Who in Hell Is Wanda Fuca? (27 page)

"Make sure you stay there," he said. The line went dead.

Honor was not Charles Hayden's strong suit. He called the cops. A pair of
Washington State Police were the first to arrive. Young and edgy, they came in
crouched, SWAT-team style, one in the front, one in the back, guns at the
ready. I was glad I'd remembered to return the automatic and the
nine-millimeter to their hiding place under the seat cushion.

"Don't move," the front door cop growled.

Daniel and I were sitting, side by side, on the counter.

"Who's moving?" I asked.

    "You see anybody moving?" Daniel
deadpanned, scanning the ceiling.

"Maybe you should try ‘stay where you are,' " I suggested.
"That would make more sense, under the circumstances."

From behind us, "Put your hand up. Now."

"No," I said calmly. "Our hands are in plain sight right here
on the counter. Your partner can see them. " Partner moved his head up and
down.

I could hear their labored breathing. The academy hadn't covered this.

"Didn't they tell you about the spill?" Daniel asked.

"What spill?" From behind us again.

"There's a toxic spill five miles up the road. Somebody needs to block
the road. God only knows what's in those drums."

"God only knows," Daniel parroted.

"You said that call was from EPA?" From behind the ice cream
freezer in front of us.

"Yea." From the back of the store.

Still combat-ready, they emerged from the cover. "Hold your arms
out."

This seemed reasonable. We complied.

Even after patting us down, they listened to the rest of our story over the
sights of their revolvers. The big one, whose name tag identified him as
Probationary Trooper Derek Coffey, stayed with us, while his partner raced off
to set up a roadblock.

Trooper Coffey was a man of little faith and even less humor. The dust from
his partner's exit was still in the air when he reverted to type.

"All right, you two, over there" - pointing at the north wall -
"assume the position. Let's go, move it. MOVE IT," he bellowed.

"No," I said again. "And hold the command voice, will
you?" Daniel reamed an ear with his pinkie. "You've frisked us. We're
not armed. Besides that, Daniel here is a Native American. A Tulalip. This is
the Tulalip Reservation. You have no authority over Mr. Dixon. Only the Tribal
Police Force has jurisdiction here." Daniel silently agreed.

Rebuffed and unsure, Trooper Coffey kept his slitlike eyes glued to our
chests and his hand on the butt of his revolver, uncertainly waiting for help
to arrive.

Charles Hayden and an eight-man toxic disposal team arrived forty minutes
later. The clock on the wall read four-twenty. On his way through the door, he
flashed his credentials at Trooper Coffey and then fumbled the badge to the
floor when he spotted Daniel and me. "What - " slipped out.

He turned on the cop. "I thought I told you to - "

"This is the reservation. Only the Tribal Police Force . . . " the
cop blurted.

"There is no goddamn Tribal Police Force."

Disgustedly, Hayden snatched his identification from the floor.

The young officer reached for his piece again. Hayden stopped him.

"No, no - never mind," he sighed.

He turned to us. "One of you will have to show us the place," he
announced without enthusiasm. "First we need to identify the specific
agent. We need to know exactly what we're dealing with here."

"There's several drums of the stuff spread all over the road about five
miles up," I said.

"My partner's got a roadblock set," announced Coffey.

Hayden ignored him, dashing back out the front door. his white-overalled
team, which had already begun unloading its gear, flung everything back into
the sparkling unmarked white truck and disappeared up the road. We waited.

At five o'clock straight up, the truck returned. The guy in the passenger
seat was out and sprinting toward the door before the vehicle was fully
stopped. He was wearing the spaceman hat that zipped into the overalls.

"Liquid PCBs," was his muffled shout from behind the plastic
faceplate.

"Damn," muttered Hayden.

He collected himself. "Okay, first clean up the road; we're gonna need
it."

Spacesuit nodded. Hayden continued, shouting his way through the headgear.
"I'll get us a lot more help up here." More agreement.

Hayden jerked his thumb toward Daniel and me. ":One of these guys can
show you the site that's on fire," he shouted at spacesuit.

