A Fountain Filled With Blood

by Julia Spencer-Fleming

  Waxman smiled briefly. “You know how it goes. Ours not to reason why, ours but to do and die. I get paid whether I think it’s necessary or not.”

  “I thought the testing was all done and the site had been cleared,” Clare said. “I was under the impression that the protests in town were to try to persuade the aldermen to get the state to take another look, not that the certification process wasn’t complete.”

  Waxman blinked. “Well, yes, you’re right. I’m doing ongoing monitoring—because of the local concerns. Actually, John Opperman asked me to do the testing. To be prepared if the case reopens.” He looked at her warily. “You aren’t with the Clean Water Action group, are you?”

  “Me? Nope. I’m with the Episcopal church.” She opened her hands. “I’m just curious. I only moved to Millers Kill last November, so I don’t really have a good grasp of what the issues are.”

  Waxman’s closed-off expression eased, and he hitched the backpack off his shoulders and set it on the ground. “It’s pretty straightforward. From the early fifties to the mid-seventies, General Electric made PCB-filled capacitors at their Hudson Falls and Fort Edward plants. The wastewater from cleaning the capacitors went into the Hudson and settled into the sediment, where it sits, waiting for the state, the EPA, and the Fish and Wildlife folks to figure out whether to let it lie and degrade or dredge it up in the hopes of getting it out.”

  Clare waved a hand at the mountainside. “This is pretty far away from the Hudson.”

  “Not as far as you might think. The river originates in these mountains. Adirondack aquifers feed the Hudson and—this is why the folks in your town are up in arms— Millers Kill.” He pointed to the rock cliff rising in front of them. “By the late sixties, the companies producing capacitors and the companies in charge of cleaning ’em up and disposing of them realized they had a problem on their hands. The usual technique—rinsing them—produced contaminated wastewater, which, when you released it into the environment, made a kind of toxic sludge. They were trying out different containment techniques, and one of the companies involved with solid-waste disposal came up with the idea of soaking the water into cellulose-filled containers—sort of like a giant sponge—and then capping them off and putting them someplace high and dry. Peggy Landry’s dad struck a deal with them to use this quarry as a storage site. Landry and the town split the profits. Of course, they didn’t really have the technology back then to safeguard adequately against seepage.” He wiped his hands on his shirt again. “That particular company went belly-up in ’seventy-four, G.E. stopped making the capacitators in ’seventy-seven, and the state cleaned this place up in ’seventy-nine.”

  “So you don’t think the rise in PCBs in the town has anything to do with the digging going on here?” Clare said.

  He shook his head. “Nope. No way.”

  “How about the water coming from that crevasse? Does that go into the aquifer?”

  “Yeah, it does. But that’s from a stream that originates way up. That gorge it runs through knifes right down the mountain. It’s never been used for storage or anything. Too inaccessible.”

  “So where do you think the pollution’s coming from, then?”

  “There was a fresh contamination site discovered in ’ninety-one,” he said, “if fresh is the right word to use. An abandoned mill that had been used by G.E. Tons of sediment, seepage into the rock and groundwater—very high percentage of the stuff. Some of it was almost pure PCB. This area has had some heavy winters and rainy summers since then, which causes the contaminated sediment and water to travel through the aquifers in ways it didn’t before. The PCB contamination in Millers Kill is coming from the Allen Mill site.” He nodded in a satisfied way.

  “You sound pretty sure of yourself,” Clare said.

  “I am.”

  Ray laughed. “See why I’m not worried, Reverend?”

  Waxman hoisted his backpack. “I was just about to take my Jeep back up. Why don’t I give you two a ride? It’s an awful steep road.”

  “You done already?” Ray looked impressed. “You just got here a little while ago.”

  Waxman popped the back gate of the Jeep and lifted his backpack inside. “You’re just used to the rate your guys work at, Ray. Fifteen minutes, coffee break, another fifteen minutes, cigarette break…”

  Ray let out his short, explosive laugh. Waxman opened the passenger door and gestured for Clare to get in. She squeezed past the flipped-down front seat and climbed into the back, pushing aside crumpled shirts and shorts, empty soda cans, back issues of Science magazine, and an oily box containing unidentifiable engine parts. “Sorry about the mess,” Waxman said. Ray got in the front, the Jeep sagging to one side beneath his weight. Waxman hopped in and slammed the door. The Jeep’s ignition sounded as if it needed new spark plugs, and from the sound of the exhaust, a new muffler, as well. As Clare peered into the box, they lurched, and the Jeep began chugging up the hill.

