Anyone But You

by K. G. MacGregor

  “I just don’t want anyone hurt, Hoss,” Cathryn said. “That would put us in a difficult position.”

  “Now don’t worry your pretty little head about it, sweet thing. Karl knows where the line is.”

  As she hung up, Woody came in waving the morning update. “Good news, sort of. Turns out there was a mix-up down at the courthouse and our permit for the landfill didn’t get filed. That’s why it looked like we were trying to hide something. It doesn’t get us off the hook for not reporting the other set of numbers on the fish and bird kill, but at least it shows we had permission to bury all them.”

  Stacie had predicted something similar, that someone would miraculously produce a backdated permit to legitimize their wrongdoing.

  Amy looked up from her desk, where she’d spent the last twenty minutes repairing a broken fingernail. “I can’t believe it. After all they put us through yesterday, and it turns out to be some stupid clerical error. Bet you anything they barely mention it on the news because that would be like admitting a mistake.”

  Cathryn’s disbelief was more literal than figurative. Depew had obviously greased a palm or two in the county clerk’s office, someone willing to admit a mistake he never made in return for a few thousand bucks. The new figures were still damning—over three hundred fish and thirty-one birds. That probably wasn’t even half the actual number.

  She passed the document to Amy. “Write up the first draft of today’s press release. I want to be sure we start on time, but I need to go talk to operations.”

  The command centers for operations and security were two adjoining trailers twice the size of hers that were carved up into several private offices. Larry Kratke was handling operations, which consisted of cleanup and repair. His hardhat and filtration mask sat on the corner of his desk, and if the look on his face was any indication, he was as miserable as she about being stuck in Duluth.

  “Larry, I just got off the phone with Hoss. I want to set up a press tour out to the cleanup site, just a few friendlies who can go out and document our progress.”

  He shook his head. “I don’t think Depew will go for that. He’s got things locked down out there.”

  “It’s not his call. Thanks to that debacle”—she wanted to say cluster fuck—“with the landfill, the press doesn’t trust us right now. We need to get them back on our side.”

  “It’s not me you have to convince.” He looked up as Depew stomped into the trailer, cursing at someone on his cell phone. “Speak of the devil.”

  “I’ll talk to him. Think we can be ready by Wednesday?” A positive story about the cleanup could offset the impact of Stacie’s community rally.

  “I’ll see what I can do. Just get the Dark Lord to sign off on it.” His voice held so much misery that she felt lucky to have a separate tiny trailer, even if she had to share it.

  Since she already had Hoss’s blessing for a press tour, she wasn’t going to suck up to Depew. The moment he ended his call she stepped into his doorway, drawing power from the fact that she was standing while he was now seated at his desk. “We’re doing a press tour out to the cleanup site on Wednesday. I already cleared it with Hoss.”

  “You did, did you? And what if I don’t think that’s a good idea?”

  “You may not have noticed on your end of things, but we took a beating yesterday in the press. It’s my job to fix it and I need a press tour on Wednesday because there’s supposed to be some big protest rally at the park and I want to steal their thunder.”

  He looked at her through squinting eyes and then laughed. “You can have your little press party, missy. I’ll make sure we’re ready for company. But I wouldn’t worry too much about that protest rally. Those ass-clowns might not be able to make it.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Just something I heard from a little birdie down at the jail.” He leaned back and propped his feet on his desk. “Can’t have people flaunting occupancy codes, now can we?”

  She had no idea what he meant by his cryptic remark, but it sounded like more harassment. Her job was hard enough without having to clean up after his boorish bullying. Stacie was absolutely right that he—

  Stacie! Was Depew saying she and her friends had been arrested?

  Cathryn walked back into the trailer to find Amy leaning provocatively across Woody’s desk. “Is that press release finished?” she snapped.

  “Give me a few more minutes,” Amy said, lunging back toward her desk.

  She retrieved her cell phone from her purse and sent a text to Stacie through SappHere. “R u okay?”

  When there was no response after an hour, she considered two possibilities—either Stacie was no longer speaking to her or she was in fact in jail. Or maybe she was just out of pocket planning her big rally.

  “Cathryn?” Woody was standing at the window looking out. “I was just saying the press is ready. You said something earlier about wanting to start on time.”

  The crowd was noticeably smaller today, only six reporters and no TV cameras. She kicked off her statement with a self-deprecating apology for the fiasco on the wildlife kill and followed with a solemn update on the revised numbers. “We truly regret these losses, and Nations Oil will spare no expense to return this beautiful lake to its prior state. That’s all I have today. I’ll take your questions.”

  She started off with Colleen Murray, who was mild-mannered and asked smart questions but without an obvious agenda. Colleen would definitely get an invitation for the press tour.

  “The drone video given to the press yesterday seemed to show a wide area of impact for fish and birds. Can you speculate on how that happened given that you’ve reported the spill as one hundred percent contained in a small area of the lake?”

  “I’ve been told the marsh area near the shoreline is a nesting area, and that these creatures likely ingested oil toxins soon after the spill before we even knew it was there. Obviously it took several days to take effect, and that’s why we saw a sudden mass phenomenon.”