Spacesuit shook his helmet. I couldn't make out the garbled phrases leaking
out from the suit. Obviously, Hayden could.

"Good, good," he said finally. "Okay, get to it."

"The can see the smoke," he said to no one in particular.

Charles Hayden trotted for the phone. Daniel and I leaned back against the
counter and waited. When he finished mumbling into the phone, Hayden turned his
attention back to me and Daniel.

"This is reservation property, right?": I shrugged and turned to
Daniel.

"Sort of," Daniel replied. "This whole end is land that the
tribe sold a few years ago for a couple of gold courses and housing
developments. That's how come nobody lives out there."

"So where's the houses?" Hayden demanded.

"It's all tied up in court," Daniel. "Lots of the property
turned out to be under the Wetlands Act. A bunch of environmental groups stuck
their faces in. The developers can't get permits to build anything." He
stopped. "Gonna be years," he added with a trace of a smile.
"Maybe never."

Hayden pulled out a little notepad. "Who handles this sort of thing for
the tribe?" Daniel silently looked my way. So much for our little talk
with Mr. Short.

"Might as well tell him," I whispered. "They'll just bust
everybody's balls until they find out." He thought it over.

"Howard Short," he said after a minute. "Resources
department. He's got a little office out by the highway. Right behind the
liquor store."

Hayden crooked a finger at the impassive Trooper Coffey. Coffey reluctantly
separated himself from the poop cooler, the contents of which he was making a
serious dent in, and shuffled over. Hayden tore the page from his pad and held
it out to the officer.

"Round up your partner and get this guy down here."

Coffey eyed him sullenly, a silent challenge to Hayden's presumed authority.
He stared blankly at the piece of paper without making a move to take it.
Charlie Hayden shook it in his face.

"You want to call your superior? Is that it?" No response.
Hayden's ears were bright red.

"Feel free to use the radio in the aid unit out front. Check with
anybody you can think of, but get your ass in gear unless you want to finish
your career as a school crossing guard. Is that clear, Trooper Coffey?"

Coffey took the page as if he were holding a dog turd, stepped around
Hayden, and made his way out front.

"Fucking locals are such a pain in the ass," Hayden said after the
door had swung shut. "Every time we - "

His tirade was interrupted by the scratching of his hand-held radio, which
rested on the counter between Daniel and me. Somehow, from all the squeaks and
burps, Hayden could tell it was for him. He turned his back, held the radio to
his ear, and screeched back and forth for the better part of five minutes, then
signed off and headed for the phone again.

After that, things really got rolling. Within an hour, no less than four
fire engines, their crews wearing full respirator units, had roared past the
Lucky Seven on their way to the site.

Fresh out of people to call, Hayden turned his attention to us.

"It would have been better if you'd just called me and not gone blundering
in there yourselves." Daniel shot me a knowing grimace.

"You wanted a smoking gun," I said.

"What I didn't need was a smoking pile of PCBs. Do you have any idea
how toxic PCBs are?"

"Not really," I answered.

"Lung cancer, skin cancer, lymph cancer. You name it, you can get it
from that stuff." Daniel shuddered. Hayden continued. "If the wind
were from the west, we'd be evacuating Marysville right now, but we got a
break." It was his turn to shudder as he rant that movie. Local bureaucrat
evacuates entire city. He shuddered again. "Thank God, the smoke cloud is
blowing out over the Sound." He shook his head. "What I can't figure
out is how they got that stuff burning at all."

"Why? Is it hard?" I asked.

"Damn hard," he replied. "Incineration is the only approved
method for getting rid of PCBs, but it takes twenty-one hundred degrees and a
kiln to incinerate the stuff. That's why it's so expensive to dispose of. It
all gets sent out to Kansas to be incinerated in a wet-walled slagging kiln. It
takes- "

He was interrupted by the return of Trooper Coffey. The young cop stood in
the doorway, his hand once again resting on the butt of his gun, gesturing with
his head for Hayden to step outside. Resignedly, Hayden went onto the porch.

Coffey had company. In addition to his partner, who fidgeted nervously
behind the wheel of the cruiser, two Snohomish County cops stood by an unmarked
Chevy.

