by R. J. Blacks
“You know Gainesville is out of my jurisdiction, but I can send this over to the local office. Do you want me to do that?”
“Sure, whatever you think is best.”
“Okay then, I’ll let you know what happens. That’s about as much as I can do right now. Wish I could do more.”
“You realize of course if Damon is the killer, he’ll be after me next, because I’m the only one that can identify him at the mall.”
“That crossed my mind,” he says.
“And that’s it?”
He stumbles for a moment, searches for a way to pacify me.
“Keep wearing that outfit. I like it, Native American. Great disguise! At twenty feet, I would have never known it was you.”
“Isn’t he a suspect? Can’t you question him?”
“Alright, here’s what I’ll do; if you see him anywhere in these parts, call me... anytime, day or night, and I’ll send a trouper to keep him under surveillance.”
“Indeed I will,” I say, and then Fargo nods for us to leave. We head home in his jeep and about half-way back he turns to me.
“We need to do something about the PT Cruiser. Those cartoon bugs get your attention like vultures on the side of the road.”
“I can’t afford another car.”
“What do you say we get it painted?”
“Yeah, sure, whatever you think.”
“How about white? It’s a popular color. Damon’s looking for a green Cruiser with bugs on it. With white, you’ll blend right in. And if you keep wearing that outfit, he’ll never figure it out.”
So at midnight, under the cover of a moonless sky, I follow close behind Fargo’s jeep towards the reservation to meet with a friend who has a small private body shop. Even with Fargo directly in front, I find myself nervously stroking the loaded handgun by my thigh, and repeatedly checking the rear-view mirrors for suspicious headlights. But I see nothing but blackness, and once we pass through the gates that mark the entrance to the reservation, I am relieved of my stress assured by the affirmation that the locals have little patience for strangers sneaking onto their property. Damon may indeed be clever and cunning, but he would be at a distinct disadvantage against any Native American on his own land.
As we approach the shop, Fargo’s friend opens the garage door and waves me inside. I park the Cruiser and hand him the keys. He tells us the paint job will cost $300 and take a couple of days so we pay him and I ride back with Fargo. Of course, it goes without saying, this is all strictly confidential; Indians have been burned too many times to trust anyone outside their own people. I feel confident there is no way Damon could ever track us here or would be able to find out about this.
...
It’s Tuesday morning and the first day of my no-pay job at Semi-Environmental. Actually, I’m happy to get the opportunity. The access I’ll have, at no charge, to some of the finest analytical equipment in the world, will more than compensate me for the work I’ll be doing for free.
I get up before first light, slip into some loose-fitting exercise wear, and then grab my rolled up Yoga mat. I became interested in Yoga during my freshman year when I was invited to attend a free session in the dorm. I liked the way it cleared my mind and prepared me for the day so I became diligent about doing thirty minutes every morning without fail. But the pace of the last few months and the endless distractions have left me no spare time.
Today will be different; I’ve decided to reinstate my old routine. I sprint down to the dock, roll out the mat, engage the Lotus pose, and peer out across the vast lake illuminated by the faint glow of the rising sun. I focus on the black silhouettes of tiny islands miles away, release myself from the confines of space-time, and allow my mind and body to coalesce in perfect harmony with nature. I reflect on the past, on the present, and on the things I must do to become fully engaged with my earthly existence.
A half-hour passes, and then, as the sun’s rays sneak over the horizon, I finish up my routine and head back to the cabin to get ready for the workday.
I get dressed in my Native American garb and grab a quick bite for breakfast. Will tells me he’s hired Juanita as an assistant manager and I’m glad for it. It gives them more time together, and more importantly, takes the pressure off of me. He’s graciously offered me the use of his SUV until I get the Cruiser back, so I pick up the keys, dash out the door, and head over to my new job.
When I arrive, Doug hands me some customer samples to process and I complete them with ease. At noon I decide to skip lunch and check the samples I obtained from Dr. Parker. As expected, they have all the characteristics of plain old bottled water. I was being deceived. But in a way I am refreshed by the outcome. It tells me I still have a chance to refine my theories and reapply for admittance to the university. With my four-hour workday complete and little else to do, I head back home.
Juanita is helping out at the restaurant when I arrive and offers to take me to a General Store on the reservation to buy a few more Native American outfits. The rez is the place to get the best deals and the highest quality, but off limits to non-Indians, so I jump at the opportunity. When we arrive, there are about a dozen women in the store, most dressed in deer skin outfits, but a few in jeans and flannel shirts. As I browse through the racks, they glance at me with a surly look wondering no doubt who the stranger is and why I am here. But then Juanita stands beside me and everyone realizes we’re together so they go back to their own business. I pick out a half-dozen outfits that I could mix and match while maintaining a genuine Indian look. With Damon around, I have no choice but to lie low until he either gets arrested or becomes frustrated and gives up. I won’t feel safe until I’m certain he’s left the area and is back in his native North Carolina.
