by Belle Ami
Adelia, on the other hand, was relieved that her worst fears about Lucas’s reaction had been overcome. She was relishing her time at the ranch and the last weeks before she became a bride and wife. She spoke daily with Miles and Karolin. It was amazing how quickly these two people had become essential to her life. She missed Miles intensely. Sometimes she woke at night with her body aroused, craving him inside of her. Her own hands were a poor substitute for the sexual satisfaction that Miles so artfully supplied. Other nights, she and Miles had phone sex, masturbating and talking dirty until they brought each other to orgasm. Never had sex been so consummate in her life, and she marveled at what love and a talented partner had elicited from her.
Her conversations with Karolin were detailed explanations of preparations for the wedding and honeymoon, which Karolin rattled off as funny tidbits and anecdotes of struggles to get exactly what she wanted from vainglorious divas. Together they giggled with excitement as the day of the wedding came ever closer.
The time passed so quickly, what with riding the horses and shopping for the honeymoon, that one day she awoke and realized there were only two more days left before she left for New Hope. She had procrastinated and avoided the painful task of sorting through Lars’s and Faye’s papers long enough. Elizabeth, her father’s secretary, had collated what was loose into file folders, her neat, printed tabs summarizing their contents. She had boxed up or filed what was dated or resolved; cancelled pending appointments, speaking engagements, and scientific conferences; notified boards of directors; and organized Lars’s permanent disarray so Adelia could more easily make her way through it. The one thing she had left untouched was Lars’s computer, which lay silent on his desk, waiting for someone to wake it from hibernation.
Entering Lars’s office was like entering a time capsule. Photographs lined the walls and stood on the credenza behind the desk. There were photos taken with presidents and assorted leaders of other nations, including Queen Elizabeth and Prince Charles, who was a vociferous advocate of environmental preservation. However, the photos that Lars had looked at every day were prominently displayed on his desk, where he would be inclined to gaze when he was working at his computer. One was of a very young Faye and Lars gazing rhapsodically into each other’s eyes with their hands entwined. It had been taken at McMurdo Station in Antarctica at the beginning of their love affair. The second photo was of Lars and Faye laughing hysterically as a baby Adelia hugged a plush Adélie toy penguin while biting its nose. The last was a photo of Lars and Faye proudly smiling with their arms about Adelia, in cap and gown, taken the day of her graduation from Cornell University.
As Adelia entered the inner sanctum of her father’s office, her eyes fell on the photos of happy Lindstrom family moments. She picked up the photo of her graduation and stared sadly at it for a minute before returning it carefully to its place on the desk. She sat in her father’s swivel chair, which had been a point of contention when they moved into the newly remodeled house at San Ynez. Faye had ordered a new chair for his desk; the old chair, with its worn, burnished leather, had been relegated to storage. Lars had been inconsolable over the loss of the old chair and complained bitterly until the castaway was returned to its place of honor behind his desk. Nowhere did Adelia feel Lars’s presence more than behind the mahogany desk, in that chair. As a child, she had often barged into his office and been welcomed into his arms and lap as he sat working. He was always happy for an interruption by his little girl, regardless of what important project he was working on.
Now, with trembling fingers, she opened the laptop, pressed the on button, and listened as it booted up before she inserted the secret password. First, she opened his calendar and printed out a copy of all of his engagements and appointments for the year. Next, she opened the document files, ran through all of the letters that had been completed in the last two weeks of his life, and printed them out, too. Lastly, she opened two academic papers he had been working on. One was for publication in a scientific journal, and the other was an unfinished speech he was to deliver in January at International Green Week in Berlin. She printed the documents and then shut down the computer and gathered everything.
Carrying it all into the kitchen, she poured herself a mug of coffee. Then she pulled up a chair at the kitchen table and spread everything out before her. Organizing the documents by date, she began to create a timeline of everything Lars was working on in the weeks before the crash. The letters were mostly to colleagues and associates complaining about the continued fallout from “Climategate” and the shadow it had cast on all of the scientists investigating what was surely the single most important issue facing humankind.
Adelia was well aware of the scandal that had rocked the climate-change community. Lars had nearly exploded when he had read the e-mails released by a whistle-blower who had compromised the computers at the Climatic Research Unit of the University of East Anglia in the United Kingdom. These scientists, people whom Lars knew and trusted, had been given the public’s trust and were responsible for gathering, interpreting, and disseminating the measurements of temperature and paleoclimatology—the study of climatic changes of the earth and its history imprinted in tree rings, ice sheets, microfossils, coral, rocks, shells, and sediments. The data from around the planet had been skewed to fit the parameters of their thesis that global warming had reached an unprecedented scale due to humans’ use and release of greenhouse gases, in particular carbon dioxide, and that a ruinous warming of the planet was underway. What should have been a meticulous scientific investigation made under the most stringent of scientific controls became a self-preserving and self-fulfilling prophecy made by a group of corrupt scientists. Once revealed, their plots spurred condemnation from around the world, which threatened to limit serious debate and to hamper scientific investigation of changes in the climate. It was easily the most divisive moment in scientific history.
