Hot Water (14 page)

“So Jeremy wouldn’t have been giving you a shot around eight-thirty?”

“Not unless I missed my dose at dinner. But I didn’t—he gave it to me right on time. You were there.” Flora’s blind gaze sought out Elizabeth’s. “Why all these questions about Jeremy? What happened?”

“We found him with an empty bottle of Southern Comfort. The police arrested him.”

“That’s preposterous. Jeremy doesn’t drink. And even if he did, why would they arrest him?”

“Someone gave you an overdose of insulin, Flora. The police are blaming Jeremy.”

Flora sank back against the pillows. “That’s the craziest damn thing I’ve ever heard. You go tell them they’re wrong.”

“I’ll get him out on bail tomorrow.”

“Bail, schmail. They need to find who
did
do this. Stop wasting their time accusing an innocent man.”

“Right now all the evidence points to Jeremy. Flora, isn’t it possible—”

The old woman slashed her hand through the air, demolishing Elizabeth’s question before it was even asked. “No. It’s not possible. I’ll tell them I gave it to myself before I let that boy end up in jail.”

“But if you didn’t and Jeremy didn’t, then who did?”

Flora pursed her lips in thought. Then she patted Elizabeth’s arm. “Guess that’s up to you to find out.”

Later, as I drove Yancey back to the motel, I asked him the question that had been bothering me all day. Goes to show how desperate I was that I was asking Yancey for answers.

“Why is Grandel engaging in a pissing match with Vincent? I know he’s worried about the plant’s reputation, but nobody would take Vincent’s group seriously. No offense,” I quickly added.

He chuckled. “None taken. But you’d be surprised. Besides, it’s not about Colleton Landing. Grandel explained his design to you, right? The modular construction?”

“Yeah. Four reactors in one, safer, more efficient, yada yada . ..”

“Grandel’s company is poised to take that design and modify it for power production. Since the NRC fast-tracked the isotope production plant because of the national shortage, he can now leapfrog over the biggest names in the field. His design is so compact that instead of the long and expensive process of manufacturing and assembling a custom, large-scale nuclear reactor, Grandel can transport a complete micro-reactor in a standard-sized cargo container. Imagine, being able to have unlimited electricity no matter how remote you are. Cheap, abundant electricity. It could topple governments, redraw the map—”

“Change the world.” Visions of barren fields in the Sahara springing to new life with water pumped by Grandel’s generators, swamp land reclaimed, clean water filtered and flowing to every home no matter how remote.... “That’s why Vincent won’t take the money Grandel offered. He wants in on the bigger payoff.”

“You nailed it. If there’s one thing Vincent is, it’s a big-picture kind of guy. And of course that big picture paints a target square on Grandel’s forehead—Vincent’s true believers see Grandel as the anti-Christ, the other energy companies are scared they’re going to lose all their municipal and government contracts; hell, even Third World dictators are gunning for him. Or they will be, once the word gets out.”

“So this isn’t public knowledge?”

He shook his head. “Vincent only learned about it because he’s an investor in Grandel’s company and actually read the fine print in his prospectus. When he heard about possible foreign investors, he put two and two together. Originally he was looking for ways to manipulate the stock price, make some fast money, but he realized his best bet was to keep buying all the shares he could and put pressure on Grandel to cut him in on the action. And so the First Church of the Redeemer was born.”

“And you’re helping him? Isn’t that illegal? SEC violation or something?”

“How the hell should I know? I don’t own any of the stock—the price is too rich for me now with Colleton Landing going online. Besides, my job is simply to clarify the Church’s message to the community and buy Vincent some free publicity. Nothing illegal about that.”

I snorted. Yancey’s definition of “legal” was vague to say the least. I’d learned that firsthand when I met him five months ago.

“So I guess I’m the competition,” I said. “Since my job is to clarify Grandel’s message to the community and discredit the Church.”

“In my experience once you bring religion into the mix, the more you try to discredit anything the more firmly and vocally people believe. Just remember that, AJ.”

“But that’s the problem, isn’t it? What’s between Vincent and Grandel has nothing to do with religion—they’re both just manipulating the public to get what they want.”

“Doesn’t matter. The true believers will never give up. Vincent has stirred up a rattlesnake nest and not even you will be able to calm it down.” He turned and grinned at me. “Not alone, anyway.”

“You think we should work together.” He’d mentioned that before.

“Why not?”

“Maybe because your boss wants my client brought to his knees.”

“But not really. Both of them want the company to succeed and the foreign investors to buy in, big time. It’s just that Vincent wants a bigger piece of the pie than Grandel is willing to share with him.”

“So, if I talk to Grandel about Vincent, will you get the protestors to tone things down? At least until the deal with the foreign investors is signed?”

“You first.” His grin reminded me of a rattlesnake I’d once met on a trail. Same beady eyes as well.

What choice did I have? There was no way I could do my job with Vincent manipulating his congregation—like I’d told Grandel earlier, we had no power with them. Fastest way for me to finish the job, make everyone happy, and get the hell home would be to work with Yancey.

Not only that, but after hearing about the potential good Colleton Landing could do, I realized that as despicable as Grandel was on a personal basis, fighting to save the plant was the right thing to do. Not just for him—for the community, for the people Colleton Landing could help in the future.

