by Dave Daren
I reached into my pocket to wriggle my wallet free and scrounged out a twenty dollar bill. It was more than the food cost, but I didn’t mind leaving her a hefty tip. She was a good friend, and probably one of the few I had in Crowley that still managed to fit into my busy schedule. I held the bill out toward her, and Trish swatted my hand away.
“Stop that, it’s on the house,” she said with another winning-grin.
I think she’d once mentioned to me that she was a former county fair beauty queen, and I could see the title in her smile.
“Well, it’s a tip, then,” I insisted as I set the bill down on the counter. “Or a promise that I’ll actually sit down and stay the next time I come by.”
‘Damn lawyers,” Trish muttered under her breath, but she didn’t further protest my response as she reached out to snag the bill with her sharp nails and hid it away in the pocket of her apron along with her notepad.
I scooped up my takeout container and Evelyn’s coffee and pushed away from the counter with a tilt of my head.
“I’ll hold you to that,” she called after me with a grin as I walked back toward the door.
I laughed in acknowledgement.
“I have no doubt!” I called back before stepping out onto the street while the sound of some late-50s hit song trailed after me until the glass door swung closed
Carefully, I balanced Evelyn’s cup on top of the takeout container as I walked. I was trying to keep myself from using my injured hand as much as I could manage. I didn’t want to cause any more damage to the already split, aching skin, if for no other reason than to avoid another alcohol wipe bath from Evelyn. And though I knew I hadn’t exactly been given a choice in whether or not I should go to the hospital after I received the injury, I still didn’t like the knowledge that the cut was probably going to scar. Part of me still secretly hoped that I could avoid that if I just didn’t use the hand.
I used my shoulder to push open the door to the firm while I kept my bandaged hand over Evelyn’s coffee to keep it from sloshing. Burning myself on coffee would have just been the cherry on top of the worst day I’d had in quite some time, but the top remained firmly in place.
“About damn time you got back,” Brody called out from where he’d made himself comfortable across from my desk in what I assumed he’d claimed as his chair. “I was beginning to think you’d found some other trouble to get into.”
Evelyn gave a dignified little cough that I realized too late had been to cover a laugh. Despite it being at my expense, it was nice to see the pair of them beginning to get along.
“I wasn’t gone more than fifteen minutes,” I pointed out, but there wasn’t any heat in my tone. I set the container down on my desk before walking Evelyn’s coffee over to her personally.
She didn’t say thank you, but she also didn’t scold me for being late like Brody had, so I gave her a pass.
I moved back to sit down in my chair and tugged my food toward me. The styrofoam was hot under my hands, and my stomach gave an eager rumble at the prospect of finally being able to eat.
Brody straightened up some in his chair as I began to tuck into my food, and then looked at me with a question in his eyes. I motioned him to continue as I carved a piece of steak.
“The doctor in Dallas agreed to take our side in things,” he informed me. “And she also had a few choice words for Young and his willingness to break the… Hippocratic oath.”
Brody waved his thick hand in the air as he fumbled around the name of the oath.
“Good,” I said after swallowing down a burning mouthful of potatoes.
Even the few bites I’d taken had made me feel like a brand new man. I hated when Evelyn was right. I dabbed at my mouth with the corner of a brown paper napkin that had come with my food while I pondered Brody’s news.
“The sheriff wasn't nearly as helpful,” I muttered with a deep sigh.
Brody quirked a bushy eyebrow in my direction, and I heard Evelyn’s chair squeak as she seemed to turn toward me. I set down my fork to massage my temples with the pads of my fingers.
“Sheriff Thompson’s under Knox’s thumb,” I explained. “Or, he’s just an asshole. Both options are probably true.”
Across from me, Brody swore under his breath, rubbed a palm over his salt-and-pepper hair, and gave a shake of his head.
“I should have figured as much,” he admitted, and it seemed to pain him. “You can buy your way into plenty of things. Good graces with the police has always been one of them.”
