by David Lyons
“Jesus, it took the cops twenty years to discover that?”
“Don’t blame him. It wasn’t his case.”
“So we’re down to only ten percent of the world’s population as suspects. We’ve eliminated ninety percent. That’s something, I guess.”
“It also eliminates Judge Epson. He was right-handed.”
Palmetto paused. “You know what that means,” he said.
“Yeah, the killer is still out there. We already knew that.”
“That’s right. What’s on your program for today?”
“Nothing. I have the day off. Tomorrow they’re giving me the tour of their lab.”
“I’ll be with you every step of the way on that trip. Well, I leave you in good hands. By the way, she just called her boss from her cell. She told him you were ‘conflicted’ about being a judge. You tell her that?”
“Don’t tell me you can eavesdrop on her with this thing while you’re talking to me.”
“Isn’t science grand? You have a fun day. I assume you’ll be home tonight. Please keep your phone with you. Don’t forget to charge it.”
He put the phone in his pocket and returned to the house. Dawn stood in the kitchen waiting for him. She was brushing her hair, dressed only in a terry-cloth robe.
“There’s something important I want to tell you,” she said. “Not now, but in my own time.”
“I’m a good listener,” he said. “It’s what judges do best.”
They stayed together till late afternoon: making love, making conversation, and making grilled cheese sandwiches. When he pulled into his own drive Boucher imagined Malika, as she had stood on the porch waiting for him, but then he remembered her breathlessness the last time he’d spoken with her; when she was with her “client” and he could picture so clearly what they’d been doing. He banished her from his thoughts as he opened his front door.
That evening Boucher received what Palmetto told him was the last meaningful information he would be sending him. Future information transfers would contain less valuable data. Boucher would have to find what he was looking for soon. He studied the material for lack of anything better to do, knowing that the technical information would work on him better than a sleeping pill. He was right. Before nine-thirty he was in bed asleep.
Perry and Cantrell were not asleep. They were holed up in Perry’s office like wolves in a cave, the solitary lamp on his desk casting more shadows than light. They were ranting against their number one nemesis and favorite target—governmental regulatory agencies.
“One of these days, they’ll be begging me to take their fuckin’ leases and I’m going to tell them to stick it. Who needs them?” Perry motioned an obscenity with one hand, slamming a flat palm on his desk with the other.
“How are you going to do it?” he asked.
“The judge? You don’t want to know,” Cantrell answered.
“You’re right. I don’t.”
Then silence.
“She signs her name ‘C.D.’,” Perry said.
“What?”
“C.D. Stands for Carla Dawn. She doesn’t like Carla. C. D. Fallon.”
“Big deal.”
“C.D. stands for something else, I’m afraid.”
“What’s that?”
“Collateral damage.”
Cantrell looked at him. “You sure you want that?”
Perry shrugged. “She likes the guy. He disappears, she might get curious.”
“She’s been a good scout,” Cantrell said.
“C.D. Collateral damage. Take her with you.”
Cantrell shrugged. “Doesn’t matter to me.”
CHAPTER 26
EARLY TO BED, EARLY to rise. Boucher woke before dawn and got in almost an hour of calisthenics before going to the office. He beat Dawn; he even beat the receptionist. He walked the halls of the executive warren, poking his head first into Cantrell’s office, then Perry’s. Nobody home. He walked to his own office. Somebody had moved his desk back to its original position. He wouldn’t complain about it. This little act would soon be over anyway. He sat down. An image came to mind and he froze, eyes wide open like saucers. He stood up and ran from his office down the plush carpeted hallway back to Cantrell’s office. Hanging on his ego wall were pictures of him accepting various awards for distinction in his field, awards going back decades. Earlier photos showed a younger man with darker, fuller hair. But though the subject aged, one characteristic remained unchanged: the manner in which he accepted these honors bestowed upon him. Bert Cantrell was left-handed.