Adelia continued to read, while sipping her coffee. She finished the last letter, sighing. She had been away at Cornell when Climategate hit the fan. She hadn’t been privy to the stress and disappointment that Lars and Faye must have experienced. They had kept her in the dark about the machinations of the secret cabal of climate scientists. For her father, it must have been devastating to see a portion of his life’s work come under attack. She picked up the speech that Lars had been writing for his presentation at Green Week and began to read:
Friends and colleagues, I have come before you today to share with you some of my reservations and thoughts about the future direction of the green movement and, in particular, the growing dissension between environmentalists and conservationists. For years, I have been a stalwart environmentalist, and many of my and my wife’s charitable donations have been allocated to environmental organizations, such as the Sierra Club, Greenpeace, and dozens of others dedicated to preserving nature’s bounty. Some of these very organizations, and many of you, will be highly critical of what I am about to say today. You will consider me a traitor to the movement that I have nurtured and supported for my entire professional career. Regardless of the vilification that will be flung in my direction, I come to you as a seeker of truth, scientific truth, the only truth I have spent my life pursuing.
The foundations of that truth began to crumble in 2009 when “Climategate” was revealed. Changes in our climate, whether caused by humanity or not, should have been truthfully and openly discussed and, through the scientific method, investigated. Instead, trusted scientists closed the door on discussion and the truth. They were, through their own e-mails, found to be in cahoots with one another on an international scale, dishonestly and intentionally deceiving the public and putting out false findings so that millions of dollars of research grants and international funding would continue to flow into the coffers of the “industry” of global warming. This deceit was the worst ever propagated in the history of science.
To say I was disillusioned would be putting it mildly. It wa
s a devastating occurrence for me, personally, and for all of us who have spent our lives committed to preserving our planet. However, it did cause me to question nearly every assumption I had been so committed to. Must we save our planet by sacrificing humankind? Certainly, humans are part of nature and an integral part of this planet and its future. Can we not manage our resources so that places like Antarctica, Alaska, the North Pole, and the Amazon can continue to flourish even as we ourselves continue to derive energy, food, and shelter from our planet? The answer is yes. The world’s governments need to become better stewards of our land and environment so succeeding generations will inherit a living planet, not a dying one.
At the same time, we need to be realistic and cease our blind worship of nature and the notion that the planet is sacred and, as such, should be untouched by humans and our filthy, polluting ways. We need to coexist with nature. The human race is not some evil intruder on this planet; we are a natural phenomenon of this planet. The job of conservationists is to carefully mine our resources, whether they be forests, streams, oceans, or the minerals of the earth, and to take what we need from nature’s abundance and, through technology, innovation, and strict guidelines, leave it better and cleaner than it was before. We must find the means to replenish what we consume.
That is why I have come before you today: to put you on notice that I intend to focus my efforts and my energy on working with conservationists in the stewardship of our planet and to find better ways to utilize nature’s bounty safely and, through careful management, to conserve it. I do this with mixed emotions. I know that my endorsement and the shift in my efforts will significantly imperil the most diehard defenders of our planet. I will be arming the enemy so to speak, but in all good consciousness, I cannot and will not continue to support what I believe to be a failed policy built on deceit and unsubstantiated science. We must rethink our strategies going forward and redirect our efforts based on unbiased research and investigation.
There is another threat which poses just as great a risk to our guardianship of the planet as falsified scientific research, and that is the explosive growth of companies that are profiting on the demand for solutions to our energy needs. These companies without proper vetting or financially sound business plans pose a real threat to the future of our planet. Industrialized and third world nations are clamoring to find answers to their energy needs that will not include dependency on fossil fuels. This desperate need can only give rise to, what can only be called, criminal elements. The combating of these criminal elements while still pursuing solutions to our energy demands, needs to become our focus. In a sense, we need to police our own backyard with our substantial expertise. I plan to shift my focus to weeding out and exposing fraudulent businesses and sciences. Already, I have compiled a list of suspect companies, and organizations that practice skewed science. I am investigating these entities, and if they match my criteria for bad science, I plan to expose them in the coming months and years.
In closing, I hope you will join me and reach across the aisle, so to speak, whereby we may work together to preserve our planet for future generations. I consider this a sacred trust, and my own personal crusade.
Adelia could feel her heartbeat and pulse accelerating as she read the rough draft of her father’s speech. He had, in effect, switched allegiance. If word of his intentions had leaked out, perhaps even by his own admissions, would some people have wished to silence him?
Adelia rubbed her temples as she tried to put into perspective what she had just read. The more she contemplated Lars’s words and the seriousness of his intent to remove his support and, in so doing, disparage the movement, the surer she became that the crash wasn’t an accident. And, what about the innuendos of corruption, did he have a personal knowledge of criminal activity? Someone had wanted to silence Lars. In whom had he confided?
She ran back to his office and opened his desk, rummaging until she found his cell phone.
