Mother Nature

by Sarah Andrews

  “Um, what about Fresno?”

  “Fresno has tired of supporting a husband who cannot stay employed. Who’s your sidekick?”

  We both looked toward the truck. Duke arched an eyebrow, presuming, I suppose, that we were admiring him. “God’s gift to hyenas,” I answered. “Say, when did Rauch give you the assignment to rewrite that Work Plan?”

  “Friday morning. Why?”

  I thought about telling him he’d been set up so that the client could look like they were trying when they weren’t, but decided that on some level, he must already know. Instead, I offered to distract him. “No reason. Have time for a little vigilante work before you run off?”

  The corners of Pat’s mouth curled into a dreamy smile. “Just let me get a bottle of antifreeze,” he answered, flicking the rain off his hair, gently so as not to mess it up. “A man could catch a chill in weather like this.”

  * * *

  TWENTY MINUTES LATER, I stood in the drifting rain myself, talking to Pat through the open truck window as I tried to focus the binoculars on the old Ferris place. I could hear the neck of his wine bottle clink against his stem glass as he refilled it. “I think Janet found a tank out there,” I said.

  “Which would kill the construction loan,” Pat answered merrily. The cabernet sauvignon he had chosen had warmed him quickly, and his spirits seemed to be rising. Timothy Swege was enjoying the experience, too, crammed in between the big man and the far door of the cab with a glass of his own.

  “So she put the tank evidence in the first draft of her report, and Rauch got mad and fired her. Why?”

  “Well … he might have thought her evidence shaky, but knowing Rauch, he cared not for facts. More likely he stood to lose the client if she sank the loan. And we all know how far the lad will go to please a client.”

  “Do you think he cares that much about this client? I thought you said there wasn’t much money in environmental assessments.”

  “No dollar is too small for our Freddie Rauch.”

  Timmy took a long slurp from his glass. “Got any more of this, man?”

  “So where’s this lovely tank of yours?” Pat asked, daintily crooking a pinkie as he raised his glass once more to his lips. “By the house, where the children are chasing the wee doggie with sticks? Or mayhaps by the barn, where three old cars sit stripped of their wheels on cinder blocks, blithely dripping crankcase oil into the ground.”

  Timmy said, “Good eyes, Ryan.”

  “I was a sharpshooter in the service.”

  I lowered the binoculars for a moment and tried to envision Pat Ryan set to plinking men in black pajamas just because his eyes were unusually good. Maybe that was why he seemed to have a little bit of trouble dressing up nicely every day and trying to act just like the rest of us. “Think this place might flood soon?” I asked, unconsciously changing the subject to matters of the weather.

  “Could be. It floods most years, and the ground’s saturated now.”

  Timmy said, “Yeah, the ants have come inside for the winter. They found a jar of honey I left out on the counter. The lid was on, but just a wee bit of the golden sticky had dripped down the side,” he said, starting to mimic Pat’s language. “The wall from the dishwasher over to the sink was black with the little blighters. Granny ’bout roasted my nuts.”

  “So how high does this thing rise?” I asked.

  Duke pointed out the window toward the span and causeways where Occidental Road crossed the Laguna. “See that bridge? Two years ago you couldn’t even see the railings. Just the top of the stop sign down at the other end.”

  “Give me Wyoming any day,” I muttered, resting the binoculars on the roof of the truck to steady them. “Duke, you ever ride out here with Janet?”

  He shrugged. That meant the answer was no. “She said the Laguna was like this sacred place, and we ought to like leave it in peace.”

  “I did hear she liked wetlands.”

  Pat said, “She did a special project on the ecological value of riparian corridors while she was at Sonoma State. I think this was her study area.”

  I said, “I can see how she might fall in love with it.”

  “I met her environmental studies professor once,” Pat continued. “He came to take her to lunch. He seemed genuinely fond of her, in a fatherly sort of way.”

  Janet had been in need of good paternal influence, and she loved nature. Put these ingredients together in the form of a good teacher, and you had the best kind of devotion. “Duke,” I asked, “did she ever pick your brains about the Miwok Mills Water District?”

  “Oh yeah, all the time. Wanted to know who was for it and against it, that kind of stuff.”

  “What exactly is going on?”

  “There’s a bunch of freaks call themselves the Citizens against Poison petitioning to take the water district away from the county, run it themselves.”

  “Why?”

  “Something about teeth.”

  Pat said, “The rallying cry is their claim that the county wants to fluoridate the water. You know the old saw. ’Twill poison us all, our children, or old and infirm. Just think of the poor souls on the end of the line, they’ll get a concentrated dose!”

  “Yeah, that stuff,” said Timmy, pulling down another gulp.

