by Dave Daren
Brody gave a deep, disgusted gagging sound and brought one of his large hands up over his nose as he waited farther back in the thin tree line for me as I picked my way down the bank.
I moved slowly, since falling in the water seemed like a very bad idea. I got close enough to see that the water had a vaguely yellowish tint, and that there was absolutely nothing alive in or around the river. I took it as a good enough sign as any that Knox had leaked something downriver.
I pursed my lips and looked at Brody, back at the water, then back at Brody again as I had an idea.
“Hey,” I called out.
He didn’t move his hand from his nose, but he did raise his thick brow in my direction. “What?” he grunted through his hand.
“Go see if Clara has any sort of spare container, a water bottle, a plastic bag,” I called back. “Something I can use to get a sample of some of this water in case we’re able to find someone to look at it.”
Brody was visibly relieved at my request and didn’t even bother to say anything else before he was taking wide, heavy steps back up to the encampment of houses a few yards away from where we’d climbed down to the river.
I watched his retreating back for a moment before turning my focus back to the water. I didn’t particularly want to move any closer to it, though I would have to if I wanted a sample. I’d get the ends of my pants wet, and I didn’t want to think about what that would do to the fabric. At least I didn’t have any sort of attachment to these trousers.
It didn’t take much longer for Brody to come jogging back to me over the low hill with an empty water bottle in hand.
He didn’t bring it straight down to me, but stood as close as he was willing to go and threw it to me with impeccable aim, even with one hand clamped over his mouth and nose.
I managed to catch the bottle without problems and it didn’t take much effort to step closer to the water, unscrew the cap, and bend down. I dragged the open bottle through the water until I’d gathered enough that it sloshed just under the dampened label on the outside.
As I’d figured, the ends of my trousers had gotten damp.
I held the bottle up as some sort of trophy for Brody to see, and he just made a sound of what I hoped to be approval before he began climbing away from me again. I cast one last look back at the river before following him.
The faster I got away from this water, the better I was going to sleep at night.
Once I was back on solid ground, I fell back into step alongside Brody, and I gave a heavy sigh as he and I began to make our way back to our cars. I knew this case was going to be an uphill battle, but it would be that much easier if the people I was trying to help would cooperate a bit more in the process.
“We can always try again in the morning,” Brody grunted, but I could tell he was disgruntled by the lack of answers, too, or maybe that was just because I’d forced him to stand next to a toxic river for about fifteen minutes while I took a sample like this was an eighth grade biology course.
He pushed his cowboy hat high up onto his forehead for a moment as he squinted at the sunset on the horizon while we walked.
I knew he wasn’t wrong, but it wasn’t a reassuring thought.
The odds of us having another day just like this one were probably higher than I’d like to acknowledge. But I couldn't let myself get too bogged down in what had gone wrong.
“At least we have a stronger starting point,” I agreed with a weary nod of my head.
As we walked, I slid my hands deep in my pockets to pull out my keys. Luckily, both our cars seemed to have survived our absence unscathed. I gave a click of the key fob to unlock the driver’s side door as Brody did the same for his car a few paces away in Clara’s driveway, but my hand stilled on the handle as my phone began blaring in my back pocket.
A small, confused frown creased my face as I tried to imagine who would even be calling me, but I didn’t hesitate to pull my phone out to check.
Evelyn’s number scrolled across my screen as the phone continued to ring.
Brody watched me with raised, bushy eyebrows as I slid my thumb across the screen to answer as I juggled both my phone and my keys.
“Hey, Evelyn,” I greeted with an obvious question in my tone. “Wh--” I started only for Evelyn to barrel forward anyway.
“Archer,” she cut me off. “Is Brody with you?”
Across the phone, her voice sounded even more rasping, and I absently wondered if Evelyn was some sort of smoker before I glanced over at Brody with my furrowed brow.
“Uh, yeah, he is, should I put you on speaker?” I asked, but I didn’t wait for her answer before I shifted my phone down and clicked the speaker button. I held my phone in the air, stretched out a little toward Brody. “Go ahead.”
Evelyn cleared her throat. “Well, do I have some news for you boys.”
Chapter 4
During the phone call we’d shared outside Clara’s, she hadn’t provided too much information about her contacts, to the point where I couldn’t quite parse if they were in high or low places, and it seemed like she was more than happy to let things stay that way. But more important than who her friends were, was what she had told us about the EPA lab that could help us out if we dropped off a sample early in the morning.
It sounded vaguely mysterious, and a bit like someone had watched too many spy movies, but I’d agreed because if we could have at least an initial report of the water quality, we’d have a starting point for the case as well as an official government report.
I hadn’t expected much from Evelyn’s supposed friends with EPA contacts, but I think Evelyn got a kick out of being able to prove me wrong whenever possible. But this was one instance where I was more than happy to be mistaken.
The water bottle I’d taken from Piney Crest sat in the passenger seat of my car as I made the drive from my apartment toward the EPA’s laboratory in Houston.