I remembered that he was speaking from experience with a start. It was the first time he’d so much as acknowledged his fall from grace since the day we’d met. I didn’t know what to say, or if I should even say anything at all. He clearly thought he was the same as Knox for what he’d done, and that wasn’t the case at all.
Before I could fumble my way through some sort of reassurance, the door to Landon Legal squeaked open, and all three of us turned to see who’d caused the sound.
Clara paused, her hand still on the door. She was dressed in pale-pink scrubs that did wonders for her complexion. Her eyes cut between the three of us in rapid succession.
She stepped further inside and let the door fall closed behind her before she shifted awkwardly on her feet and cleared her throat. Her attention fell onto me.
“You haven’t been answering your phone,” Clara began, and despite the fact I opened my mouth to explain and apologize, she continued on. “Did you mean to send me those pictures?”
Chapter 13
The silence that followed Clara’s statement resounded around the office, and she looked between the three of us as she seemed to try and parse out what had just happened.
“Pictures?” I managed to choke out the word as I pushed myself up to my feet.
All of my nerves vibrated with excitement. Had I simply hit the wrong contact in my panic the night before? Could it really be that easy?
The furrow between Clara’s eyebrows hadn’t smoothed, but she took another few steps further into the office while she pulled her phone from her pocket. It was secured in a bulky, pink case that looked like someone, Emma, probably, had drawn butterflies on it.
She swiped up on her screen and tapped a few times before extending it toward me with a nod that seemed to say ‘go ahead.’
I reached out to take her phone and for a second, the bandaged knuckle of my hand brushed against her finger. The second dragged on before I pulled my hand away and cleared my throat.
Clara’s gaze was fixed on my injured hand as I finally looked down at the photos on her screen.
I couldn’t help but give a sharp, eager breath. On the screen of her phone I saw two men hefting up a yellow barrel with Knox Chemicals plastered on the side in bold letters.
The world felt like it slowed around me as I swiped through to see the next photo, and the next, and the next. Lined up together, they painted a damning scene for Knox Chemicals. My heart threatened to beat out of my chest.
“What happened to your hand?” Clara asked in obvious concern.
“I got shot at,” I murmured far too casually as I zoomed in on one of the photos to try and get a closer look at the labels on the barrel.
The lighting in the photos wasn’t the best, but it was enough that I figured someone with better technical skills than me could enhance the image.
Clara sputtered, and when I looked up for a moment, I could see worry etched into her face.
“You were shot?” Her soft voice upticked into a squeak as she stared at my hand.
Behind me, Evelyn gave a little snort at my expense, but I ignored both women for the moment. I swiped to the next picture in hopes of a better view.
“No, I was shot at, and my phone actually was shot,” I explained as I studied the next picture..
Without asking, Clara reached out and peeled back the bandages that covered my knuckles. She hissed in a sharp breath through her teeth that sounded none too reassuring.
“You shou
ld have gone to the hospital,” she said, as though I wasn’t aware of that fact. I had the startling thought that she saw me as an idiot for a fleeting moment.
At some point during my daze while I’d scrolled through the photos, Brody moved over to stand at my side. He plucked Clara’s phone from my hand to get a look at the photos himself.
“Is it alright if I email these to myself?” Brody asked Clara.
“Oh, yeah, of course, go ahead,” she said as she continued her examination of my hand.
I finally let my eyes drift back to Clara. She’d discarded the mess of bandages from my hand and set them on the corner of my desk. She gave a soft little hiss as she traced her finger along the line of the cut.
“How’d it happen?” she murmured.
I sighed. “When they shot my phone, it broke some glass, and I think that’s what did it,” I said. “Evelyn already cleaned it up and put some antibacterial cream on it.”
I shrugged, as if to say ‘what else could I do?’
She pursed her lips for a moment before holding up a finger and reaching into the pocket of her scrubs.