  “This is a bear to climb.” Waxman spoke loudly over the noises coming from the Jeep. “They’re going to have to regrade it if they expect to have regular traffic here.”

  “Bill’s plan is to have a bunch of those little golf carts,” Ray said just as loudly. “People will be able to drive themselves all around the complex if they want to.”

  Clare leaned forward. “How have you found working with Bill?” she asked Waxman.

  There was no reply. For a moment, she thought she hadn’t been speaking loudly enough, but then Waxman said, “I don’t know him very well. Peggy, the landowner, is the person I deal with usually. And sometimes John Opperman. He’s responsible for the permits.”

  A pothole jarred the Jeep, flinging Clare back into her seat. She jabbed at her hair, which was falling out of its twist in earnest now. She wasn’t going to get many insights from Waxman, evidently. “Are you used to large developments like this?” she shouted toward the front seat. “Or is this the first big project you’ve worked on?”

  “This is the first I’ve soloed on,” Waxman yelled back. “I assisted on several surveys while I was getting my doctorate.”

  Which couldn’t have been all that long ago, Clare thought. Everything about Waxman screamed graduate school poverty. He was probably still living off peanut butter sandwiches and Ramen noodles. The Jeep bumped hard again and let out an alarming rattle. “It must be gratifying, working for the state. I can’t imagine there are a lot of teaching jobs out there.”

  “You got that right.” Waxman twisted the wheel and downshifted. “State and federal agencies hire a lot more geologists than universities do. Private’s really the way to go, though. You get a berth with an oil company, and you’re set for life, man.”

  The Jeep heaved over the top of the hill and Waxman shifted into park. The sudden drop in noise level left Clare’s ears ringing. “Are you two headed back, or what?”

  Ray turned around in his seat. “Anything else you’d like to see, ma’am?”

  So far, the only thing she had gotten from this venture was a coating of dust and a couple of mosquito bites. She didn’t have any more of a feel for Bill Ingraham’s life than she’d had when she started out that morning. “What else is there?” she said, stalling.

  “Well, up that way is going to be the waste-reclamation plant and the power plant,” Ray said, pointing to where the rutted track led up and out of sight between the trees. But there’s nothing there now but a dump. It’s a pretty-enough walk, if you like that sort of thing.” The tone of his voice revealed that he hoped she didn’t. “You can get real close to that gorge Leo was talking about. See it from above. Along this way.” He gestured back toward the way they had walked. “We’ve cleared land for a garage for those golf carts I was telling you about. There’s a helipad farther along the—”

  “Whoa. Did you say helipad?”

  “Yeah, but it’s only temporary. For bringing in cargo that’s too delicate to hump over the road, and for the VIPs to fly in and out. When construction finishes up, it’ll be
converted to a tennis court.”

  “I want to see the helipad.” Something in her voice must have been different, because Ray and Waxman looked at each other. Ray shrugged.

  “Okay,” Waxman said. “The helipad it is.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  “We have to backtrack to the central complex and get on the other road there,” Waxman said.

  The road leading back to the main site had been a pleasant walk but was a terrible ride. They lurched through the trees into the blinding sunlight of the construction area, then bounced along a beaten dirt track running along the uppermost terrace and plunged back into the forest. The Jeep jumped and jolted, until Clare thought she would suffer permanent kidney damage. The sample bottles in Waxman’s backpack clinked together violently.

  “You okay back there?” Waxman shouted.

  “Just great!” she said, grabbing the seat to avoid her head smashing into the roof.

  “We’re going to pave all this over before they start rolling out those golf carts,” Ray explained loudly.

  “That’s g—ouch!”

  “Sorry,” Waxman shouted. “Rock. Here we are.” The tree-shrouded road opened into more brilliant July sunshine. Waxman stopped the Jeep. Ray hopped out, flipping his seat forward and extending a hand to Clare.