We turned into the motel parking lot. I left the car, shouting a hurried goodnight over my shoulder before Yancey could try to take advantage of our forced partnership. As I entered my room—now cooled from broiling to mere sweat-lodge—I felt like I’d just made a deal with the devil.

For the second time today.

Hutton waited until he was sure Masterson would be in bed for the night before calling him with a report. Petty, he knew, but he liked to keep Masterson off balance.

“Good work,” Masterson told him when he’d finished. “Nice touch, framing the faggot.”

“We aim to please.”

“Too bad you didn’t kill him, though.”

Hutton changed the subject. He figured what two consenting adults did behind closed doors was their own business—live and let live, so to speak. Not that Masterson would ever agree, especially not with the welfare of his grandson at stake. “Have you decided on the other matter? The long distance one?”

“It depends on the outcome tomorrow. But in the meantime, I might need you here for a little touch of arson.”

“Arson? Not my area of expertise.” Which was a lie. Hutton had completed several successful jobs using fire—all ruled as accidental. But it wouldn’t pay to have Masterson knowing that.

“It won’t be anything difficult. Believe me, this place is a fire trap; one spark in the wrong place and it will go up on its own.”

“Collateral damage?”

“Doesn’t matter one way or the other. Either way, I’ll get what I want.”

It offended Hutton the way Masterson acted as if lives lost were meaningless.

Masterson treated Hutton like Hutton was still the twenty-three-year-old kid he’d hired to “take care of some business.” All these years and Masterson still didn’t understand the power of finesse. No shades of gray for Masterson, just black and white.

“It’ll cost you extra,” Hutton replied, not because he really did charge extra but because his pride demanded some form of compensation for having his talents underappreciated.

“Just be ready for my call.” Masterson hung up.

Hutton made a mental list of the ways he might consider killing the man. Better than counting sheep, in his experience.

SIXTEEN

It was too damn hot to sleep—and the AC’s spitting and sputtering only made things worse. By morning I wondered if I should borrow a shotgun and put the damn thing out of its misery.

It wasn’t just the heat. I was too worried about Gram Flora and too busy trying to unravel Grandel’s and Vincent’s motives to sleep.

Instead, I spent the time memorizing the layout of the plant and skimming through the DOE investigation summaries. They put the three Colleton Landing incidents into perspective—all three were clearly minor nuisances that were barely a blip on the radar compared to other plants’ radiation leaks.

The more I read, the more I realized that nuclear plants and the risks of exposure from them could happen anywhere. Some of the more recent accidents had taken place in the heart of highly populated areas. Like the meltdowns in Japan, or the problems at Indian Point, only twenty-four miles from Manhattan, where several pipes had been found with large holes in them leaking hundreds of thousands of gallons of coolant water. And there was another nuclear facility on Long Island that had leaked tritium.

After reading about the horrors elsewhere, I wasn’t surprised when in the end, both the DOE and NRC praised Colleton Landing’s unique design for mitigating any potential exposure to the public and commended the plant’s personnel for their actions.

Should have made my job easy. But if things were that simple, Grandel wouldn’t have needed to hire me in the first place. He was right, in this day of instant Internet information, the court of public opinion would save or crucify Colleton Landing, not the government’s rulings.

Despite its poor cell coverage, the motel did have Wi-Fi, so I browsed the web offerings on Colleton Landing. Several particularly vicious blogs and Twitter feeds seemed aimed directly at Grandel and his plant. Their tone ranged from far political right to liberal, covering all the bases, but I couldn’t help noticing that the language in all of them sounded similar. Even the ones spewing apocalyptic religious rants had the same syntax and rhythm as the others—something I’m sensitive to since the easiest way for me to read is to have my computer read things out loud using text-to-voice software.

I had the feeling the man behind the Internet vitriol was Vincent. And that it would all magically disappear once Grandel capitulated.

Now I knew how the rope in a tug-o-war felt, only I wasn’t sure that I wanted either man to win.

I decided to concentrate on the reason why Grandel said he’d hired me: to educate the public. That was a battle I could fight with passion.

My cell phone was still down to one miniscule flickering bar, so I called home on the landline. No answer at the summerhouse or Flora’s, the hospital wouldn’t let me talk to her—said she couldn’t be disturbed and I’d have to call back later—and Elizabeth’s cell went straight to voice mail.

Finally, desperate for news, any news, not to mention a friendly voice, I called Ty, even though I knew he’d just finished his overnight shift.

“It’s me,” I said when he answered. “I didn’t wake you, did I?”

“I’m at the courthouse. Waiting on Jeremy so I can give him a ride home.”

That explained why Elizabeth wasn’t answering. She was bailing Jeremy out of jail.

“They’re still pressing charges?” One thing about having all night to stew—I’d begun to doubt everything, even my initial instincts about Jeremy.

“The DA’s got this thing about Flora being a ‘vulnerable segment of the population—’”

“He’s up for reelection.”

“Jeremy’s case makes for great publicity—sympathetic victim, gay, black man supposedly drunk, taking advantage of her. So yeah, he’s out for bear.”

“Was Jeremy actually drunk?”

“His BAC was point-oh-three. Nowhere close to the limit.” Blood alcohol concentration, I translated—when Ty was in cop-mode he tended to use all sorts of words and abbreviations he never used at home. “But that doesn’t rule out other substances. They did a tox screen but it’s not back yet.”