I’d made sure to wrap the bottle in a few stray grocery bags I found under my kitchen sink, just in case the bottle began to leak for some reason. I was more worried about what sort of toxins it carried than what it would do to my upholstery.
The drive from Crowley to Houston was more of a marathon than a sprint and by the time the sun even peered up over the horizon, I’d been on the road for well over three hours and had a little time left to go.
Even so, I still considered that I had made great time. Evelyn had explained that her contact couldn’t meet at any other time, and so I’d set out on my drive at just past three in the morning.
I took a long sip of my coffee from my reusable mug and drained the last remaining dregs. I could make the last leg of the journey uncaffeinated. Hell, it was probably better for my racing heart that I didn’t have anything left to drink.
My nerves fired on all cylinders as I merged into the turn lane. I glanced between the road sign up ahead and my GPS, just to make sure I was heading the right way, before taking the next exit. I don’t know why I was so nervous.
Maybe it was the fact this was someone else who’d agreed to take time out of their day to help us, and I didn’t want to waste his time, or maybe it was just because I was worried it wasn’t the river and that maybe, in some seemingly impossible circumstance, the people of Piney Crest weren’t sick from the pollution and all of their problems were unrelated.
But I knew I needed to stop dwelling on unlikely scenarios as I drove the last few minutes toward the laboratory. I’d asked Evelyn three separate times why I needed to go to the lab in Houston as opposed to the substantially closer office in Dallas, and by the time she’d assured me a third time that the Houston lab was the one we should use, I was very glad I was safely out of swatting range. For such a fragile-looking old woman, she had a sturdy smack.
I pulled into the parking lot of the facility not long after and scanned the building.
The laboratory looked like every other government structure I’d ever seen, which really just meant it was sort of ugly. The closest compar
ison I could come up with would be a giant cinderblock, and even that felt generous.
I pulled my car into a parking spot and glanced at the clock to make sure I’d arrived on time.
The little green numbers on my dash displayed the time 12:00 A.M., and I let out a sigh because I always forgot that the damn thing was busted.
I pulled out my phone to check the time instead, and the clock at the top of the screen read 6:14 A.M., which put me exactly fourteen minutes ahead. Quickly, I unbuckled my seatbelt and grabbed the wrapped water bottle from the passenger seat before I slid out of the car and into the cracked parking lot.
The air was nice and cool this early in the morning which felt like blessed relief from the sauna it had been outside recently.
My favorite trousers were still contaminated from the river water the day before, which meant I’d opted for a more casual look of jeans and a relaxed buttonhup shirt, and I knew that if Evelyn saw me, she’d have called me scruffy.
But she wasn’t the one that had driven nearly four hours before the sun was even a thought in the sky’s mind.
I gave a quick click of my key fob to lock up before I started up toward the front doors, although it didn’t look like the building was even open yet. I hadn’t considered that I’d arrive before I was even allowed in, but I probably should have.
“Shit,” I swore under my breath as I glanced around the parking lot.
I only saw a few cars other than my own, but none of them looked like anyone was waiting inside them. I gave a heavy sigh and looked back toward the front doors. I could always wait in my car, I supposed, and just hope the doors opened up in time for me to make my appointment with a friend of a friend of a friend of Evelyn’s.
I started to turn on my heels, but before I could make my way back to my car, I heard some mild commotion behind me. I paused and gave a quick glance over my shoulder to watch as a thin, squirrely-looking man pushed open the front door.
“Mr. Landon?” He called out with a bit of hesitance in his tone. He wore thin, wire-rimmed glasses perched on the tip of his nose and a blue plaid dress shirt underneath a white lab coat.
I blinked and shifted to fully face him with my eyebrows raised. The water bottle crinkled as I lifted my hand in a small wave.
“The one and only,” I said with a raised voice as I started back toward the building with an easy, friendly smile on my face. “Call me Archer. You must be Dr. Torres, then?”
I extended my hand to him in greeting, though he looked like he wasn’t sure what to do with it.
He was exactly as Evelyn had described to me over the phone, and I had to quickly banish the image of Dr. Torres running around the yard looking for nuts.
Torres seemed to grasp the idea of a handshake then, and he smiled as he reached for my hand. He pushed open the front door a little wider and stepped aside to allow me into the building.
“Guilty,” he joked with a good-natured wave of his hand. “Sorry, I hadn’t expected you to arrive early, or I would have waited for you. A few minutes earlier, and you’d have beaten me here.” He waited until I was inside the building before flipping the lock on the door once again. Torres scratched at his deep, brown skin before he nodded for me to follow him.
The lab seemed deserted this early in the morning.
If I’d had to guess, I’d say that the other cars I saw in the parking lot belonged to overnight cleaning staff, or maybe some sort of security.
This still was a government building, after all, even if Torres looked more like a middle school science teacher than a government scientist.
He kept a brisk pace as he walked down the narrow hallway before leading me through a wide set of double-doors like the kind I’d seen in a hospital.
I glanced around, unable to ignore my curiosity, as we walked, and, for his part, Torres walked like our legs were the same length even though he was a head shorter than me. I could appreciate that in a man.