Charles Hayden was running his hands through his well-tended hair again. The
cops seemed unimpressed. Hayden turned to come back inside. The troopers made a
move to follow. Hayden held them off, closing the door behind him. He fixed on
Daniel.

"Your friend Mr. Short - "

Uncharacteristically, Daniel interrupted. "He's not my friend."

Hayden regrouped. "Fellow tribe member - "

"He's not a tribe member either. He's a Cree."

"Whatever he is, Mr. Dixon, he's dead." Hayden mindlessly massaged
the bridge of his nose. "The officers found him sitting in his office,
with a bullet wound to the head."

"Suicide?" I asked.

"The officers don't seem to think so. He's been dead a couple of days,
they say. They want - "He hesitated, squared his shoulders, and turned his
attention to me. "They want to take you two with them for questioning.
They say it's just routine. Why don't you two just - "

"What about our deal?" I said. Hayden had been waiting.

"You didn't tell me you were already wanted for questioning. That
wasn't part of the agreement, Waterman. I can't possibly keep a lid on this. If
I'd known - "

"If I'd known you weren't good for your word, I would never had called
you to begin with and you wouldn't be sitting on the biggest bust of your
career. But that's all water under the bridge, isn't it? Let's deal with the
president. Think about it, Hayden. This is a lot cleaner deal without Daniel
and me. We're not looking for any publicity in this. You can have this one to
yourself." His eyes widened at the thought.

He started to respond, thought better of it, sighed, and turned pensively
back toward the window, rocking slowly on his feet. "Okay," he said
finally, and then fell back to thinking. I felt as if I'd missed part of the
conversation.

"Okay," he said again. "Here's what I'm going to do - "

He never got to the rest of it. The white van in which he'd originally
arrived slid to a stop of the store. One of the spacemen, his helmet I hand
now, got out and started across the lot. Something about the white suit,
stained now with soot and tarlike residue, gave the officers the urge to keep
their distance. The minute he started toward them, they backed quickly toward
their respective vehicles. He opened the door and came inside.

He was about thirty, his black curly hair plastered to his head, two black
streaks running down along his right cheek.

Without preamble, he started to speak. Hayden gestured him toward the center
of the store, away from the door.

"Well?" Hayden asked.

"It's under control," he said. "We got it out."

"How much was there?"

"Hard to tell. A lot's covered over already."

"An estimate?"

"At least a thousand, fifteen hundred drums, maybe more."

"Jesus. Must be a recycler then."

"Oh yeah. No way it can be a user. Way too much of it."

"Jesus," Hayden repeated. He rubbed his hands together.
"Okay, here's what we're going to do. First of all, we're going to
evacuate all civilians in the immediate area."

"It's under control. We got it out," the guy protested.

"Trust me on this, will you, Larry?" Larry looked dubious.

Without giving Larry a chance to respond one way or the other, he continued.
"I want to leave a fire team there all night, just to make sure we've got
it out. We'll start cleanup in the morning. No sense taking chances in the
dark." Larry agreed. "In the meantime, clear the area."

Larry looked out over his shoulder toward the parking lot.

"Nobody out there except a few cops," he noted.

"Exactly," said Hayden.

A thin smile crossed Larry's lips. "Oh. It's them you want to - "

"I didn't say that," Hayden corrected quickly. "I merely want
to protect the public from the deleterious effects of these materials."
The smile got bigger.

"I don't know - " Larry started.

Hayden threw an arm around Larry's shoulders. "Larry, what we've got
here is probably one of the biggest toxic waste cleanups in history. If
Waterman here is right, we've got eight of these sites beyond this one, to
clean up. There are promotions to be had here, lad. You hear what I'm
saying?" Larry nodded gravely. "We don't need any meddling by local
authorities, how do we?"

"No, sir."

"Do you suppose those gentlemen have any idea of the possible health
effects of these materials?"

"Probably not."

"Do you imagine they know what PCBs can do to a man's reproductive
organs?"

"Probably not."

"What do you suppose would happen if you were to put your helmet back
on and explain the various health effects to them?" Larry smiled again.