  “But you’re confident the spill is in fact contained.”

  That was exactly the type of question that had gotten her in trouble the day before, and after hearing Stacie’s report on the water and sediment samples, Cathryn wasn’t confident of anything. “We got the booms in place immediately and they’re specially designed to limit the flow of water. I’m confident we’ve seen the worst of it.”

  “Mark Freeman, News Tribune.” Another professional she’d invite. “There have been reports that, in the wake of this environmental disaster, Nations Oil is aggressively—”

  “For the record, this was only a minor to moderate spill relative to others, such as Deep Horizon and Talmadge Creek.” She’d let the young college reporter get away with calling it an environmental disaster last time but it wasn’t tenable to allow all of them to frame the issue with such inflammatory language. “It was quickly contained, and the cleanup and restoration is nearly complete, so I take issue with your characterization of this incident as an environmental disaster.”

  “I suspect the fish and birds would disagree,” he said, prompting a round of snide chuckles from the others. “There are reports that Nations Oil is aggressively purchasing the lakefront properties at Lake Bunyan.”

  It was curious that Ethan Anders wasn’t in attendance. Until today he’d been at every briefing.

  “…If all the properties in the affected area come under the ownership of your company, can the residents of Bunyan County continue to expect a timely resolution to this spill, or will it lose urgency?”

  “The offers of purchase have been extended in order to alleviate concerns about how the spill will affect market values. It will not impact our timetable or our sense of obligation to restore the lake to its prior state.” Though it was a fair assumption if they were able to acquire all the properties, there would be no reason to restore or restock, since access to the lake would become privately controlled. No need to share that.

  Someon
e else was missing—Jennifer Kilpatrick, CLEAN’s blogger, and it lent an uneasy credence to Depew’s sinister claim. If Anders and Kilpatrick were locked up, then so was Stacie.

  * * *

  All six of the women were crammed into a small cell, and Stacie assumed the same for the men in their group. Though her watch had been confiscated, her stomach told her it was early afternoon. Hunger was the least of her worries, since her eye was swollen shut from where they’d rammed her into the door.

  Alex, who had been cut by flying glass, slumped against the wall to the floor. “How much longer do you think they’ll keep us here?”

  “We should get out soon,” Jenn said, “because I doubt they plan on feeding us. The longest I’ve ever been held without food was twelve hours, and that was overnight because they couldn’t find a magistrate.”

  Stacie wondered if in fact they were going to be arraigned. Matt was probably negotiating for their release without charges, and the sheriff was dragging his feet so they could pick through the contents of their laptops and smartphones.

  The drugs, however, were a problem. Possession of more than an ounce was a felony, and it was possible the sheriff wanted someone to claim them before he’d let anyone go. That wouldn’t happen, of course, because they didn’t belong to anyone in the house. Part of the reason they were planted in the kitchen instead of one of the bedrooms was so they could accuse everyone.

  A female deputy, stout and fair-skinned, opened their cell door. Stacie recognized her as the one she’d encountered the morning she left the lake, and lowered her face to keep from being recognized. “You’re all free to go. Sign for your belongings on the way out.”

  When the others filed out, Jenn stiffly addressed the guard, Officer Gustafson. “Did you guys finally figure out you had the wrong house?”

  Gustafson laughed and shook her head. “They don’t tell me anything, but it must have been something like that because they aren’t charging anybody with anything. Just promise you won’t sue us for false arrest.”

  Assault and battery was more like it.

  Their personal effects had been saved in individual envelopes and their electronics were displayed in the two bins she’d seen on the porch. All of the cell phones had been crushed, from the looks of it with heavy-duty pliers, and the laptops and tablet computers were in pieces.

  Marty was brought out last from a separate cell. His upper lip was split and swollen from the first blow, but he was otherwise unharmed. Apparently he’d learned to control himself.

  As they were huddled near the door, Matt said, “The officer who transported your electronics sends his apologies. He claims he swerved to miss a deer and the crates accidentally spilled, miraculously breaking every single device in exactly the same way.”

  They were used to this sort of harassment. Twenty thousand dollars’ worth of personal electronics ruined and no one held to account.

  “You got his statement, right? We’ll wait a couple of days and submit a claim to their insurance company.”

  “Of course we will, but let’s walk out the door first. I don’t want them to come up with another reason to detain you.”

  “What about the drugs?”

  “I demanded they take urine samples from all of you, but they said they didn’t have the resources to authenticate the results.” Drug testing was a risky strategy, since marijuana traces stayed in the system up to a month. Even Jenn could have been caught in that trap, and probably Marty too. Fortunately, the sheriff was worried about looking foolish again and hedged.

  “I then asked to examine the drugs, and lo and behold, they never made it to the station. So there won’t be any drug charges.”

  “Color me shocked,” she deadpanned.

  Outside Stacie opened her wallet and passed out a handful of bills. “You guys go get something to eat. We’ll ride with Matt out to the farmhouse and check things out. Then we’ll come back and pick you up.”

