Learning to Stand (39 page)

“
He signs a lot of insurance
papers for me. I slipped the permission form in with the papers. He
spends about two minutes signing thirty pages of insurance forms.
We have no relationship. Here. Sign these papers. Thank you. That
kind of thing.”

“
Do they have much
interaction with their father?” Matthew asked.

“
No. They see him once a
year at the most. Cee Cee says he loves my boys but I think that’s
because they don’t cost him any money. Cee Cee loves himself and
money. That’s all.”

Not sure where to go next, Alex was about to
terminate the interview when Krystal began talking again.

“
Cee Cee has life insurance
policies on all of these boys. Not the girls, only the boys. Could
he have...?”

“
Anything is possible,
ma’am,” Matthew replied.

“
I’m sorry. I want to be
helpful but I’m kind of grasping at straws,” Krystal continued.
“You know, Cee Cee had mercury poisoning once. We had to petition
the insurance company to cover it. He picked it up in some South
American country… Peru, I think. Shale oil. At least that’s what he
said. With Cee Cee, you never know. We were seeing each other at
the time. He stayed with us. My housekeeper and I nursed him back
to health. Oh… I probably shouldn’t have mentioned her. She’s not
legal.”

“
We’re only interested in
finding out what happened to these boys,” Matthew said.

“
What can you tell us about
your housekeeper?” For the first time, Alex’s pulse quickened.
Something about the housekeeper was important. Alex had to work to
keep the excitement from her voice.

“
I don’t know what there is
to tell. Her name is Luana Melo. She’s from a small village in the
Brazilian jungle. I met her… oh… about a year, maybe two, before
Daddy died. She was twelve and I was twenty years old. I was in Rio
for Marti Gras. I found her on the street. She was selling… well...
She was selling herself. I… bought her.”

“
So you and she...” Matthew
started.

“
Oh no,” Krystal said. “We
aren’t lovers, if that’s what you were going to ask. We were
standing on the same street corner. I felt a strong connection with
her. People talk about soul mates or whatever. I felt like I’d
known her all my life. I paid her pimp for the weekend then brought
her back to Texas. She’s stayed ever since. Her sister, Yaritza,
came to help when Lance was born. Yaritza lived with us until Jason
was five or six. She married a guy from Columbia. We had the
reception at our house.”

Alex nodded her head. The wheels in her head
began to spin. People can get mercury poisoning from burning shale
oil… but that’s only done to create electricity… which they do in
Brazil. Mercury is released when they extract oil from shale. It’s
almost impossible to extract fuel from shale oil with out creating
an environmental disaster. Brazil also has enormous shale oil
reservoirs.

“
I don’t like the look on
your face, Lieutenant Colonel Drayson. Luana is a saint. She would
never hurt a fly, let alone a child.”

“
She wouldn’t happen to be
from the Amazonas Basin? Near the center of South America?” Alex
asked. The first time they rescued Cee Cee Joiner, he had run a
foul of the people of the Amazonas Basin.

“
How did you know?” Krystal
asked. “Her family still lives near the border of Brazil and
Peru.”

“
Lucky guess,” Alex
said.

“
Are we done?” Krystal
asked.

“
For now,” Alex
replied.

“
Alex?” Krystal called.
“Isn’t there more that I can do?”

“
We’d like you to stay in
Denver for now. We’ll take care of the arrangements. We may need to
speak with Luana and maybe Yaritza. But not right this minute.
Thank you for your assistance.”

“
Luana won’t speak to you.
We have a plan so she won’t be deported. She went into hiding when
the police came to the house. If my boys are playing Guitar Hero,
they won’t miss me for days. Why don’t I get her and bring her
here?” Krystal asked.

“
That won’t be necessary,”
Alex said. “I apologize for keeping you.”

Krystal Jo Joiner hugged Alex then
whispered, “I know you’ll sort this out.”

Alex nodded then followed Matthew out of the
room. She gave the Texas Rangers instruction to take Krystal to a
hotel downtown. At least she would be comfortable while she
waited.

“
What do you think?” Alex
asked.

