation where they were blowing up the land. Can’t drink the water. Can’t wash your clothes outside. And you got health problems spiking on everything from lungs to livers. Randy wasn’t kidding when he mentioned his lung problems. He was diagnosed with it when he was a teenager. A precursor to COPD. And unlike me he’s never smoked in his life. But he did play football and run track near a coal mining operation. And he’s not the only athlete from around here to suffer like that. Quality of life went to shit. Where there were towns and communities, now all you see is one little trailer, or one little house in the woods. That’s all that’s left. Used to be over twenty thousand people in Drake County. Now we don’t have even a third of that. Next ten years we might just disappear right along with the coal.”

She drove on, stopping in front of a chain-link fence with warning signs posted on it. Behind the fence was a large metal facility rising many stories into the air. It had long chutes running from it in several directions and at several levels.

“That’s a loadout. Where they crush the coal and load it in trucks and on railcars. There’s a railhead that runs right up to it.”

“They’re working late,” said Puller as he watched lights flick back and forth from the facility and from trucks rumbling around.

“They work 24/7, like you said. Used to be they knocked off work at dark, but no more. Time is money. And the only thing they have to sell is the coal. Does them no good sitting here. That stuff will go to power the electrical grid. Keeps the lightbulbs and laptops going, as they like to say around here. At least in the coal company marketing materials.”

“I take it you hate all parts of it.”

“Not all parts, no. It does bring jobs. It does help the whole country because we need the power. But some folks think there might be a better way to get to the stuff than blowing up the land. And at some point the costs do outweigh the benefits. Some folks will tell you we hit that tipping point a long time ago. But if you’re not from around here and you don’t have to deal with black water in your sink, or big rocks falling on your house, or your kid getting
cancer because the air pollutants are off the charts, what do you care? They call us the United States of America, but we’re not really united about anything. Appalachia brings the coal to the rest of the country. And when all the coal is gone and West Virginia looks like Pluto, what does the rest of the country care? Life goes on. That’s the reality.”

“How did your dad feel about it? He sounds like he was a salt of the earth guy.”

“He spent a good part of his life looking for coal. I think he stopped thinking about what it was doing to the planet. If he ever did.”

“And Randy?”

“What about him?”

“He looked for coal too. Was apparently good at it. Now he’s obviously dropped out of life.”

Puller paused. “Was he the source of the earlier death threats against Roger?”

She put the truck in gear. “Got one more thing to show you.”

C
OLE PULLED HER TRUCK
to the side of the road about five miles later. She got out, reached behind the seat, and pulled out two construction hard hats. She handed one to Puller.

“Where are we going that we need these?” he asked.

“To see my parents.”

Puller slipped the hat on and followed her. Cole had pulled a powerful flashlight from the bed of her truck and turned it on. They walked through the woods down a gravel path that soon turned to dirt.

“Ordinarily you have to get permission, be certified, and also be escorted for where we’re going. But screw that. It’s my mom and dad after all.”

They left the path and crossed a field, where they were confronted by a chain-link fence. Puller was prepared to scramble over until Cole pointed out the slit in the links.

“You did that?”

“I did that,” she replied.

They cleared the fence and kept walking. Cole finally slowed when they reached the edge of the cemetery.

“We’re obviously going to see their graves?” said Puller.

She nodded.

“Why all the complications?”

“Trent bought the community and the cemetery was part of it. Technically you have to make an appointment now to see your dead relatives’ final resting place. But to tell the truth, Puller, and
though I am a sworn officer of the law, that requirement just rubbed me the wrong way.”

“I can see that. It would’ve me too.”

She led him around the graves until she stopped at a pair of them and shone her light on the markers.

“Mary and Samuel?”

Cole nodded.

“You were named after him?”

She smiled bitterly. “They thought I was going to be a boy. When I turned out to be a girl they named me Samantha and called me Sam. They didn’t think they were going to have any more kids, you see. Randy was a little surprise that came along years later.”

Puller read the birth and death dates carved in the marble.

“A boulder? Wrong place, wrong time. Senseless.”

Cole didn’t say anything right away. When she did her voice was deeper, huskier, like the walls of her throat were closing in.

“Could you give me a minute?”

“Sure.”

He walked about fifty feet away and started to examine some of the other graves. The cemetery was in complete disrepair. Headstones toppled, weeds and grass thigh high in places, and everything coated in dust. He had noted, however, that Mary and Samuel Cole’s headstones sat straight in the earth and there were fresh flowers on the graves, and the grass had been trimmed away. He assumed that was Cole’s doing.

