Spilled Blood (33 page)

Vernon Clay, baby. Big problem.

‘Swear to God, boss,’ Kirk went on. ‘I didn’t say a word.’

‘The police have linked Aquarius to Vernon Clay through a name on a hotel register,’ Florian told him. ‘They believe he’s back.’

‘He’s not.’

‘I’m having doubts.’

‘I told you four years ago the problem was solved.’

‘Yes, you did.’

Kirk was getting angry. ‘What, do you think I lied?’

‘I think for enough money, you’d tell me whatever I wanted to hear. Don’t forget, I know all about your other disgusting business, too.’

The vein in Kirk’s neck throbbed. ‘You don’t complain when it saves your neck.’

‘Vernon Clay,’ Florian repeated calmly.

‘What about him? I’m telling you, he’s not Aquarius. The police have it all wrong.’

‘I don’t believe you.’

Kirk didn’t want to argue with the boss, but he was losing control. The frustrations of the day piled up on him. ‘What the fuck are you saying?’

‘I’m asking if Vernon Clay
paid
you to help him disappear.’

‘Hell, no!’

‘Where is he?’

‘You know where he is.’

‘Do I?’

‘You want proof?’ Kirk asked. ‘Is that what you’re saying? I’ll give you proof.’

‘I want to know whether Aquarius is Vernon Clay.’

‘He’s not. Look, give me two hours, and meet me in the usual place.’

‘Why?’

‘Because then you can ask Vernon yourself whether he’s been sending fucking notes to anybody.’

Chris sat in the deserted parking lot of the high school while the rain poured over his car. It was supposed to keep raining most of the night, swelling the rivers and ditches. Temperatures were sinking. He waited in the cold, with his engine and lights off, wondering whether George Valma would show up. The Mondamin scientist was fifteen minutes late. He thought about calling again, but as he opened his phone he saw blurry headlights glowing from the residential streets of Barron. A white sedan crawled along the border of the athletic fields and pulled into the lot beside Chris. The linebacker-sized scientist got out and climbed into the passenger seat of the Lexus.

‘I appreciate your coming,’ Chris said.

George shook rain out of his gray hair. ‘This was a mistake. If anyone sees me with you, I could lose my job. I shouldn’t have told you anything. I’ve got my kids to think about.’

‘I understand your situation.’

George fidgeted impatiently. ‘So what is it now? What do you want?’

‘Ashlynn found something,’ Chris said.

‘What?’

‘She told another girl that she had proof that Mondamin was connected to the cancer cluster in St. Croix.’

George shook his head. ‘She didn’t. That’s wrong.’

‘How do you know?’

‘Because you can’t
prove
something like that. Cancer doesn’t work that way. You can have smokers live to ninety-five and athletes
who drop at twenty-six. God doesn’t simply pick on the sinners.’

Chris thought about Hannah, who had made all the right choices in her life and was now in a fight to stay alive. You could blame God. You could blame bad luck. It didn’t change a thing. Cancer was a merciless enemy.

‘Okay, you’re right,’ Chris admitted, ‘but whatever she found, she was so horrified that she was willing to expose her own father.’

‘This involved Florian?’ George asked.

‘That’s what she said.’

‘I don’t know what it could be.’

‘I think you do, George. You think Vernon Clay poisoned the town of St. Croix, and Florian covered it up.’

The scientist shook his head. ‘No.’

‘Vernon Clay was mentally ill. Obsessive. Delusional. Schizophrenic. That’s the kind of man we’re talking about, George. Pretend you’re a mad scientist. If you got it in your head that you wanted to wreak havoc on a town, could you do it?’

The scientist nodded reluctantly. ‘Yes, someone with Vernon’s knowledge of chemistry and access to hazardous pesticides could have done some bad things. He could have used any of a dozen different chemicals in quantities that would have been grotesquely dangerous. That doesn’t mean he did, and even if he did, it doesn’t mean that the contamination caused the cancers. Humans react in different ways to environmental toxins. It might have caused widespread illness. It might have had no effect at all.’

‘If he did, though, the truth would have been devastating in a courtroom. That would have been the end of Mondamin.’

George shrugged his massive shoulders. ‘You’re the lawyer.’

‘Florian’s a lawyer, too. If he discovered that Vernon Clay was involved in widespread chemical contamination, he knew he would have been at risk of losing everything. Having it exposed would have been devastating.’

