The weather remained dismal: the sky full of dark clouds, and the rain continuing to fall in a steady downpour. The clothes under Josie’s rain poncho and the socks inside her boots were soaked. Water dripped down the sides of her face even with the large hood pulled over her head.
* * *
Josie noticed Diego and Skip in a serious discussion on the other side of the truck that was carrying the explosives. She realized the timing was lousy, but she couldn’t shake the investigation from her thoughts, especially given the information Cassidy had just provided. She decided to ask Skip about the information on Santiago that she had requested.
When Josie reached them, Diego put a finger in the air to halt her. “Sylvia called and said the NRC is on the line and refusing to hang up before I talk to them. I need to take care of business. Anything urgent?”
“No, I just need to talk with Skip,” Josie said.
“Excellent. I’ll be back shortly.” Diego walked quickly toward the main office building and Josie turned to Skip. “Did Diego tell you I need Santiago’s work duties for the days before he disappeared? I sent you an e-mail too.”
Skip sighed and rubbed his eyes. “I’m sorry. I actually pulled that together for you yesterday. I just haven’t had time to call.”
Josie gave a noncommittal shrug. “Discover anything?”
Skip squinted his eyes and looked guilty. “I knew Juan was working on the vitrification project in Unit Seven. Our team has been in the building for almost a year now.”
“Okay.”
“What I forgot, in all the commotion the day you arrived, was that he was working in the pilot unit the week before. Just a short assignment to clean equipment.”
“Why is that important?” she asked.
“The vitrification project is still experimental. We’re working through issues constantly. Our goal is to perfect the science and share it with other scientists.”
Or, sell the science and make a fortune, Josie thought. “What kind of work was he doing?”
Skip squinted at her again. “He was working cleanup with caustic chemicals. If he was careless, if safety precautions weren’t followed and the chemicals reached his skin, he could have ended up with some nasty sores on his arms.”
“I thought they wore the white hazmat suits?” she asked.
“That’s the company rule. In fact, it’s grounds for dismissal if a worker’s caught performing certain tasks without the suits. I’m just saying, maybe he didn’t follow protocol.”
Josie knew the answer but asked to see if Skip would be honest. “Was anyone working with Santiago those days?”
He nodded. “Brent Thyme.”
At least the stories match, she thought. “Have you talked to Brent about his own safety yet?”
“No, he called in sick yesterday and today. I was planning on visiting him tonight after work.” His expression was vacant, as if his brain had reached its capacity to process. “And now this. One week it’s business as usual. The next, the whole world crumbles.”
Josie glanced at her watch and wondered if Brent had arrived at Cowan’s office yet to talk with the CDC. She made a mental note to call Cowan when she was done talking with Skip.
Josie took a leap of faith. “There’s something that’s bothering me about this case that I want to share with you,” she said.
Skip met her eyes, his expression earnest. “Sure.”
“When Juan’s body was found, he was wearing his work boots. From the Feed Plant.”
Skip took a second to respond. “That’s against company procedures. It doesn’t sound like Juan. He was one to follow rules.”
“It’s more than that though. Have you ever had any desire to wear your boots outside of the plant?”
“No.”
“Even if it weren’t against regulations. Would you wear your boots because they’re comfortable? Sturdy? Maybe they’re good for walking outside?”
He curled a lip up. “The boots are made for industrial work. I would not wear them if given the choice.”
“Then why would Santiago wear them two days after he left work? He had a pair of boots in his closet at his apartment that looked much more comfortable. He was wearing a nice pair of jeans and a Western shirt. His cowboy boots would have been the natural choice.”
Skip looked at her and shrugged. “I don’t know. It doesn’t make sense to me either.”
They both turned and watched a DPS car pull into the parking area, splashing water onto one of Mitch’s crew. To the man’s credit, he looked at his pants, already soaked from the rain, but didn’t react.
Josie looked back at Skip, her mind still focused on the details. “What if Santiago came back? What if he realized he’d gotten into something, and he came back that night for help?”
Skip raised his eyebrows.
“Are there antidotes? Or first-aid procedures you follow for chemical burns?” she asked.
“Sure, to an extent. If he truly got into the chemicals I’m afraid he touched, he’d need much more than a first-aid kit.”
“But he might not know that.”
Skip looked skeptical. “He certainly knows basic first aid and safety procedures. He would have washed the chemicals off immediately and treated the skin. He’s been through a number of mandatory safety trainings. If his skin came into contact with those chemicals, he knew to approach a supervisor immediately for treatment.”
“What if he came back the night before he died and stopped at his locker to put on his boots? Would he have access to them?” she asked.
“Yeah. He’d been working here for several years. Had a clean personnel record. Some of the guys have keys so they can have access to the buildings they work in. We keep the buildings locked at all times, so we give them keys so they can get in and out during the day. He’s worked here long enough to have his own set. It’s kind of a badge of honor to have a set of keys. A trust issue.”
Josie nodded, putting together the pieces in her mind.
Skip’s cell phone rang and Josie listened as he spoke to someone about a request that the NRC had for paperwork. He glanced at Josie. “Diego needs help for a minute. Do you mind?”