Boucher ran from the office through the double doors that led to the reception area and the elevator bank. He pressed the call button and waited, and waited. Finally it arrived and it was like being pushed back by a tidal wave. It seemed that everyone who worked on this floor had arrived at the same moment and had taken the same elevator up. Dawn and the receptionist got out first, followed by two men he did not know, and last came Perry and Cantrell. Boucher’s escape to make his phone call was impossible. Perry shook his hand and slapped him on the back. Cantrell threw an unwanted arm around his shoulder.
“Wait till you see what I’m going to show you today,” Cantrell said. “You too, Dawn. Come along with us. I’m going to show you both our laboratory. You’re going to see a glimpse of what is going to fuel this country’s growth for the next two hundred years.”
He herded Boucher back to his office and ordered Dawn to bring coffee as if she were a waitress in a cheap diner, calling her “hon.” He sat down heavily behind his desk. His look was menacing for so early in the morning. Then he caught himself and his expression softened.
“I hate waste,” he said.
Where the hell is this going? Boucher wondered.
“I hate to see our position as the best damn country in the world wasting away. I hate to see a resource that could ensure our energy independence wasted. And I hate that fucking bureaucrats are keeping us from exploiting the biggest hydrocarbon resource in the world. But they’ll be sorry. Just you wait and see. There weren’t any fuckin’ regulators at Spindletop. We’re gonna have a Spindletop all over again. You know what Spindletop is, right?”
“It was the first big strike in the East Texas oil fields, in 1902, I believe.”
“It was 1901; beginning of the modern oil industry. Well, it’s time for a new beginning. Today you’re going to be one of the first to see what the future holds for this country and the world.”
Dawn arrived with coffee.
“You too,” Cantrell said, a little too loud. “You’re both going to see the fucking future!”
“Did you get any sleep last night, Mr. Cantrell?” Dawn asked. “You look exhausted.”
“I slept just fine. Let me just finish this coffee, then we’ll go.”
“I’ve had mine,” Boucher said. “Excuse me for a minute. I’ll be right back.”
He went to the men’s room, waited for someone to wash his hands and leave, then made a call despite what Palmetto had told him about not making calls within the building. No answer. Voice mail. He left a brief message. “Tell Fitch. Bert Cantrell, senior VP and chief geologist of Rexcon, is left-handed.” The door opened and he slipped the phone in his shirt pocket. It was Cantrell. Boucher stepped to the sink and turned on the faucet as the senior vice president took a leak.
“Say, why don’t we all grab a meal together when we’re done at the lab?” Cantrell asked. “Anyplace you like. It’ll be my treat.”
“That’s fine with me, if you’re feeling up to it,” Boucher said.
“I’m okay. John and I spent most of last night cussing the damn government. Woke up with a bit of a hangover.”
As he watched him, Boucher realized that Cantrell had shot Dexter Jessup. He had shot Ruth Kalin and had put the gun in her left hand because, left-handed himself, he’d not thought twice about it. It was his normal.
Dawn offered to drive. A Cadillac rolling on an open four-lane can lull both infants and energy tita
ns to sleep before you can say “hush-a-bye.” Cantrell snored loudly and took up the entire backseat. Boucher rode shotgun. They were heading west.
“Where are we going?” Boucher asked, keeping his voice down.
“Sleeping beauty told me to wake him ten miles from Morgan City,” Dawn said. “Gateway to the Gulf for the shrimp and oil industries.”
“Good place for a lab, I guess.”
“As good as any. Do you have any idea what they’re going to show us?”
“It will have something to do with methane hydrate, but beyond that I’m guessing.”
Cantrell woke with a snort and told Dawn to pull over. He got out, then got behind the wheel.
They passed an empty marina. Every single shrimp boat was out in the Gulf. Numerous oil field equipment manufacturing and service companies dotted the side of the road. On the outskirts of the small town Cantrell turned onto a secondary road leading through swampland, finally coming to a single-story structure bearing the company’s name. There was one other car in the parking lot.
“Where is everybody?” Dawn asked.
“We gave them the day off to celebrate,” Cantrell said. “These folks are going to be working overtime now that we’re beginning our offshore program.”