I furrowed my brow but didn’t ask what she was doing and instead just watched as she pulled out a little paper wrapped roll. She quickly unwrapped what I then saw to be a ball of gauze. Clara quirked an eyebrow in question and gestured toward my hand.
“Uh, yeah, go ahead,” I answered with a singular nod after I cleared my throat.
She didn’t wait for any further approvals before reaching out and gently beginning to wrap the spool of gauze over and under my hand until my knuckles were tightly covered. She pinned the tail of the gauze in place with a little metal clip that had apparently come with the package.
I flexed my hand once she was finished. The wrapping didn’t slip around like the bandages had. I couldn’t quite make a fist, but then again, I hoped I wouldn’t need to any time soon.
She stepped away from me and chewed at her lower lip as she examined her work.
“It’s about the best I can do,” she said like an apology, as if she’d had any real way of doing more for me. “It’s clearly too late for stitches, and I don’t have any bactine on me. It’s an antiseptic and a pain reliever, but you can get it at any pharmacy and treat your hand later on.”
Brody extended his arm toward us to pass Clara back her phone. She took it with a smile and a nod before sliding it into her pocket. She tucked a strand of hair back behind her ear and glanced between the three of us.
“I’ve got to get back to the hospital, but let me know if there’s anything else I can do, alright?” she asked and waited for me to give a nod and a small wave of my uninjured hand before she quickly turned and disappeared from the office.
A few seconds later, I saw her familiar white Impala passing our front windows as she drove back to Cook.
Behind me, Evelyn gave a loud snort. This time, she didn’t even pretend like she hadn’t mocked me.
“Well, what did I have to take care of your damn hand for if you were just going to have the pretty nurse do it?” she questioned with a tilt of her head.
In that moment, she reminded me of a particularly loathsome bird. I reached up to scratch at my cheek as if that would hide the slight flush of color I had felt rising up into my face.
“So, you emailed the pictures to yourself?” I asked Brody for a clear change of subject.
He looked just as amused as Evelyn, and I decided to ignore them both as I moved back to sit down at my desk to resume my unconventional breakfast.
I speared the tines of my fork into a hunk of country fried steak and took a bite. It had gone a little cold, but was still delicious.
“I did, all ten of them,” Brody replied since he, at least, seemed willing to change the subject. “They’re good pictures, kid. I don’t know how Knox will manage to weasel his way out of this one.”
I heard what almost sounded like pride in his tone, but I brushed it off as my lack of sleep and numerous near-death experiences.
“I’m beginning to doubt there’s anything he can’t get out of,” I admitted with a sigh. But despite my misgivings about Knox’s accountability Houdini routine, I couldn’t help the elation that rocked through me.
We’d gotten the pictures back, and my shattered phone and lack of sleep had been worth something. The feeling was a little surreal and hard to wrap my head around. It felt like the tides had turned on Knox, and I just prayed we didn’t get lost in the current.
“So, we have Dr. Gupta, the photos, nineteen residences on our side,” I faltered as I ticked all of the things in our corner off my fingers. “Did anything ever come of the scraps from the public records office?”
I turned my focus to Brody with a raised eyebrow, but he sighed and lowered himself back down into the chair with a loud creak.
“No, the scraps were too small to try and piece together,” he admitted. “I’ll try again, see if the office worker is willing to talk, but it seems like it might be a lost cause.”
Evelyn had begun to scribble things down on her whiteboard when I’d started my list.
“We can also try the specialists at Cook,” she pointed out. “But, they’re also not a real guarantee.”
I rubbed my hand along my face, as if that would shake the exhaustion from my body and mind. I felt like I was going to crash at any moment. Then, I remembered something from the night before.
“Do either of you know anything about Prism Industries?” I asked and straightened up in my seat.
“Should I know anything about it?” Brody asked as he scratched at his chin. He frowned as if he were trying to remember the name, but he only shook his head when he looked at him.
“The name isn’t familiar to me,” Evelyn added as her hand hovered over the whiteboard.