Josie motioned toward the building. “Of course not. I’ll catch up with you later.”
She watched Skip jog across the parking lot and considered Santiago and the timeline of events. She felt certain his death was connected with the plant, and her hunch was it took place at night. When she and Dillon had come to the plant the security was lax. She assumed the plant had operated for so many years in the isolation of the desert with no security issues that the gaurds had become complacent. And it wouldn’t take long for the wrong person to pick up on the complacency.
Josie walked over to where Otto stood listening to Mitch brief his crew.
“I got a hunch,” she said.
“Do you now?” His surprise turned to a grin as he turned away from the group. “Fill me in.”
“Skip just confirmed that both Santiago and Brent Thyme were working with hazardous chemicals in the pilot unit the week before they both developed lesions on their arms or hands.”
Otto rubbed at the stubble on his chin. “Well, that could change things.”
“We could be looking at chemical burns—not radiation.”
“Maybe the CDC can sort that one out.”
“I’m still stuck on Santiago’s boots. I’d lay money on the fact that he and Thyme got into something they weren’t supposed to, and he came back to make it right. He came back into the plant and put his boots on as a security measure. My hunch is, he left a dead man.”
Otto nodded slowly, thinking it through.
“Remember the first day we came and met Diego, and he took us for a quick tour around Unit Seven?”
He nodded.
“There was a small room on the right side of the building that houses their security tapes. Diego said they don’t monitor them, but they’re digitally archived. I worked with a similar setup last year w
hen the Family Value installed their system.”
“I remember.” He frowned. “You planning on viewing the tapes after we’re done here?”
“I’m going now. Skip just said employees with good personnel records are allowed keys to the various buildings. I want to get to those tapes before someone else does.”
“Diego know you’re planning on viewing the tapes?” Otto asked.
“He’s busy.”
“Skip know?” he asked.
“He’s busy too.”
“And what if one of those two killed Santiago?”
“All the more reason for me to check this out now. Cover for me?”
Otto sighed and pulled his cell phone out of his shirt pocket. He flipped it open. “It’s on with the volume turned up. You call if anything looks out of place. Let me know when you get the video pulled up.”
Josie walked quickly across the parking lot and through the gate into the production area. She walked around the track until she reached the building labeled as Unit Seven, keeping an eye open for Diego and Skip, but she saw no one. The action was currently taking place outside the plant, not inside the buildings, and she felt fairly secure. While the chance was remote, she wanted to at least scan the tapes in case evacuation became inevitable. If Skip or Diego questioned her, which she had no doubt they eventually would, that would be her excuse for operating without their knowledge.
Josie used the master key that Diego had provided her earlier that day, and she let herself into Unit Seven. She quickly scanned the building and determined it was empty, and then proceeded to the security office.
* * *
The room was cool, but not like the arctic temperature in Skip’s office. It was a small space filled with electronic equipment and one computer with a flat, wide-screen monitor. The desk and shelves were organized and clean, but she noticed the faint corroded battery smell that Dillon had commented on when they were digging around the plant.
Josie flipped the overhead light switch on and closed the door behind her. She booted up the computer and the system loaded, but a login screen appeared. She looked around the desktop for a login-password combination, hoping to find something taped to the desk, a card left out in the open. She rifled through three desk drawers and was surprised there wasn’t a paper somewhere that contained the logins. She had found most people, even businesses, were often careless with security issues. She scanned the shelves above her and found a dozen software manuals and computer books. The computer login screen said STATEN SECURITY SYSTEMS, V.4.3. She found the manual with that title, opened the front cover, and hand-printed in pencil on the first page was login: BeaconP1 and password: password1A. She entered the two terms into the system and was in within twenty seconds.
Once inside the program it was a fairly simple search. She entered dates into the appropriate fields, entered the time range she wanted to view, and then had to choose from thirty-five different locations that were notated with a number from one to thirty-five. Going back to the manual she found a pocket in the back of the book stuffed with someone’s notes. A sheet of paper with the words Cheat Sheet written across the top listed the specific location next to the numbers. She found Pilot Lab next to number twenty-nine and within a minute she was watching a clear black-and-white video of the empty lab in the pilot unit. Over the next several minutes she practiced using the various controls to scan at differing speeds, and to pause and stop.
In real time the tape showed a static shot of the laboratory that Santiago and Brent had been working in. Skip had indicated it was the only lab in the plant. The room was approximately six hundred square feet and was brightly lit and filled with metal lab furniture. Lab equipment and paraphernalia were stacked all around the room, which appeared to be less orderly than other areas she had seen in the plant. From the rotating security camera, Josie could see everything but the far corner of the room, opposite the entrance door.
After scanning both Thursday and Friday nights, she was able to determine a set schedule that the security guard used to walk the building. He arrived within ten minutes of his three-hour rotation both nights. Josie was pinning her hopes on Saturday. If Santiago knew the schedule as well, he could have slipped in unnoticed. And so could his murderer.
