Quicksilver (The Forensic Geology Series, Prequel)

by Toni Dwiggins

He skirted the pothole, hugging the south wall, leaving us a view of the works, putting as much distance as he could between himself and the flowing mercury. He tipped his head to follow the flow, down to the pool.

  I tried to estimate how much mercury had accumulated. If that had been water it would drown a small animal. But it was liquid metal. Thirteen times denser than water. A small animal would float. A large animal would float. A full-grown man would float, buoyant as a cork.

  Robert Shelburne was examining the pool as if doing his own calculations.

  I glanced at Walter. He was frowning deeply. Watching the scene in the grotto. And then again breaking his focus to take a slow survey of the lay of the land. I figured my partner was estimating distances, angles of fire, places to take shelter. I assumed he was concocting a scenario in which Henry’s attention faltered long enough for us to flee. That seemed unlikely. Further, that didn’t sit too well with me. Flee and leave Robert at risk? Go get help? That would take hours.

  “Sit,” Henry called to his brother.

  Robert Shelburne did not have hours.

  I watched him work up his nerve. He stamped his feet, one and then the other, like a guy preparing to wade into an icy river. And then he stepped down into the quicksilver pool.

  The liquid lapped his thick-soled Asolo boots. The stuff was so dense it pushed them back, his feet could get no traction. His body revolved trying to maintain its balance but every little move popped a foot out of the mercury, skittering for purchase, and then abruptly he gave it up and folded heavily down into the pool in a cross-legged sit.

  Not into the pool. Onto the pool.

  He put out his hands to brace himself on the surface and then snatched them away from the liquid.

  Don’t worry, I would have said—if he was asking—liquid mercury is very poorly absorbed through the skin and you could probably sit naked on there all day and take in only point oh-oh something percent if I recalled correctly from Chem 101.

  He found his balance. He sat very still. He folded his hands in his lap. He sat there like a Buddha on a lotus. For a moment he wore a childlike look of wonder and then he flashed us a fucking grin. “Game on, Bro.”

  I shook my head. Some kind of inbred Shelburne bravado or venture-capital training—who knew but he had adjusted his game. Stakes rise? Man up.

  “Kinda cold in here,” Robert said. “This shit’s cold.”

  Henry’s hands began to shake. He jammed his elbows into his flanks and steadied himself.

  Robert said, “We still playing the same game? Where I’m supposed to guess what to apologize for?”

  Henry nodded.

  “Give me a hint. Give me something I can work with.”

  “At the river,” Henry whispered. Voice softer than ever, breakable.

  “Little louder, Bro.”

  “At the river.” Loud enough to make Robert flinch. “At the river,” Henry said a third time, “when I heard you and Cam talk about your company.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Cam said, what if Henry finds out? Maybe we should bring Henry in.”

  “Yeah?” Robert said, voice tightening.

  “What did you say to that, R?”

  “Some bullshit.”

  “What did you say, R?”

  “I’m apologizing.”

  “What did you say, R?”

  “You want the exact words?”

  “That’s what I want.”

  Robert hunched forward. He was shivering now.

  Henry said, “What did you...”

  “I said, Henry would not be an asset in my world.”

  My heart squeezed.

  Henry unzipped his belt bag. “That’s what you said.”

  Walter grunted and looked away, shifting from foot to foot, almost skittish.

  Yeah, I thought, that’s it. Game over. I waited for ... I didn’t know what. Henry to shoot? He didn’t want to shoot. He’d said so. And he wasn’t aiming the damn Glock, he was unzipping his belt bag and whatever he took out of that bag had to be better than the Glock. Better for Robert. Better for us. Better for Henry. Henry wasn’t a killer. Henry was a damaged soul. A wounded soul, betrayed by his father and his brother, not an asset in their world, surely not an asset in anybody’s world. Hurt to the core. A man in the wrong century. And all he wanted now, here, was an apology from his brother.

  I waited for Robert to apologize so we could all go home.

  Robert just gave his brother that appraising look of his.

  I wanted to scream. Will you please apologize? You’ve already said the words a dozen times. Doesn’t matter if you meant them. Doesn’t matter how glib you are if you can’t spit it out one more time. When it counts.