“Hey!”

He whirled around when he heard Cole call out. He was next to her a few seconds later.

“Somebody’s over there,” she said, pointing to her left.

Puller squinted into the darkness. Cole aimed her light in that direction and did a sweep.

“There!” Cole pointed to the figure of a man fleeing to the east. She held her light steady and kept him in the crosshairs. Her mouth dropped.

“Randy? Randy?” she called in a louder tone.

The man was out of range of the light a few seconds later.

“That was your brother?” asked Puller.

“Yeah. I wonder what he’s doing here.”

“Maybe the same thing you were. At dinner he said he had places to go and people to see. Maybe he meant coming here.” He paused. “You want to go after him?”

“No. Let’s just leave.”

She drove them back to her house. His Malibu was in the driveway. They got out of the truck.

“You want to come in for some coffee? You said it helps you sleep. Jean’s fancy dinner didn’t include any. She’s more into after-dinner liqueurs or teas with names I can’t even pronounce. I just want my coffee Maxwell House black.”

Puller really wanted to head back to the motel and get some work done. And he almost said that. But instead he replied, “Thanks. Sounds good.”

She made the coffee and poured it out in two mugs. They carried it outside and sat on the swing in the backyard. She took off her heels and rubbed her feet.

“No mosquitoes. I’m surprised,” he said.

“I spray,” she said. “And one benefit of the mining up here is that the skeeters don’t seem to like the coal dust and other by-products any more than we do. Plus they’ve filled in so many sources of water that it’s cut down on the breeding grounds.”

They drank their coffee.

“I appreciate you letting me vent tonight about my family.”

“No problem with venting. Helps to clear the mind.”

“But we have seven homicides and a bombing to solve. And to think just last week the biggest problems I had were drunk and disorderlies, a few moonshine stills, and a burglary involving a microwave and a set of false teeth.”

“Part of my brain has been working it all through dinner and right up to now.”

“And what does your brain say?”

“That we’re making progress.”

“How do you know that?”

“Somebody tried to kill us.”

“So what next?”

“Keep digging. But I have to go back to D.C. tomorrow.”

Her face fell. “What? Why?”

“Reynolds worked for DIA. I’ve got interviews set up there. Angle I have to cover.”

“Can’t somebody up there do that? Army must have lots of agents.”

“They do. They’ve just decided not to deploy them on this case.”

“I still don’t understand.”

“It is what it is, Cole. But I’ll be back soon.”

Her cell phone rang. She answered it. Listened and asked a few questions. Then she clicked off.

“That was Sheriff Lindemann.”

“And what did he have to say?”

“He’s not happy that his peaceful hamlet is now the scene of murders and bombings.”

“I can understand that.”

“They put the fire out. The house where you were going to has been abandoned for years. No prints on the letter slipped under your door. The explosive used was dynamite and the ATF guy said the detonators on both devices were professional jobs.”

“Good. I hate going up against amateurs. They’re too unpredictable.”

“I’m glad you can pull some good news from all that.”

“So no clues? No leads?”

“Not right now.”

“Seems hard to believe that someone could get the necessary elements and set two bombs in a place like this and no one notices.”

“Lots of explosives up here, Puller. And lots of people who know how to use them.”

He finished his coffee and set the cup down on the arm of the swing. He stood. “I better get going.”

“Yeah, I guess you better.”

“Thanks for the primer on coal country.”

“You’re welcome. Still beating yourself up about that trip wire?”

He didn’t answer.

“You’re a strange man.”

“I’ve been called worse.”

“I actually meant it as a compliment.”

She looked over at the door to her house and then back at him. “It’s late. You can stay the night, if you want.” She kept looking at him.

Reading her mind, he said, “You know, sometimes the timing on things really stinks.”

She smiled weakly and said, “You’re right, it does.” She rose, took his cup. “Get going. It’s late. What time do you want to meet tomorrow? I’ll buy breakfast.”

“Let’s sleep in. Zero-eight-hundred at the Crib.”

She smiled. “Juliet.”

“Not time for Romeo yet.”

She went up on her tiptoes and pecked him on the cheek, her hand pressing lightly against his chest. “Famous last words again.”

He climbed into his car and drove off. She waved at him from the front porch and then went inside.

He eyed her in the rearview mirror until he couldn’t see her anymore.

He steered his car in the direction of Annie’s Motel.