“
What you see is what you
get,” Matthew said. “I think she’s on the up and up.”

“
Me too,” Alex
said.

“
And that means?”

“
Fuck if I know,” Alex
said.

A loud cheer came from the front room.

“
Bobby Lopez?”

“
Probably,” Matthew
said.

Shaking her head, Alex followed Matthew to
the front room.

F

CHAPTER THIRTY-Two

Four hours later

Monday afternoon

March
31
–
2:09 P.M MDT

Denver, CO

Alone, Alex sat alone at the table in the
small bedroom where they had interrogated Krystal. With the table
covered with maps, she had effectively taken over the room. Her
laptop was open on a chair facing her while she wrote on a pad of
paper with her yellow pencil. Alex’s mind vibrated with thoughts,
memories and ideas. She scratched the lead across the paper as fast
as her hand could write. For once, she wasn’t even humming.

Alex sighed and looked up from her writing.
She couldn’t get a sense of the big picture. Bobby Lopez was…
interesting… and confusing.

Bobby Lopez spent most of his teens and
twenties on the Pecos Oil Fields. One day, an old man named Bud
pulled up in a battered pickup truck. Bud wanted to talk oil.
Having finished his shift, Bobby showed the man around the oil
field. The old guy said he used to work the fields but was too
broken down to do it anymore. Over bar-be-que and beer, they talked
about life, family and oil. About a month later, Bud drove by the
field again. For the next couple years, Bud and Bobby laughed, ate
bar-be-que and analyzed life on an oil field.

Bobby had no idea the old man was Cecil
Joiner Sr., the man who had signed his pay check for almost twenty
years. One day he received a notice to visit the corporate office.
Certain he was going to be fired, Bobby dressed in his best suit
and drove to Dallas. The visit was one shock after another. Not
only was Bud actually Cecil Joiner Sr. but Bud appointed Bobby
Lopez as the head of field oil acquisition. Bud needed someone he
could trust, and Bobby fit the bill.

The first few years were hell. Bobby was out
of his league and surrounded by people who caused him nothing but
grief. His weekly meetings with Joiner Sr. were a nightmare. Joiner
Sr. wanted the facts and Bobby was struggling to tie his shoes.

But Bobby Lopez was no quitter.

Growing up in the Texas oil fields, Bobby
knew what oil could do to a man. His father was killed in an oil
derrick accident when Bobby was only ten years old. The doctors
never did figure out what killed his uncle. Bobby’s childhood
friends broke their backs on the fields and spent their earnings in
bars and brothels.

Bobby’s new job was his family’s way off the
oil fields. His sons and daughter were not going to break
themselves on oil fields. His children were going to college. With
the love and support of his wife, Estefanie, Bobby Lopez was going
to make this job work.

Slowly, Bobby built a network of people he
could trust. Just as slowly, he became one of the most respected
people in oil acquisition. He was even called to the United States
Senate for expert testimony. The Board of Directors at Pecos Oil
found a reliable source of field information through Bobby.

Bobby believed oil was the devil’s own
blood. A necessary evil.

And shale oil? Bits of the devil’s skin.
Pure unredeemable evil.

No one could convince him otherwise. Shale
enticed rational men to believing they had riches when what they
had was toxic waste. Maybe someday, somewhere, someone would come
up with a way to get the oil and leave the contamination. Until
that day, Pecos Oil was not involved in oil production from
shale.

Period.

Alex leaned back in her chair.

Five years ago, Bobby Lopez uncovered Cee
Cee’s interest in shale oil. He brought Cee Cee’s activities to the
Board of Directors, who voted unanimously to shut down shale oil
production. Within days, Cecil Joiner Sr. retired and the company
transformed. In the transformation, Joiner Sr. procured a place for
Bobby on the Board of Directors of Pecos Oil.

Cee Cee came after Bobby in every way
possible. He threatened him in meetings. He accosted him at back to
school nights. Then he disappeared. Bobby heard something about Cee
Cee being held hostage in the Amazon, but he was so relieved to
have Cee Cee out of his hair that he pretended Cee Cee retired.

Until a year ago.