  Walter spoke. “I would like to sit.”

  I gaped at my partner. That’s all you got?

  Henry jerked a shoulder. Go ahead and sit. Or maybe it was just one of Henry’s twitches. Didn’t matter. Walter cleared pebbles from a space with his boot and sank to the ground like an old man and Henry kept his wounded attention on Robert.

  Robert smiled. “You want an apology, Bro? You wander around the mountains like some kind of original man and you think you know what a business deal is? You think it’s unfair I left you out in the cold?”

  I tensed. Careful Robert, you’re insulting him, I hope you know that.

  Henry flushed, a deeper pink than the pink of his peeling nose.

  Robert rolled his shoulders and put his hands flat on the surface of the pool. This time he didn’t flinch at the touch. He relaxed into a more comfortable position. He looked like a man lazing on a raft waiting for someone to bring him a Margarita. He cocked his head to appraise his brother. “Not a world where you’d thrive, Henry.”

  Henry blinked. “You either.”

  “Oh but I do,” Robert said.

  “I heard you.” Henry’s voice stronger now. “The test failed.”

  “Doesn’t matter.”

  “Yes it does.”

  “It doesn’t. That’s the beauty of it.”

  Henry frowned.

  “What matters,” Robert said, “is the name. We named the company AquaHeal.”

  “Why does that matter?”

  “Because it’s a shell.”

  “A what?”

  “A front, Henry. For the parent company, the money guys. They don’t care that the test failed. They don’t care if the cleanup works. Yes or no, it doesn’t matter.”

  “It has to.”

  “No it doesn’t. The money guys make their money in the oil market. That sample Dad and I were taking, when you saw us at the river? It was for their dog-and-pony show, a stunt for the press. AquaHeal is their green cred.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means the money guys want people to look at what they say and not what they do.”

  “That’s illegal,” Henry said.

  “No. That’s strategy.”

  “That’s ... That’s....”

  Shameful, I thought. Shameful is the word you want, Henry. I glanced down at Walter seeking I didn’t know what, some kind of help here, some way to take this in a better direction than it was now heading, but Walter was hunched over staring at the ground, perhaps trying to come up with a word, an idea, with something and if the answer was there in the dirt I wished him good luck finding it.

  Robert finished it for us. “Bottom line, Henry, I kept you out of it. I kept you pure.”

  Henry Shelburne laughed.

  ~ ~ ~

  “Did Cam know?” Henry asked.

  Robert answered, “Does it matter?”

  Henry reached into his belt bag.

  Robert appeared unconcerned. Still waiting for that Margarita.

  Walter said something, whispered something, so hushed that I could not make it out and I moved down into the trough and knelt beside him thinking okay finally he’s got an idea.

  Something landed in front of me.

  I jerked, and looked. It was entirely commonplace
. And unsettling as hell.

  Now that I was on eye level with Walter I turned to him—what now, because things are really going to hell here, because we really need an idea here. He met my look and gave a shake of the head. Don’t.

  Don’t what? I could think of a dozen things not to do. I could think of nothing useful to do.

  “You need to sit ankles together,” Henry said. “You need to do them first.”

  I looked up.

  Henry nosed the Glock in our direction.

  Walter took hold of my arm and tugged me down to sit beside him in the space he had cleared.

  The package Henry had tossed was closer to me. So I picked it up and ripped the plastic open. Took out two cable ties. Passed one to Walter. They were heavy-duty, rated to handle a couple hundred pounds. I’d used heavy-duty ties like these to bundle duct hoses when I installed my washer and dryer, two years ago. Now, slowly, Walter and I began to bind our ankles. Threading the cable ties, a micrometer at a time. Sounded like a clock ticking.

  “Zip them.”

  We zipped them tighter than I’d wished. Sounded like a machine gun.

  “Now you need to do your wrists,” Henry said.

  I took out two more cable ties. Passed one to Walter. We bound our wrists. At Henry’s instruction, zipped machine-gun tight.

  Walter hunched over his knees and muttered, “Blast it.”

  I whispered, “You okay?”

  He hiked a shoulder.