“So,” I began. “Thank you for agreeing to meet with me on this.”
He waved his hand at me again and gave a dismissive little sound.
“No need to thank me, I’m happy to do it,” he assured me. “When I got the call from a former colleague asking me to take a look at the… river?”
“River,” I confirmed.
“The river for you, I was more than willing,” he said. “That’s sort of what we do here.”
I could tell he was making another joke so I gave a small laugh. He seemed like the sort of man that might have been a little exhausting to be around all the time, like everything he did was in fast forward. For some reason, it made sense to me that a man like that would be drawn to something like science.
“Still, I really appreciate it,” I insisted. “A lot of people appreciate it.”
He flashed a smile in my direction before taking a sudden sharp turn down another hall and then again into the closest room.
The change was sudden, but I continued after him. The door swung shut behind me with a heavy thud.
I looked around what I could now tell was clearly some sort of lab. Admittedly, I’d never been one for science, but even my novice eyes could recognize some of the equipment from my time in school.
Everything in the room radiated a clean, sterile energy, and suddenly, I was afraid to touch anything, and that was probably for the best.
Torres gestured for me to follow him over to a high countertop where a large, expensive-looking microscope sat.
“You brought a sample for me?” he asked as he busied himself by snapping on a pair of bright blue latex gloves from a box next to the microscope.
I pulled the water bottle out from under my arm and held it out to him expectantly. “Sure did, sorry it’s... not the most professional,” I apologized with a laugh.
“No need to apologize,” he assured me as he accepted the bottle. “I’m just glad you brought me something to work with. I can’t count on both hands the number of times I’ve had someone reach out to me for information, and they’ve just brought grainy pictures that look like they took them on a Motorola Razer of all things. And I usually count myself lucky for that. A sample already puts you in my good graces.”
He grinned at me before turning to unwrap the grocery bags from the bottle. When it was finally free, he held it up toward the light and slowly twisted the bottle in the air, which I’d always figured that was just something they did in movies and TV ads, but Torres did seem to be checking for something.
I watched in fascination as Torres then began to prep a microscope slide. I’d always been interested in this sort of thing, in an abstract way more than as a potential career, but watching him as he took a pipette and dropped a few beads of the discolored water onto a slide sent me back to the sort of days when there wasn’t anything more entertaining than watching the Discovery Channel with my dad.
I folded my arms across my chest to keep from potentially touching anything as Torres carefully slotted the slide into the metal brackets on the microscope and adjusted the eyepieces.
He pushed his glasses up onto his bald head before pressing his eyes to the rubber notches.
I leaned closer, as if I could possibly see whatever it was he was looking at on a microscopic level from where I stood as I watched his hands fiddle with the dials on the sides and to make the platform the slide sat on raise and lower until he seemed satisfied with its positioning.
The seconds ticked by and dragged into a minute, and then two, before Torres straightened and nudged his glasses back down onto his face.
“Would you like to have a look?” he asked me.
“Of course,” I said, and I meant it.
He gave a gesture for me to step up to the microscope as he moved back.
I took his place in front of the instrument and then lowered my eyes to the eyepieces. I, however, had to bend a substantially farther way down, and I kept my arms folded to stop from ruining the settings he’d established.
It took a moment for my eyes to adj
ust to what I was seeing.
The sample was backlit by a clean, white light. It was a far cry from what I remember using in middle school to look at a strand of my own hair. I couldn’t quite explain what I was seeing in the water, but it looked almost as if there was something else intermingled and suspended along with it.
I straightened, blinked to get used to the change in light, and looked over at Torres.
“What does that mean?” I asked.
It was obvious that it meant something to him, but I couldn’t even begin to understand what.
Torres gave a huff through his nose as he looked at the water bottle, and then he crinkled his nose as he picked it up.
“It means there’s definitely something in the water here,” he said.
A weight lifted off my chest with his words. We hadn’t made it up. The people of Piney Crest were getting sick, and something in the water really was to blame.
“But I’ll have to run a few more conclusive tests before I could potentially tell you what, and unfortunately, those won’t have any interactive portions,” Torres continued apologetically.
I raised my hands up and chuckled. “Hey, no need to apologize to me for anything,” I said. “You just made my morning. Heck, probably my whole day.”
I reached up to scratch my cheek. I still hadn’t found the time to shave yet, and it was becoming aggravating. “What are you going to be testing for?”
Torres chewed at his chapped lip and leaned his hip against the countertop as he studied the water bottle in his hand.
The label had peeled off when he’d unwrapped it from the plastic bags, and so we both watched as the water sloshed around.
“You said you think it’s a nearby petrochemical plant causing the pollution?” he asked with a raised dark eyebrow.
“Yeah, Knox Chemicals,” I said with a nod. “The neighborhood this came from is located downriver of the facility.”
Torres made a soft humming noise and set the bottle back down on the countertop.
“It’s near-impossible to make any sort of real visual diagnosis for the problem, but that sounds like it could be a promising lead for whatever is wrong here,” he said with a nod of his head.