  She staggered out of the backseat, feeling a sudden kinship with airsick passengers she had seen over the years. Her gratitude at touching the ground must have been the same as theirs. She took a deep breath.

  The air was heavy with the smell of pine, warm asphalt, and oil. “Oh my,” she said. “I was expecting a little touch-down space. This is…professional.” The clearing was the size of a house lot, squared off and leveled. It had been fitted out with four pole-mounted lights in each corner for night landings, with a remote refueling tank parked next to a prefab shed, which she guessed held tools, compressors, and other maintenance requirements. Smack in the middle of the clearing was a tennis court–size asphalt square painted with directional markings that glowed whitely in the sun. Taking pride of place was—

  “There it is,” Ray said. “It’s a helicopter. You seen one, you seen ’em all, if you ask me.”

  “It’s a Bell Four Twenty-seven.” She prowled around the edges of the pad, taking it in from all angles. “A real classic. You can configure it in a half dozen ways. Very versatile. Like here, they’ve opted for a cargo door and boom.” The cargo door was shut, but the boom, a pair of struts holding a cigar-shaped winch pod, was still rigged with a net, which puddled on the tarmac like abandoned rigging from a long-ago sailing ship. Just the sight of it made her long to be up and away.

  Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Waxman and Ray exchange glances. Waxman tugged his baseball cap farther down over his eyes. “Are you a big, um, helicopter buff?”

  “I was a pilot in the army,” she said. “And my folks have a small aviation company.” She ducked under the tail boom and peeked into the cabin window. There were two comfortable seats backed against the partial bulkhead separating the cockpit from the cabin, with a curtain of wide webbing to protect traveling VIPs from shifting cargo in the rear. She moved up a step to look into the cockpit and rested her hand on the handle of the pilot’s door. It turned in her grip. It was unlocked! She hissed in excitement and twisted the door open.

  “Oh, hey, Reverend!” Ray protested, but she had already hiked herself over the lip into the cockpit.

  “Hello there,” she said. She dropped into the seat. The controls were neat and streamlined, much simpler than the bulky instrument displays she had been used to. Must be the new digital systems. She hadn’t ever flown a 427, but she had logged a lot of hours in its military version, the Kiowa.

  “Reverend! You shouldn’t be in there!” Ray’s voice came from behind her, through the open cargo door.

  “I just want a peek at the cockpit,” she said. “Then I’ll get right out, I promise.”

  “Reverend!”

  The windscreen was huge, much larger than the ones she had seen in the army. The view from the air would be fantastic. She tapped at the key snug in the ignition, then looked at the fuel gauge. It was reading half-full.

  The old ache to fly rose in her chest. She knew exactly what it would feel like to bring these panels to life and begin the preflight check, each movement as much of a ritual as those she used when consecrating the Host during the Eucharist. She could imagine the moment when the rumble and whine grew muffled, her headset connecting her to a world that turned and centered on the machine. The fierce vibrations through metal and bone, her eyes and hands moving over the instruments, and then, at that moment when she lifted away from earth, frustrated gravity pressing her into her seat as she broke its grip and soared into the sky.

  She suddenly thought of a verse from Matthew: “Lay down all you have and follow me.” She smiled one-sidedly. God certainly shouldn’t have any complaints in that department. She had given up all this, every lovely leaping moment, to follow Him to Millers Kill, and for what? A congregation that was largely nonexistent in the summer and a man she shouldn’t try to be friends with. She let her head drop back until it almost touched the edge of the passenger seat behind her. A man whose feelings she had unexpectedly lacerated with her big mouth and her insistence that she had a monopoly on truth. The only truth was that a man was dead. And two men had been beaten. And she had no business with any of it.

  Make whole that which is broken. Her head came up again. She wrapped her hands around the steering yoke. What was that? Was that a verse from Scripture? Along with the words came a memory of Paul Foubert’s face in the flashing emergency lights. Todd MacPherson’s brother in the waiting room, holding back tears. Russ’s expression when she blindsided him in his patrol car. Make whole that which is broken. “Is that it?” she said. “Is that for me? Does this come from You, or am I just remembering something? Are You there, or am I talking to myself?”