“You’re starting your offshore program?” Boucher asked.
Cantrell ignored him. He parked the Cadillac and led them into the building. A man in a white coat came up to greet them. He looked like a scientist, if one associated clammy handshakes and pasty white skin that never saw the sun with the profession.
The lab had looked smaller from outside. It was huge, almost the size of a football field, with glassed-in cubicles of various sizes around the entire perimeter. In many of them equipment could be seen, their functions a mystery to the uninitiated. Cantrell called a lab technician over to him and the two conversed outside the hearing of Boucher and Dawn. Boucher turned his back to them all and took out his phone. He checked his text messages. The first was from Fitch. Boucher’s observation was confirmed: Cantrell. Gun permit 1988. S&W .38 Model 10. Modified for LH. The second message was from Palmetto. Weak signal. Where are you?
In deep shit, that’s where I am, Boucher thought.
Cantrell approached them, a big smile on his face.
“Are you ready for your tour?”
He led them first to a pressurized unit, a sign outside identifying it. It had a double entry. The first door, when one entered, closed and sealed automatically. Only then could one access the second door. They entered through it and were hit with a temperature below freezing.
“We’ll just be here a few minutes. There are lab coats hanging on the wall if you want one.”
Was he kidding? Dawn and Boucher each grabbed one immediately and put them on, though the coats didn’t help much. Cantrell opened a huge stainless steel door and a gray smokelike mist escaped from a laboratory refrigerator in this already freezing compartment. He came out with a chunk of ice the size of a baseball, which he set on a counter. From his pocket he pulled a cigarette lighter. He set the ice ablaze. It was enshrouded in a wavy blue flame that seemed to induce a hypnotic trance the longer one stared. Boucher had seen this display and had to feign amazement. Dawn’s astonishment was real.
“Ice on fire,” she whispered.
“Yes, dear,” Cantrell said. “That’s what it is. The future of energy. That small clump will burn for hours.”
“Can we watch it burn from outside?” Boucher asked, his teeth chattering.
Cantrell gave him a dismissive look, then led them out of the pressurized unit.
“Don’t think I’m not impressed,” Boucher said. “It’s just that I have a low tolerance for extreme cold.”
Cantrell smiled. It was an option he hadn’t considered. That was the beauty of an industrial laboratory, one had so many choices.
CHAPTER 27
FITCH HAD ALWAYS HATED the New Orleans police evidence room on Magnolia Street, even before Katrina. But after the hurricane, with the storage facility underwater for eighteen days, he knew it was a lost cause and despised it even more. Now here he was, asking a poor beleaguered flunky in the twilight of his years about a twenty-year-old piece of evidence that might never have been found in the first place. He felt sorry for the guy. The hurricane wasn’t his fault and the place had always been a mess. Now legislators were kicking up a fuss, demanding an audit and trying to pin the blame for the chaotic conditions anywhere but on themselves and their misplaced budget priorities. The drug cases were hopeless. Cocaine underwater for three weeks? Yeah, take that bag of glue to the courtroom. But a bullet doesn’t turn to glue when soaked. Maybe even covered with rust the rifling can be saved and a bullet matched with the gun that fired it. A needle in a haystack was nothing compared to the task he’d set for himself. But here he was.
“Jesus, Detective, I’d like to help you, but look at this.” The custodian held up a handful of requisitions. “Everybody wants everything yesterday and I don’t know where to even begin to look for most of the stuff they want. This place is fucked. It’s just fucked.”
“Calm down,” Fitch said. “I’m not here to bust your balls. I know it’s a long shot. Would you mind if I looked for myself?”
“Mind? Hell, no, I wouldn’t mind. But if you find anything, don’t touch it. Call me. I’ve got both prosecutors and defense lawyers trying to hang my butt screaming that I screwed up chain-of-custody records.” He opened the chain metal door and let him into the criminal evidence storage area. “You gotta wear this,” he said, handing Fitch a surgical face mask. “We got some nasty shit growing back there.”