For the next two days, I fulfill my four-hour work commitment at Semi-Environmental, and then, head home for lunch. In the afternoons, Fargo takes me to the same places where I obtained the original water samples: the locations of the two alligator attacks, the swampland where we hunted, and the spring, once a source of drinking water but now suspected of being contaminated. I also add some samples from random locations along the way to get a better idea of the topology and the extent of the problem.
Then, on Thursday afternoon, Will bursts into the kitchen and tells me the PT Cruiser is done. I follow him out the door and towards the parking lot and hardly recognize it. It’s white. And those ugly black bugs are gone. The driver hands me my keys and then Will takes him back to the reservation in his SUV.
By Friday, my daily routine is pretty well established; up at five, Yoga till six, shower and dress till seven, and breakfast till seven-thirty leaving me just enough time to get to work by eight. But today is a no-work day and I’m anxious to analyze the samples I accumulated during the week. I drive to Semi-Environmental and surprise Doug in the back.
“Thought today was your off day,” he says.
“It is, but I’ve got some new samples to test.”
“Well then, you’ll like this. Ever hear of HPLC-MS?”
“High Performance Liquid Chromatography Mass Spectrometry,” I say.
“Very good. I see you’re up on the latest.”
“I tried to get one for the university, but they balked at the expense.”
“Follow me,” he says, and takes me over to a machine next to a large wooden crate. “It’s an MSQ 9000 EVO with Triple Quadrupole sensitivity,” he says, with a gleam in his eye.
“When did you get that?”
“Came in yesterday, after you left.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Wanted it to be a surprise. I’ve needed one for years; finally got the financing.”
“It’s nice.”
“Let’s try it on one of your samples.”
I reach into the bag and give him a specimen jar.
“The important thing is sample preparation,” he says. “We do that with Cryogenic Milling, to clean up the extracted sample. Then we inject it here.”
> He takes a hypodermic needle to transfer a tiny amount of liquid into the machine. A few seconds later the LCD display lights up with the analysis.
“It’s so fast,” I say.
“This machine does hours of work in minutes. It’ll pay for itself in less than a year.”
I look over the analysis and see things I never imagined.
“Wow, it separates out the isomers. A mass spectrometer can’t do that.”
“Exactly why you need it. Without this kind of sensitivity, you’ll never find what you’re looking for.”
“And you’ll let me use it?”
“That’s what it’s here for. The agribusiness is evolving. They want more in less time. Without this machine, I can’t compete. I’d be out of business in a year.”
“I can’t wait to try it.”
“Be my guest. I’ve got some reports to write. Call me if you need anything,” he says, and then strolls back to his office.
I line up the twelve specimen jars on the table and then spend the morning getting familiar with all the nuances of the machine. For lunch, I munch on some candy bars to save time, but the afternoon is slipping by so I pick up the pace a bit and start working on the samples, just as Doug had instructed me. After the first run, I realize the amount of data the machine spits out is overwhelming, too much to analyze in one sitting, so instead, I elect to save it all to a flash drive so I can review it later on my laptop in the comfort of my bedroom. Although the machine is indeed fast, it takes the entire afternoon to prepare the samples, run them through, and then download to my drive. I finish the last one just minutes before five o’clock when Doug normally closes shop for the day. He wanders up to me.
“How’s it going,” he says.
“I’m done.”
“Find anything earthshattering?”
“It’s all in here,” I say, showing him the flash drive. “But I need time to analyze the data. I should have something on Monday.”
“Great, have a nice weekend,” he says, and shuts down the machine. I follow him to the front office and he turns off the lights, sets the alarm, and then we exit. The sun is low on the horizon and the security lights have already come on, but it’s not quite dark yet. I stroll to my car, get inside, and place the handgun on the seat, next to my thigh. I drive out the dirt road through endless pastureland with Doug right behind me and then, at the turn, head back to Fargo’s place.
When I arrive, Will and Fargo are eating dinner. I grab a plate and sit down to join them. Since opening the restaurant, our dinners have always been fabulous due to the large amount of leftover food and this meal is no exception. We now have two regular cooks and they relieve me of the responsibility of managing the daily meals. It gives me the time I need to think about my future and prepare my paper for publication.
“How’d it go?” Fargo asks, as I fill up my plate with leftovers.
“Quite well, actually. I have a lot of good data to go through.”
“When will you know?”
“Soon, hopefully by Monday.”
“Any problems with Damon?”
“No, not a thing.”
“Good. Let’s hope it stays that way.”
The table goes quiet for a few minutes.
“Any alligator attacks?” I ask.
“No. The public service ads are working. People are staying away from dangerous areas.”
I turn my attention to Will.
“How’s Juanita?”
“She has a class tonight, or I’d be with her.”
“Anything new with the restaurant?”
“Not really. The hired help is doing a good job and we’re making decent money.”
With nothing else to talk about, we all concentrate on our meals for a few moments and then I break the silence with a question I’ve been dying to ask.
“Fargo, just wondering; have you known Doug long?”
“All my life. Why do you ask?”
“Nothing really... just in case he asks me to dinner or something... not that I’m interested in him.
“Oh yes you are.”
“I am not! I just wanted to know if he was trustworthy.”
“Well, forget it. He’s married... has five kids.”
“I didn’t know.”