  Of course, there wasn’t any answer. Just the rising heat in the cockpit and the familiar comfort of the pilot’s chair. But it wasn’t familiar. This was someone else’s ship, and she didn’t belong here. She suddenly felt stifled by the small enclosure. She kicked open the door and jumped out, nearly landing on Ray Yardhaas.

  His big, broad face was crinkled with worry. “I don’t think you should have done that, Reverend.”

  She laid her hand on his arm. “I know. I shouldn’t have. I’m sorry, Ray.” She turned, shut the door, and twisted the handle, sealing it tight. “Let’s head back, shall we?”

  Waxman was looking at her with a peculiar expression. Remember, wherever you go, you’re an ambassador for the United States, her grandmother used to tell her. As an ambassador for the Episcopal church, she was evidently working without a portfolio. “I like to bless flying vehicles,” she said in an attempt to reassure him that she really was a priest and not an incipient thief. “Want me to do your Jeep?”

  His face twitched with the strain of not showing what he thought of that offer. He shook his head. “Um, I’m headed back now, if you want a ride.”

  She didn’t, particularly, but Ray was already opening the door for her. She stifled a resigned sigh and climbed back into the battered vehicle. “So why does BWI keep a fully equipped heliport out here? That costs a lot to maintain.”

  Ray grunted as he took his seat. “The way I heard it, they install one of these at every one of their project sites. Most of their resorts are in pretty hard-to-reach places. That’s Opperman’s strategy: buy up good land before the roads get put in and everyone and his brother catch on to it. I guess it’s not worth their time to drive to a local airport.”

  Waxman shifted, reversed, and they shot forward onto the rutted road. “Plus, there are a lot of advantages to having a helicopter when you’re in the planning stages of a major project. Mapping, surveying, bringing in the first crews fast…”

  They went over a rock and everyone levitated for a moment. “Ooof!” Clare clutched at her seat. “Do they have a full-
time pilot?”

  “John Opperman flies it,” Waxman shouted over the grinding noise of the Jeep’s clutch. “He’s the one who needs the flexibility, because he’s traveling between here and Baltimore so frequently as well as to other developments.”

  “He’s the bagman,” Ray yelled, grinning.

  They lurched into a rut that almost overturned the Jeep and then they were out again on the dirt track at the upper edge of the main site. Waxman roared down the earthen ramps and came to a neat halt beside the collection of pickups and old cars that constituted the crew’s parking lot.

  “I have to get to the lab with this stuff,” Waxman said as Ray clambered out and tipped the seat for Clare. “Nice to meet you, Reverend. Ray, I’ll see you around.” He barely waited for Clare’s sneaker to clear the door before throwing the Jeep into gear and disappearing down the forest road.

  “That’s a man in a hurry,” Clare said, waving some of the Jeep’s dust cloud away from her face.

  “Yeah, well…From what I’ve seen, when Mr. Opperman says, ‘Hop,’ Leo Waxman asks, ‘How high?’ Remember how he was talking about all those good-paying jobs with private companies? I think he’s hoping BWI will take him on permanently.”

  Clare handed Ray her hard hat and brushed dust off her shirtfront. “I may be naïve about how these things work, but doesn’t that create a conflict of interest?”

  Ray smiled, stacking her hard hat on top of his. “It kind of seems like it would, doesn’t it?” He tucked the hats under his arm and turned toward the office trailer. The crew had abandoned their vigil in front of the steps and had retreated to a pair of wooden picnic tables under the fringe of trees behind the trailer. Clare could see a couple of coolers on the tables.

  “I’m afraid there’s nothing else to see, Reverend. Sorry Ms. Landry hasn’t shown up. You can use the phone in the office to give her a call, if you want.”

  She shook her head. “No, I don’t have the number for her cell phone.” Her mind churned furiously. Her last chance to find out anything about Bill Ingraham was about to come and go. Aw right, ladies, it’s time to fly or die. Msgt. Ashley “Hardball” Wright used to say that during her survival training. Male or female, he had called all his trainees “ladies,” unless he was calling them something much worse. She tended to recall his aphorisms in situations her grandmother would never have found herself in—like pumping Ray Yardhaas for information about a man he didn’t know was dead.