TWENTY-THREE
Otto looked over the shoulder of one of the workers who was checking the satellite picture on his cell phone and whistled at the band of green that signaled rain across West Texas and northern Mexico; it looked as if the rain would continue for at least another hour or two, and from the looks of the radar there would be increased flooding all across West Texas.
While the rest of the men were piling into the pickup truck, Otto and Mitch each climbed on an ATV that Diego had provided. Otto felt as if twenty years had fallen off his back. Maybe even thirty. He wished Delores could see him riding through the desert on a four-wheeler, flinging mud like a kid again.
Mitch took a wide path around the plant and the pickup followed with Otto in the rear. Otto noticed places on the hillside where the ground was cracking in ten- and twenty-foot horizontal stretches, as if big slabs of earth were ready to separate. It was a frightening sight and sobered him quickly. He wondered what the trencher would do to the already unstable ground. They might cause their own mudslide trying to avert another one.
Beacon’s Quad trencher was already at the location Mitch had designated as the starting point for the explosives. Otto had never seen a trencher in action, and this one was obviously top of the line. Otto figured his tax dollars were paying for it, so it ought to be good.
The machine was red, built similar to a bulldozer, but with a large arm on the back of it that looked like a three-foot-wide, five-foot-long chainsaw blade. It sat atop tracks similar to those used on army tanks, however these were triangular in shape, and there were two separate tracks on either side of the machine. It looked as if it could move through about any terrain. The operator left the machine running and hopped out of the cab to meet up with the group.
Mitch got off his four-wheeler and approached the operator with his hand outstretched and introduced himself as the explosives tech.
“Name’s Bob Smitty.” He was a short, heavyset man with a two-day beard and leathery skin.
Mitch pointed to the tracks. “How’s she do in this kind of mud?”
The operator smiled and laughed as if he’d heard a good dirty joke. “You have to try to get her stuck.” He looked up into the sky, where the rain still came down. “She can run in this for sure.”
* * *
Josie called and gave Otto an update on her progress and said she needed another thirty minutes to scan the video through Saturday night and Sunday. She was convinced she knew who the murderer was, and the tape would prove it. She pressed Play again and set it to fast-forward. On Saturday at 10:40 P.M., just thirty minutes past when the security guard last made his rounds of the pilot unit, she saw unexpected movement and clicked Stop. She took a deep breath, certain she was about ready to break open the case, and clicked the Play button to watch the video at standard speed. A person in a white hazmat suit, wearing black work boots, walked into the room.
“Here we go,” she whispered. She could feel her heart race in her chest as she watched another person dressed in a similar white suit enter the room. The two figures walked across the room to a lab table that held various equipment and glass beakers. One of the figures held a hand up to a glass overhead cabinet and unlocked it, pulling out a white box, what appeared to be a first-aid kit. The container was placed on the counter and the two figures faced one another, apparently discussing something. One of them took a tube of something from the kit and tried to give it to the other person. The two appeared to be arguing. After several minutes, the individual who refused the tube turned and started to walk away. The other person picked up a metal stool, lifted it over his head, and came down with incredible force on top of the other man’s head. Josie knew that she’d just seen the blow that caused the injury to Juan
Santiago’s head.
“Josie?”
Josie gasped and turned to the door. She had no idea there was anyone else in the building. “Brent! What are you doing here? I thought you were home sick.”
He looked just as surprised to see her. “I was. Someone called and told me about the mudslide. Said I needed to get here and help.”
Josie breathed out, trying to calm her nerves. She noticed him staring at the video. She turned back to the computer and clicked the monitor off to lose the picture.
“What are you watching?” he asked. He narrowed his eyes at her.
“Have you talked to Skip or Diego yet?”
He shook his head no.
“Go find your supervisors to see how you can help.”
Pointing at the monitor he asked, “Does this have to do with Santiago?”
“It doesn’t concern you. We’ve got a mess out here.”
Brent held out his wrist, covered with a large bandage. Josie could see the discoloration underneath. It was obvious the blister on his wrist had worsened and was seeping blood.
“I think I deserve to be a part of this conversation. Look at what’s happening to me!”
* * *
Otto stood on the side of the hill with two of Mitch’s crew. His skin felt sticky under the plastic poncho where the rain had trickled in between the gaps and openings to soak his uniform. The smell of wet, sweaty skin was giving him a headache and he was beginning to long for a cool shower. He imagined sitting in his kitchen with a glass of iced tea and a bowl of vanilla ice cream.
They watched as the trencher slowly worked its way down the hill. Two men were laying the blocks of explosive down into the ditch, and Mitch was coming behind them attaching the blasting caps. Another man was attaching the detonation cord. The entire operation was moving smoothly, and Otto had just begun to have hope, when the man standing beside him cursed and pointed to the top of the peak.
“Son of a bitch,” whispered Otto.
They watched in horror as a large chunk on the face of the peak broke free, slamming against the side of the mountain as it tumbled down. The cracking rocks reverberated down the hill. Everyone stopped what they were doing, holding their breath, waiting for the rest of the peak to fall. Amazingly, it did not.
Scratchgravel Road: A Mystery Page 26