“Yeah, doesn’t go anywhere without her. Totally devoted to his family.”
I feel my face getting red with embarrassment.
“Okay, you don’t have to make an issue of it.”
“Who’s making an issue? You brought it up.”
“I was thinking strictly business. You know how it is; sometimes you have to work late... “
“And he might invite you to dinner?”
“For business purposes.”
“Yeah, right. Heard that one before.”
“It happens occasionally.”
“Maybe you want it to happen... ”
“You know, sometimes you can be a total ass,” I say, and then get up from the table, rush to my bedroom, and slam the door. I hear him laugh from the other room, but as I think about it, there was something in Fargo’s tone that was unmistakable. Was it jealousy?
CHAPTER 25
I plug the flash drive into my laptop, pull up the program that analyzes the data, and then select the first sample, the sample from the first alligator attack we encountered, the one where the girl hid in the tree. I click on the button marked “Analyze” and watch the computer plot out the results.
When the program is done, the analysis is amazingly similar to a textbook example of what any researcher would expect to find in typical groundwater. There’s the usual glyphosate, atrazine, chlorpyrifos, metolachlor, and metam-sodium, all in concentrations less than 0.1 mg per liter which is generally considered safe by the EPA.
And finally there’s Farm-eXia. The concentration reads out at 1.0 mg per liter, ten times higher than the rest, but well within the safe limits established by its manufacturer, GWI. I had expected to find 10 to 20 mg per liter, levels the scientific community believed would be destabilizing to aquatic life. But here I am, about to announce to the public that Farm-eXia, the most widely used pesticide in the world, is not as safe as everyone thinks, causes harm to wildlife, and doesn’t break down in the environment as promised, and the evidence was not cooperating. What had gone wrong?
I rack my brain for a logical explanation and then it hits me; the first sample was taken from a pretty remote location, far away from any farmer’s runoff, so if those alligators had ingested any contamination, they had probably got it from somewhere else. Of course, that was it. No need to be concerned. The other samples will surely give me the results I’m searching for.
I select the second sample and run the analysis again, but the outcome is the same. I desperately click on the third sample, the forth sample, and so on, until every one of the samples has been analyzed. Interestingly, they all have roughly the same chemical signature. None are showing the unusually high levels of contamination I expected. What’s going on?
Fear explodes through my body as the whole basis of my dissertation crashes down around me. Could my theories and expectations be wrong? Could I be chasing a ghost? Could Dr. Haas have been right all along? Nausea fills the pit of my stomach and I feel like I need a drink.
I dash into the kitchen, grab the wine bottle and a glass, and then attempt to sneak back to my bedroom.
“Drinking alone?” Will asks.
Oh damn. He would have to notice. I nervously face him and try to downplay the whole incident.
“I’m just a little wound up. I need something to calm me.”
“Something wrong?” he asks.
“It’s just that... well I was so sure Farm-eXia was the culprit. I expected levels to be high, but they’re not. I’ve failed.”
“Stop it. You haven’t failed. There’s a perfectly good explanation out there. Have faith in yourself.”
“I can’t deal with it now. I need a break.”
“Come here, sit with us.
We’ll share the pain. Let’s drink together.”
“It’s okay. I’ll manage.”
“Drinking alone is bad, the first step towards dependency. If we drink together, it’s a proven fact; none of us becomes alcoholics. Get what I mean?”
“Oh Will. You’re such a philosopher.”
“It’s my training. Now, sit with us and pass the wine.”
I join them in the living room and we devour the remaining two bottles, passing the time with multiple games of “Trivial Pursuit” until midnight.
The next morning, I keep myself busy helping out at the restaurant, but the weekend passes depressingly slow. I need to converse with Doug, who would understand my dilemma, and help me find a way out.
...
Monday arrives and I rush over to my job at Semi-Environmental. I explain the situation to Doug and he listens with interest.
“I think you need to restructure your strategy,” he says.
“Restructure my strategy?”
“Sure. You expected to get 10 to 20 mg per liter. But you got 1. Base your conclusions around what you have.”
“But I’ve got nothing!”
“Not true. You’ve witnessed strange behavior among aquatic wildlife: alligators, snakes, fish, and frogs to name a few. You’ve measured the concentration of Farm-eXia in ground water as being 1.0 mg per liter. How do you know that amount is safe?”
“That’s the official number.”
“But is it the right number?”
“You’re saying they fudged the number?”
“Fudged may be too strong a word. Let’s say they misinterpreted the data.”
“You want me to go up against GWI, a multinational corporation, and show the world that 1.0 mg per liter, the number they established, and the EPA accepted, is too high?”
“Yes.”
“That’s crazy.”
“It won’t be the first time corporations have been proved wrong. Look what Nader did to GM when he wrote, “Unsafe at Any Speed.”
“That was before my time.”
“Well, he singled out the Chevy Corvair, which no one could argue against, and shamed an entire industry to make safer cars. Interestingly, they despised doing it at first, but when they realized customers wanted safer cars, and it was good for business, they embraced it wholly, using ‘safety’ as a new selling feature. It can be done.”