“Damn, it’s dead!” Speaking aloud to herself, she swiveled in the chair, scanning the room for the charger. She spied it in a corner on an end table, behind her father’s globe. She plugged it in and pressed the on button, waiting impatiently for the phone to boot up. It felt like forever until she was able to access the phone’s history of calls and texts.
She quickly scanned the list of calls made and received just before the accident, hoping for a name or a number to trigger her memory or provide a clue. Many of the calls were to overseas and out-of-state numbers. She booted up her father’s computer again, typing in the password that only he, Faye, and she knew, and then plugged the phone into the computer and downloaded Lars’s contact list, e-mails, and the list of recent phone calls, which she then printed. She grabbed a file folder; printed “Lindstrom Murder Investigation” on the tab; placed the contact list, call lists, and e-mails in it; and returned to the kitchen. She picked up her cell phone, dialed Detective Weiss, and waited for him to pick up.
“Detective Weiss, can I help you?”
“Detective Weiss, this is Adelia Lindstrom. I know this is rather last minute, but I need to speak with you. Actually, it would be better if I saw you. Can you meet me somewhere, a Starbucks or somewhere of your choice? But it has to be today.”
“Uh, yeah, sure. What’s this all about, Adelia?”
“I don’t want to talk about it on the phone. I need to speak face-to-face with you.”
“OK, how about the Starbucks on State and Victoria Streets in an hour?”
“Great! Thank you! I’ll see you in an hour.”
Chapter 14
When Adelia walked through the door of Starbucks, Detective Weiss felt his pulse quicken. The girl he had observed the day of her parents’ funeral had changed. In the short time since he’d seen her, she had transformed into a woman. She was more beautiful than ever and more self-assured. He hoped she didn’t notice the lovesick look that he felt certain was plastered on his face.
She smiled when she approached, taking his offered hand. “Detective Weiss, I really appreciate your taking the time to meet with me on a moment’s notice.” The warmth in David’s eyes filled Adelia with the strangest sense of comfort. Instinctively, she trusted him.
“It’s good to see you, Adelia. I’ve wondered how you’ve been since the funeral. You look well.” His eyes drifted to the hand that he continued to hold and locked on the engagement ring. Suddenly, he felt claustrophobic.
“Thank you. A lot has happened since then.” She followed his gaze to her ring. “I’m engaged. In fact, my wedding is in a week. It was very sudden, but that’s how it was for my mother and father. My fiancé, Miles Bremen, lives on the East Coast, so I’ll be doing a lot of commuting back and forth in the future. Why don’t we sit down?”
“Sure. Let me get us some coffee first. What can I get you?”
“Large latte, thanks!”
“Why don’t you get us a table? I’ll be right back.” Detective Weiss couldn’t explain why the news of Adelia’s engagement affected him so much. He didn’t really know her—they certainly lived in very different worlds—but no matter how he tried to tell himself how unsuitable the girl was, all he wanted to do was take her in his arms and feel her heart beat against his. Now he knew that would never be, and the pain of that knowledge left him desolate. He was thankful for the minutes he had to compose himself as he ordered their coffees.
“Here you go.” He handed her the latte. “Why don’t you tell me why we needed to meet so suddenly?”
Adelia opened her briefcase, pulled out some pages, and placed them on the table for Detective Weiss to read. “Please, David—can I call you David?”
Hearing his name on her lips only increased his feelings of loss. “Sure, Adelia, call me David.”
“David, what you’re looking at is a rough draft of a speech my father was writing. He intended to deliver it at Green Week in Berlin in January. Green Week is the largest gath
ering of scientists, activists, governments, and their officials, who meet once a year to discuss issues that affect our planet and its survival. My father was to be a keynote speaker. This is explosive material. If anyone knew about what my father was going to say…I can’t even imagine what the repercussions would be. Stopping my father from making this speech…” she shook her head with dread, “from switching his allegiance…I just know this could be a motive for murder.”
Without saying a word, David looked from Adelia’s worried blue eyes to the paper in front of him and began to read. Adelia sat quietly studying his face as he read. When he finished, he said, “I get that your father was switching his allegiance, but to premeditate his murder for that reason seems like a mighty big stretch. Explain why you think this speech is so significant and why someone would be willing to kill to stop it.”
“David, the green movement is an industry, a multibillion-dollar industry. A huge amount of money is invested in it—not only funding for scientists, universities, and research grants, but new technology and companies attract a lot of development money in the form of venture capital from investors. Many of these companies are listed on stock exchanges around the world. Beyond that are the countries that are participating; the United States is a huge player. My God, my fiancé’s whole business is investing in green companies and their technologies. Many of those companies are subsidized by our government.”
“Your fiancé is involved in this?”
“Well, yes, that’s part of how we met. But what I want you to understand is that my father was a seminal player. He sat on several corporate boards. He spoke around the world and wrote for all of the scientific journals. He was one of the founders of the movement, and he wielded significant power. The loss of his support could shake the very foundation of the movement. This movement is like a religion. Who knows what his renouncement could ignite? A thorough cleansing of the greenhouse could spell the demise of a lot of companies and investors. A lot of people stood to lose a lot of money. Overnight friends and colleagues would have become enemies.”