A year ago, Bobby uncovered Cee Cee’s
environmental disaster. Behind the Board’s back, Cee Cee got
involved in oil production from shale in South America. He had
poisoned an entire region before anyone at Pecos Oil knew what he
was doing. A thousand or more children died of mercury poisoning in
a small valley near the edge of Brazil and Peru.

Bobby went to the site. He took photos of
the wreckage including mercury poisoning in the well water and
documented the deaths of the children. The Board of Directors was
incensed. They began conversations with the elders of the region
and the Brazilian government. Clean up was going to cost Pecos Oil
a bundle but as a family business, the Board was dedicated to
making things right.

In the meantime, his baby girl had grown
into a beautiful teenager. She had lots of interest from those
horny Texas boys. His baby girl only wanted on boy: Tristan Joiner.
She pined for him for a year before Tristan noticed her or said
hello. They went steady for six months before Tristan asked Beth
Ann to a junior high school dance. Beth Ann begged her parents to
let her go.

Bobby and Estefanie talked. Estefanie liked
the boy and Tristan reminded Bobby of Cecil Sr. Tristan was polite,
kind and he treated Beth Ann like a Queen. What more could a father
want?

In an effort to be good parents, Bobby and
his wife Estefanie invited Tristan’s mother, Buffy Joiner, to
dinner. A simple invitation: ‘Come for dinner. Let’s talk about our
kids.’ That’s all.

Bobby was fired from Pecos Oil the next day.
Cee Cee Joiner stood in front of Bobby beaming from ear to ear as
he said the words: ‘You’re fired, asshole.’

Pecos Oil forbids personal relationships
within the company. It was a stretch but Cee Cee said Tristan and
Beth Ann’s relationship violated company policy.

Bobby received almost twenty job offers in
as many hours. He picked the best job and the family moved to Long
Beach. They weren’t there two weeks when Tristan appeared on their
doorstep. Bobby knew what it was like to be alone at fifteen so he
took the boy in. His mother told them they could keep Tristan for
all she cared. So they did.

Tristan fit right into their family life. Of
course, they had to make firm rules for Beth Ann and Tristan. And
for the most part, the kids were pretty good about following
them.

Alex shook her head. She was missing
something. Something big. Rubbing her forehead, Alex wasn’t sure
where to begin to look for what she was missing.

At least no one had tried to kill her in the
last… two days? Yeah, two days since getting blown up in the
tunnels. Alex was so lost in thought she jumped when her brand new,
acquired thirty minutes ago, cell phone rang.

“
Alexandra?” A woman’s voice
yelled over what sounded like a plane engine.

“
This is Lieutenant Colonel
Hargreaves,” Alex said.

“
Honey, it’s Charlene…
Charlene O’Brien,” Charlene’s voice shifted to speak to someone
close to her. “Yes, that’s correct. You can speak with
her.”

“
Alex? I’m going to give you
the Nicaraguan National Police Chief. Her name is Aminta
Granera.”

“
Is this Lieutenant Colonel
Hargreaves?” A woman’s voice came on the phone.

“
Yes ma’am,” Alex replied in
Spanish. “How can I be of assistance?”

“
Mrs. O’Brien’s home has
been burglarized,” the police chief replied in Spanish. “She is
flustered but otherwise appears to be well. You placed her on our
protect and watch list a couple years ago?”

“
Yes ma’am.”

“
According to her request,
we have secured a plane to take her to the United
States.”

“
Where should we meet
her?”

“
She will arrive at your
Buckley Air Force base in four hours,” the police chief said. Her
tone dropped to a whisper, “And Alex? She’s really freaked out. She
won’t tell us what’s going on or even what was taken, but she’s
terrified. I’ll send one of my most trusted officers with
her.”

“
Bless you for helping her,
Aminta. I owe you one.”

“
Let’s say I’m working off
my debt.”

Alex laughed.

“
I will give you back to
Mrs. O’Brien,” the police chief said. “Go with God,
Alex.”

“
You as well,
Aminta.”

“
Alex?” Charlene asked.
“You’ll come and get me right? Not that Jakker. You know he scares
me. Just you Alex.”