  Henry crabbed close and retrieved the open package. He moved to the mouth of the grotto. He took out a tie and tossed it to Robert. It landed short, in the brush edging the pothole. He took out another tie. Hands shaking. He crabbed closer. “I don’t want to shoot,” he told Robert.

  “You don’t need to.” Robert leaned forward and held out his hands.

  Henry tossed the tie. It landed true. It floated on the pool like a stick. Robert picked it up and began to loop it around his wrists.

  “Only do one hand,” Henry said. “Thread it through the handle first.”

  Robert’s face tightened. He had to twist his torso and stretch his arm to reach the spigot. He slid around the surface of the pool like it was ice. He gripped the spigot. He anchored there. And then with an effort he threaded the cable tie through a wheel cutout in the handle and closed it off around his wrist. He pulled the zip tight. Quite clearly it was not going to slip off over his big hand. He adjusted his position to face his brother. Awkward, now. No relaxing on the raft, no Margarita on the horizon.

  Henry returned the package of cable ties to the belt bag. He asked, again, “Did Cam know?”

  “You’re like a dog with a bone, Bro.”

  “Did Cam know?”

  “I kept him out of it.”

  “Then why were you fighting?”

  Robert took a long pause. “Fighting?”

  “That day on the Yuba.”

  Robert took a longer pause. “I’ve never fought with Dad. Which day on the Yuba we talking about, Henry?”

  “That day Cam died.”

  I thought, oh shit. I thought, as if it mattered, Robert lied about being in Sacramento the day his father died.

  Robert slowly held up his uncuffed hand. Palm out. “Let’s be clear, Henry. You overheard us talking about the company, right? So if you heard that, you also heard me giving Dad the strategy, the way it got funded. And you heard Dad disagree. He waved his hands around, like he does. But no blows were exchanged, for Christ’s sake. We argued. That’s what you heard.”

  “No,” Henry said. “I didn’t hear the strategy. I didn’t hear that part.”

  “Then I don’t follow, Bro.”

  “I saw that part.”

  Robert gave a strained laugh. “You’ve lost me, Bro.”

  “You said, Henry would not be an asset in my world. When I heard you say that, I left.”

  “You left? Well then...”

  “The trail is steep, Robert. I saw from up above.”

  Robert gave a little jerk.

  “I saw Cam wave his hands.”

  Robert gave a stiff nod.

  “I saw Cam fall over.”

  “He had a heart attack,” Robert said.

  “I saw Cam fall into the water.”

  Robert sat stone still in the quicksilver.

  “I saw you watching. That’s all you did.” Henry holstered his gun. “And then you left.”

  19

  Henry turned and walked away.

  Robert remained silent.

  Walter and I were silent. I could hear my own heartbeat, the pulse in my ears. I could hear the distant cry of a bird, the crunching sounds of Henry’s boots upon gravel, Walter’s quickened breathing beside me. I could hear the hiss of the mercury through the spigot. A constant sound. Otherwise, the silence went on and on, excruciating.

  At last Walter spoke. Whispered. “This is news.”

  Was it? Hadn’t I suspected as much, when I obsessed on the steel clip on the mesh pocket of Robert’s pack? Yes I had. And then I’d let it go. And then Henry had come on scene. Henry and his gun. And I had a new suspect in my sights.

  Now I fixed my sights again on Robert Shelburne. One expression after another seemed to chase across his face. Worry, confusion, anger, calculation. No, what I saw was mounting fear. And then he started yanking his cuffed hand, trying to free it from the wheel handle of the spigot.

  I glanced at my partner. He was doing the same. Bent over his feet, shifting position, trying to find an angle to work.

  Good idea.

  I followed suit, hunching over my own feet, positioning my ankles, hoping for a little give in the binding, a space between one foot and the other which could be capitalized upon. Maybe if I took off my boots I could slip one foot free. Hands bound at the wrists but that left my fingers free. I yanked the laces on my right boot, the boot with the torn tongue, didn’t even feel the bruise anymore, that damage entirely inconsequential, and now in my haste I’d knotted the laces and I thought fiercely pay attention but already another thought had entered my mind. A geologist thought. How many times have I used a rock pick to pry out minerals deep inside a pocket in an outcrop? I didn’t have my tools at hand but I sat in a field of rock debris. I started raking through the gravelly soil.