‘Exactly. So why would Florian bankroll an independent investigation
when he got sued?’ George asked. ‘He wouldn’t do that. He would have fought like hell to make sure no one got near Vernon Clay’s land.’

‘Maybe he’d already cleaned it up. Maybe he knew there was nothing to find.’

‘You can’t ever be sure about things like that,’ the scientist insisted. ‘With the proper equipment, an expert would have found evidence of dumping, particularly if it was as extreme as what we’re talking about. You can’t hide from the kind of technology we have today. Florian knows that.’

Chris thought about Aquarius and the cover page of Lucia Causey’s special master report. ‘On the other hand, if an outside expert ran all the tests and found nothing, that would quash the rumors once and for all. No more litigation. No more questions from the environmental agencies.’

‘That’s exactly what happened,’ George told him.

‘So maybe the special master screwed up.’

‘Impossible. Lucia Causey is a top-flight epidemiologist. She had state-of-the-art equipment at her disposal. If there was something to find, she would have found it.’

‘What if Florian got to her?’ Chris asked. ‘What if he influenced her?’

‘You’re not talking about a hired gun,’ George protested. ‘You’re talking about a tenured university scientist.’

‘No offense, but plenty of scientists are willing to be hacks for any lawyer who pays them. That’s the reason the courts started coming up with ways to screen out junk science.’

‘I don’t believe a scientist like Lucia would sell her soul,’ George replied. ‘I hear what you’re saying about scientists whose conclusions are for sale to the highest bidder, but that’s not her. Her track record isn’t pro-defense or pro-plaintiff. She’s independent. If she had a reputation for being one-sided, the judge wouldn’t have picked her.’

‘Do you know Lucia well enough to call her?’ Chris asked.

‘To say what? “Dr. Causey, this is George Valma at Mondamin. I was just wondering, did you take a bribe from our CEO and falsify the data in your report?” Do you think she’s simply going to admit it?’

‘No.’

‘Then what do you expect me to do? I couldn’t help Ashlynn, and I can’t help you.’

Chris stared at the scientist. ‘Wait a minute.
Ashlynn?
Did she want to know about Lucia Causey, too?’

George shrugged his beefy shoulders. ‘Yes, she wanted to talk to Lucia. She contacted the epidemiology department at the medical school, and they wouldn’t tell her a thing. Ashlynn asked if I would make the contact for her.’

Chris remembered the records he’d reviewed from the girl’s cell phone and realized he’d overlooked something important.
Stanford.
He’d thought she was pursuing college admissions, but the call meant something completely different now.

‘Did you make the call?’ he asked.

‘No. I told her what I told you.’

‘George, this is important. Do you have any contacts at Stanford?’

‘I have a college friend who’s a visiting professor there.’

Chris reached into the pocket of his coat and pulled out a phone. He handed it across the car. ‘Call him.’

‘Even if he transfers me to Lucia Causey, what am I supposed to say to her?’

‘Ask if Ashlynn contacted her. Ask her what she said.’

George waved off Chris’s phone and slipped his own phone from the pocket of his pants. He checked his contact list and dialed. Chris heard a voice pick up the call on the third ring.

‘Chester? It’s George Valma calling. Yes, long time, I know. Right, I’m in small-town Minnesota now. Not exactly Palo Alto.’

The two scientists made small talk. Chris grew impatient, but he waited without pushing George. Eventually, when his Stanford colleague asked what George wanted, the Mondamin scientist got to the point.

‘Listen, Chester, I’m trying to contact a researcher at the med school there. I was wondering if you could look up her direct line. Her name is Lucia Causey. I appreciate it.’ George waited, and while he did, he covered the phone. ‘If Lucia calls Florian about this, you know what’s going to happen to me.’

‘Blame me,’ Chris said.

‘It’s not that simple.’

George’s colleague came back on the line.

‘Are you sure about that?’ George asked. His face grew puzzled. ‘Let me give you the spelling again.’ He spelled out the name of the epidemiologist, but moments later, he shook his head. ‘Okay, thanks, Chester. No, that’s okay. I’ll see you at the conference in May, okay?’

George hung up.

‘Lucia Causey isn’t in the Stanford directory,’ he told Chris. ‘She doesn’t work there anymore.’