I frowned and drummed my fingers against my desk. I hadn’t heard the name before, either, though in oil hungry Texas, that didn’t mean much.
“The chemical dumpsite was right next to some sort of oil rigging… thing,” I explained. “I’m not sure what it was, if I’m being honest. But the sign on the front of the fence said Prism Industries. It could be nothing, or just a coincidence, but it’s worth looking into.”
I watched as Evelyn jotted the name down on her whiteboard with a question mark.
“Nineteen houses,” Brody repeated after he cleared his throat. “We needed twenty, didn’t we?”
We all knew the answer to the question he’d asked, and I felt whatever elation I’d been experiencing drop out of me. For a minute, I’d nearly forgotten that particular predicament.
“We could always try canvassing the neighborhood again?” I suggested and didn’t bother to fight the weariness in my tone.
Brody didn’t seem fond of the suggestion either as he gave a deep sigh. It was plain to see that we knew we were running out of options, and the thought made me want to scream.
Instead, I finished off my food and closed the styrofoam container.
“We should give it a few days,” I said. “If we keep trying every day, we’ll probably end up with harassment charges laid against us by Sheriff Thompson.”
Brody gave a gruff laugh, but it did little to lift the spirits of the room.
“He’s a real piece of work, isn’t he?” Brody asked, though he didn’t seem to be looking for an answer.
I nodded in agreement anyway as I thought about my own encounters with our Sheriff. I had a few other words I might choose to describe the man besides real piece of work.
Evelyn let out a small exhale, and Brody and I both turned to look at her. She squared her shoulders, and I could tell she was preparing to deliver more bad news.
“I don’t know if my friends with EPA connections could do anything else for us, either,” she admitted. “The next nearest lab is in Kansas, and I don’t even know if they’d hold any sort of sway here even if we made the nearly ten hour drive.”
I gave a weak laugh at the prospect of a ten hour drive, and I could feel my muscles sta
rt to protest at the mere thought of such a long drive.
“I never want to see a car again, at this point,” I mumbled with a shake of my head. “I think the EPA might be a lost cause, unless we’re able to find a scientist willing to go rogue for us.”
We all fell quiet as we parsed through what little options we did or didn’t have at our disposal. Finally, I spoke up again.
“Does it matter if we have the EPA on our side?” I asked with a sweep of my hands. “We have photographic evidence and sick people downriver of the dumpsite. It would help, I’m sure, but…”
I gave another sigh and a shake of my head. I didn’t know if it would help, but I didn’t know if it wouldn’t.
Too many what ifs were at play, and every new question I had felt answerless. Despite our recent victory with the photographs, it was hard not to feel dejected.
We once again lapsed into a silence pockmarked only by the shuffle of papers and squeaks of chairs, and I wracked my brain for answers, or at the very least, for temporary solutions.
We didn’t have Knox’s money, his firepower, or his pull, so what did that leave us with? Ten photographs of an illegal chemical dump, a single doctor willing to put their neck on the chopping block, and plenty of sick people that still weren’t enough to even bring our findings before the judge.
I rubbed my fingers into the corners of my eyes. Exhaustion clawed at every part of my body and no number of energy drinks or coffees could do for me what a damn nap could.
“Let’s just…” I trailed off as my eyes fell onto the blinking light of my deskphone. “Did either of you check voicemails this morning?”
The yellow-green light blinked in a monotonous rhythm alongside the panel of buttons, and I glanced at Evelyn and Brody for an answer.
But Evelyn’s thin brow furrowed, and Brody shook his head. Neither of them said a word as they both seemed preoccupied with their own thoughts on how we could salvage a case out of the rubble Knox had left us with.
The light continued to blink, and as much as I would have liked to ignore it, I knew I couldn’t do that. I reached out to heft the phone from the base and brought it to my ear. I pressed the button and listened as the automated voice rattled off the options for saving and deleting voicemail messages.