  As soon as they reached Matt’s car, Jenn whirled on Marty and got in his face. “I can’t believe you went off on the cops like that. If he hadn’t hit you, I would have.”

  “I know,” he answered sheepishly. “I just got pissed off because he kept shoving me every step like I didn’t know how to walk. Trust me, I was a very good boy after that, and I’ll never do it again.”

  She hugged him tenderly. “Good. I wouldn’t really have hit you. I just said that because I was mad.”

  “Which only proves how easy it is to lose our temper,” Stacie said. “Matt, did you find out what this was all about? What was in the warrant?”

  He rolled his eyes dramatically. “Oh, it was a beauty. They were looking for guns, knives, explosives, chemicals, flammables, evidence of espionage…basically your run-of-the-mill terrorist tool kit. That’s how they justified the show of force. I should warn you, the house is a wreck.”

  That proved to be an understatement. The SWAT team had ransacked every room, dumping the contents of drawers, cabinets and closets, and stripping all the linens. Mattresses and seat cushions were slit, though Stacie found her phone exactly where she left it.

  In the kitchen, all of their food—rice, beans, even canned goods—had been emptied into the sink and doused with dishwashing soap.

  “Bastards,” Jenn hissed.

  Matt grimaced. “Oh, and I have a little more bad news. The fire marshal says you can’t have this many people renting one house unless it has a hotel license. Personally, I think he made that up. He set the limit at eight and he wants smoke detectors and fire extinguishers installed today.”

  Marty raised his hand. “I’m on it.”

  “We’ll have to move five of our people in with some of the locals. I can look for another rental if you want, but first I have to get a new laptop.”

  “Use the credit card,” Stacie said. “And take the others with you so they can replace their stuff too. I’ll cover it until the insurance company settles. I need to call in some favors, so I’m going to check in to the Weller Regent downtown and work the phones. Let me know when you’re back up and running.”

  “One other thing,” Matt said as Jenn and Marty walked to their car. “They called me again about Dad’s cabin. I’m telling you, they’re offering him a ridiculous amount of money, about three times what it’s worth. He’d be stupid not to take it, but we can drag our feet a little while longer and let your guys finish up.”

  That made Stacie’s mission to get another set of water samples more urgent.

  After he left, she walked through the house narrating a video of the destruction. CLEAN’s big donors would be outraged and would use their money and connections to get her some attention from the legislature. What she really needed was someone she could trust inside the EPA and local law enforcement, but Nations Oil’s tentacles ran deep.

  Chapter Eight

  Before driving into the parking garage of the Weller Regent, Cathryn pulled to the curb and waited to make sure she wasn’t followed. A hotel tryst wasn’t exactly at the top of her critical list tonight but she needed to see for herself that Stacie was all right.

  She’d flipped around on all the TV channels to see if anyone was reporting an early morning police raid, but there hadn’t been a peep. It was hard to believe something like what Depew had implied could happen under the radar, but the absence of CLEAN’s reporters suggested otherwise.

  All day she’d worried about Stacie, until finally she got a reply to her text message—an invitation to meet here at the hotel—and it had come as a huge relief. It was still a mystery why Stacie had taken so long to answer, and Cathryn rapped gently on the door of her hotel room, half expecting to be treated with indifference.

  “Oh, my God! What happened to you?” Stacie’s left eye was swollen and dark blue.

  “Head, meet door.”

  She gently took Stacie’s face in her hands, tipping it toward the light to get a better look. For a fleeting moment she saw her mother, battered and ashamed, and it filled her with rage. “Who
did this?”

  “You haven’t heard? Depew’s friends paid us a visit this morning, and they’re definitely working with the sheriff’s department and the county code enforcer. Apparently having too many people sleep under the same roof calls for a SWAT team. So my day started off with a bang, followed by a boot in my back and a couple of guns in my face.” She pointed to her eye. “Oh, and then I tripped on my way out the door in handcuffs.”

  Though Cathryn couldn’t bring herself to believe Hoss had signed off on something so brutal, it was clear Depew believed he had the authority to turn his goons loose on whomever he pleased. It was one thing to harass protestors by laying obstacles in their path or even with nuisance citations, but quite another to beat them up.

  “If I find out Depew’s behind this, I’ll make sure my people rein him in. This isn’t who we are. You have to believe that.” She gently brushed Stacie’s cheek. “You should put ice on this. Have you seen a doctor?”

  “It’s just a black eye. Ice might have helped at first but I was locked up for eight hours and couldn’t get to my fridge.”

  She listened in horror as Stacie described the day’s events. A week ago she might have dismissed the allegations against Depew as paranoia, but her general impression of him left little doubt he was capable of both malice and violence. He danced on the edge of lawlessness without stepping over, or at least without leaving an incriminating trail. Stopping him would be no easy task, especially if Nations Oil executives got the results they wanted while holding on to credible deniability. That’s what dirty work was.

  Climbing into bed with Stacie hadn’t been on her agenda tonight but there was no place else to sit. The chairs and table were stacked with computer equipment and the boxes they came in. A new computer to replace one that was destroyed, Stacie explained. It certainly wasn’t paranoia when it actually happened.