“Where should I start?” Fitch asked.
“On a case twenty years old? Over there.” He pointed vaguely to the right rear corner of the facility. “At least that’s where I would have looked ten years ago.”
The first thing Fitch noticed was the variety of fungi growing everywhere, on everything: on plastic, on metal. Cardboard boxes, the preferred container, were decomposing on every shelf. First the adhesive dissolved, then the sides fell and hung limp, the layers separating and rotting. Plastic, he read somewhere, took a hundred years to decay. Well, whoever said that should see this place. Even plastic containers were dissolving. And money: cash confiscated in the commission of a crime was often crucial evidence. If any was stored here, it was now dust and mold spores. After two hours he had to get out. He could hardly breathe. He walked back to the custodian.
“I need air,” he said. “How do you stand it in here?”
“Six more weeks, then full pension,” the man said. “I’m going to fish every goddamned day for the rest of my life.”
“Brother, you’ve earned it.”
Fitch stepped outside and, before even taking a breath of air, lit up a cigarette and drew deeply. He figured tobacco smoke had a better chance of killing any fungus in his lungs than a gulp of fresh air did. He smoked it down to the filter, then for good measure lit a second and smoked it before going back in.
He was going to find that bullet or satisfy himself that it did not exist.
Fascinating as it was, Boucher was getting tired of staring at the blue flame and the ice fire. Also, he noticed that the lab technician was nowhere in sight. He took off the lab coat he’d grabbed on the way in and Dawn did the same.
“If that’s what we came to see, I say thank you for the tour and let’s get on back home.”
“Well,” Cantrell said, “I was going to show you what we’ve been able to construct with carbon fiber, but you’re right, it’s time we moved along.” He yelled, “How’s it going in there?”
“We’re all set.” The lab technician’s voice came from one of the peripheral cubicles.
“Let’s go,” Cantrell said, turning to face Dawn and Boucher. In his left hand he held a Smith & Wesson Model 10 Military and Police revolver. Pointed at them.
“Bert,” Dawn gasped, “have you gone mad?”
“Sorry,” he said. “Including you on this
little picnic was Perry’s idea. I can’t even claim credit for the manner in which you are about to die. I have to admit I’m surprised it turned out to be so damned easy. Turn around and walk over to Mr. Quillen. He’s not exactly a scientist, but he’s very proficient at his specialty. I understand he’s prepared something unique for you.”
The lab Cantrell ushered them into was kept at normal temperature. The room was empty except for two folding metal chairs and a large stainless steel vat in its center. Beside the vat stood the man wearing the lab coat. Whatever was in the vat was fuming and gave off a familiar, suffocating odor.
“The king of chemicals,” Cantrell said, “sulfuric acid. This batch is concentrated; very efficient. You know the beauty of using sulfuric acid? It has the broadest industrial use of any chemical; that’s why they call it the king. It’s perfectly natural for a company like ours to keep it in large quantities. It won’t arouse the slightest suspicion. And there won’t be the slightest trace of you left. It’s almost humane. You’ll dissolve in no time. This was Mr. Quillen’s idea. I must say, he’s far more creative than I am. A shot to the head is about the limit of my imagination.”
“Like with Dexter Jessup and Ruth Kalin,” Boucher said.
Cantrell shrugged.
“I suppose he was responsible for Judge Epson’s death.” Boucher nodded to the man in the white coat.
Cantrell shrugged again, a slight smile on his lips. “Okay, twenty questions is over.”
Boucher said, “Why her?”
“Because she’s fulfilled her purpose,” Cantrell said. “Well, almost. I plan to have a little fun myself before we dump her in the pot. You go first, Judge. Just step on one of those chairs and climb in. If you don’t, I’ll shoot you and dump you in myself. But death will be immediate if you dive in headfirst. Don’t worry about the lady, she’ll be following you soon enough.”
Boucher realized that a well-placed shot could bring death quickly as well, but Cantrell had shown no abilities as a marksman. His kills were contact shots. A bad shot could just mess him up and they’d still dump him in.