‘Where did she go?’

‘I have no idea.’

‘Was she ever there to begin with?’

‘You mean, was she fictitious? A fraud? No. She was there, and she left. She probably got a better offer. It happens.’

‘So how do we find her?’

‘You mean, how do you find her? I’m sorry, Chris, but I’ve already stuck my neck out too far for you. I’m done.’

Chris nodded. ‘Understood. I appreciate your help, George. Really.’

The scientist opened the door. Rain poured through the gap onto the leather seats. George Valma slammed the door shut, causing the Lexus to shake. He got back into his own white sedan and drove out of the parking lot, leaving Chris alone.

Chris sat in silence as the taillights disappeared.

He didn’t like coincidences. He didn’t like the fact that a top-notch researcher had left one of the nation’s premier research universities shortly after completing the investigation at Mondamin. Lucia Causey wasn’t Vernon Clay. She couldn’t drop off the face of the earth. Someone at Stanford knew where she’d gone.

Chris opened his own phone and called directory assistance. He got the number for the Stanford Medical School, and when the receptionist answered, he asked for a transfer to the school’s epidemiology division. He found himself directed to the department of Health Research and Policy, where a secretary named Leanne answered the phone.

‘Leanne, I’m trying to track down an epidemiologist named Lucia Causey,’ Chris told her. ‘She used to work in that department, and I was wondering if anyone there had forwarding information for her.’

‘I’m sorry, what was that name?’ the secretary asked, with a slight Georgia twang in her voice. ‘I only just started here, and I’m not real up on all the people yet.’

Chris spelled the name.

‘Okay, sure, hang on.’

She put him on hold. He was patient for the first minute of silence, but the length drifted to two minutes, and then three. He knew he was still connected because of the music playing in his ear. It was a Mahler symphony. After five minutes, he began to get concerned, and his concern grew when a different voice picked up the phone. The man on the line was all business.

‘This is Dr. Naresh Vinshabi, how may I help you?’

Chris repeated his request and gave his name.

‘May I ask why you’re trying to contact Lucia Causey, Mr. Hawk?’ the doctor asked.

‘I have some follow-up questions about a report that she prepared as a special master for litigation in Minnesota.’

‘I see. I’m sorry, but I can’t help you with that.’

‘Yes, I know that Dr. Causey isn’t at the university anymore. I was hoping you knew where she went.’

The Stanford doctor didn’t reply for a long time, but Chris heard him breathing. ‘She didn’t go anywhere,’ the man finally replied.

‘What does that mean?’

‘She’s dead,’ he told Chris.

Kirk drove a shovel into the sodden earth.

The blade cut the soil easily, and he hoisted a heavy pile of mud into the air and overturned the shovel beside the hole. The pattering noise of rain beating on the trees covered the sound of his digging. Sweat and rain seeped under the neck of his tank top onto his chest. His arms and hands grew black with dirt. He worked at a feverish pace, driven by drunken anger.

He was two hundred yards from his house. It was as isolated a burying place as he could find. To be safe, he should have disposed of the body permanently, but he liked to have an insurance policy for certain jobs. If you burn a murdered body, you lose your leverage. He liked to have leverage when he was dealing with Florian Steele. You want to fuck with me? Watch me fuck with you.

Kirk had nothing to fear from Florian as long as he knew where to find Vernon Clay.

The hole got bigger and deeper. Groundwater oozed from the sides. When he was two feet down, he had to climb inside to reach the bottom. He didn’t need to retrieve the whole body. All he needed was enough to convince Florian of the truth. Vernon was dead. Kirk had made damned sure of that. One bullet, right in the forehead, delivered by a gun that was deep in the silt of a swamp outside Mankato.

‘You remember me, Vernon?’ Kirk asked the black hole in the ground. ‘I’ll bet you do. You asked me if I was from the CIA when I came to your door. That was funny. The CIA. I said, yeah, they need you in Washington, sir.’

Kirk leaned on the handle of the shovel and laughed into his arm. What a fucking hysterical line. He should have been a comedian.
They need you in Washington, sir.
After that, it was easy. Follow Clay outside, knock him silly with the butt of the gun, drag him here. Clay never woke up. He was unconscious when Kirk dropped him in the hole and fired the gun into his brain. Better that than to bury him alive. That was the kind of thing that could give you nightmares.