  Walter hissed, “He’s coming back.”

  I snapped my attention to Henry. He was indeed returning and what he carried chilled my bones.

  Robert, too, had seen. Had frozen.

  Henry Shelburne went straight to the grotto, went inside, skirting the pool where his brother sat stunned, squatting at the back of the grotto where the old timbers and riffle blocks were stacked in a jumble. Henry deposited the armful of kindling he’d brought from the campfire.

  Brown and dried, thick woody stems, shriveled leaves still bearing their resin glands, I guessed, because when Henry had thrown that kindling onto the campfire it threw off that nose-tingling odor.

  That, and set the campfire ablaze.

  Flammable as hell.

  Walter whispered, “Can you get free?”

  Yeah, sure, if I can find a pointed shard. If it’s pointed enough to do the job. I whispered, “Rock pick.”

  He nodded and began to pick through the pebbles around his feet.

  “Hey Bro.” Robert’s voice rang out. Strong, but without the hearty gloss he’d put on Bro before. Strong and harsh now. “What do you think you’re doing?”

  Henry stood and opened his belt bag. He took out a box of matches.

  “Not fair,” Robert said. “Not a fair fucking game.”

  I was transfixed. I knew this game. I’d seen Robert play it back at the great mining pit, the void, the place where a mountain had once stood. Robert standing in the mountain misery, striking a match, dropping it onto the resin-thick ferns, showing how quickly the stuff would ignite. Explaining how the brothers had played this game when they were kids, vaporizing the mercury to go after the gold. But Robert’s demonstration for us was just a dog-and-pony show. This,
here, now, was the real deal. This mountain misery was tinder-dry. This stuff was ready to kindle a bonfire of old timbers and riffle blocks—no doubt impregnated with mercury—and if that bonfire got lit it was going to heat the pipe coming out of the wall, through which the mercury flowed from some never-ending supply somewhere in that hillside.

  I wondered at what point it would give off its poisonous vapors.

  I glanced at Walter. He too was watching. Pebbles forgotten.

  “Get past it,” Robert said. “Dad’s dead. I panicked. End of story.”

  Henry opened the box and took out a match. Hands shaking.

  “This game is fixed,” Robert said. Anger flared off him like heat from a fire. “You’ve got matches. I’ve got nothing. What kind of game is that?”

  Henry said, “No kind of game.”

  “The hell it isn’t.”

  Henry struck the match on the side of the box.

  I waited for Robert to scream, because once Henry lit the mountain misery on fire and heated the mercury, Robert wouldn’t be wanting to scream, wouldn’t be wanting to open his mouth, in fact he’d be holding his breath.

  The match was burning.

  “You want to play poker, brother? Let’s play poker.” Robert sucked in a breath, let it escape. “I’ll see you.”

  I shook my head. How? With what? Robert had no moves, no hand to play. He was bluffing.

  Robert twisted his head, underneath the spigot, and brought his face to the silver stream.

  I sealed my lips. Some kind of crazy-ass Shelburne bluff, ready for the fire to start, the mercury to heat, to vaporize, for the poison to pour out of the spigot. Ready to breathe in a lung-full. Hey Bro I’ll see you, this what you talking about?

  Robert opened his mouth wide.

  It was a moment before I understood.

  He was not bluffing. He was drinking.

  ~ ~ ~

  Henry, stunned, let the match burn down to his fingers. Jerked. Let the match fall. By the time it touched ground it had gone out.

  Robert turned away from the flow, and grinned. A crazy-ass grin. “Drink it today. Shit it tomorrow.”

  I tried to take it all in. Drinking elemental liquid mercury. Who does that? Only a crazy Shelburne brother. I knew the stuff was poorly absorbed through the skin but who knew it would freely traverse the digestive tract—well Robert clearly knew, or hoped, Robert who had read up on all things mercury, Robert who was anything but suicidal. But still. I swallowed hard, watching him open and close his mouth like a fish out of water, a fish who’d performed the wrong kind of respiration.