  “That’s nonsense,” I said. “If they don’t want it, they don’t want it, but fluorine’s dissolved in the water, not suspended; its concentration doesn’t increase at the end of the line.”

  Pat chuckled. “You understand basic chemistry, and I understand basic chemistry, but our average paranoid citizen was passing notes that day in school.”

  “You say that’s the rallying cry. What’s the real reason they want to privatize the district?”

  Duke had the answer for that one. “Granny says they’re a bunch of ungodly abortionists who moved here to blow dope, and now they want to control the water hookups to keep anyone else from moving in.”

  Pat said, “The old I’ve got mine, now the rest of you get lost prejudice. But if they take over the district, they still have to administer chlorine to kill the bugs in the water.”

  “And that’s a problem?”

  “Sure. If they put the chlorine in too soon, they form a whole host of trihalomethanes.”

  Timmy belched. “What?”

  “Chloroform. Bromoform. Dichlorobromomethane. Dibromochloromethane. A nasty little stew. You wouldn’t want to drink that, laddie.”

  “Just so,” said Timmy the Duke. “Gimme more of that wine, bro. I got some stew to wash out of my system.”

  Pat took a swig. “Myself, I may not warm to engineers as a class, particularly not the unadventuresome sort that go to work for county governments, but at least they know better than to plug my drinking water full of bromoform.”

  I said, “So tell me, Duke, who is behind the water district uprising?”

  Timmy shrugged again. This time, I presumed, because he didn’t know the answer.

  Pat intervened. “We shall divine the answer. Where does this cabal of sorcerers meet?”

  “Bob Weatherall’s office there in the Mills.”

  “Who’s that?” Pat asked.

  “Just this guy.”

  “He own a lumber company out by the river?” I asked.

  “Sort of. ‘Weatherall’s Weathers-All.’ Real lame. It got taken over years ago by some guys from out of town.”

  “He own land locally?” Pat asked.

  Duke shrugged. “Plenty. Why?”

  To me, Pat said, “That’s who’s behind it, then.”

  I stared into the cab at Pat. “How’d you think to ask where they meet?”

  Pat chuckled merrily. “This water district stuff came down many times when I was working for the Water Board. The righteous citizens intent on good deeds, justice, and self-regulation storm the Bastille of government. But who’s back there whipping the fanatics into a lather? Why, someone with bucks to hire the lawyer and a vested interest to go with it, just biding their
time ’til the hotheads win the day and then piss their neighbors off by mismanaging the project. Then huzzah, the next time they get together to elect themselves some managers, the developers start looking pretty good to them, and wham, they vote in all sorts of expansion. Nay, ’twas easy to divine, fair Emily; when you see the sheep line up, just look behind them to see who’s driving the flock.”

  * * *

  THE WIND PICKED up, binding my dampened hair against my face. I squinted into the misting rain, willing my eyes to see what Janet had seen. I wished I could rise up and hover like a bird.

  Hovering. Like Janet’s black-shouldered kite. Yes, a bird could see everything, peer right down onto the patterns of the land, right into everyone’s backyard and bad housekeeping. It was part of what had drawn me to take flying lessons during the fat years before Blackfeet Oil had gone under. How I wished I had gotten that license, and could rent a small airplane right now and hover just like that lucky bird. I could get a camera and document what I saw, and—

  Suddenly I knew what Janet had done, knew how she had gained her bird’s-eye view of that property. Like any geologist worth her salt, she had used air photographs, those marvelous hawk’s-eye views straight down into the messy backyard of every citizen. “Pat! Who has air photographs of this area?”

  “Current or historical?”

  “Both.”

  “County Assessor’s Office.”

  I jumped back into the truck.

  I dropped Duke off at the bicycle shop and made a beeline to the Wagon Trail Motel. There I dug through the mess and picked up Janet’s stereo viewer, a sort of binocular magnifying glass that would permit me to look at pairs of air photographs and see them in all the glory of three dimensions. Before I left the room, I dialed Jaki’s number at her new job and told her where I was going, who was with me, and what kind of shape he was in. The man needed help, and I had too much going on to provide it for him.

  As I pulled away from the parking lot, the motel manager hurried out of the office, waving another telephone message for me. Again it was Murbles, commanding me to call. I stuffed it in my pocket next to the last one. He would just have to wait.

  I proceeded north on Highway 101 with caution, pulling off at the Yolanda Avenue ramp and back on again to see if anyone had picked up my tail from the motel. We were alone.

  Back at the Assessor’s Office, Pat and I set up shop at that long government counter and perused a map that showed the flight lines and photograph numbers for the aerial surveys of Sonoma County, one each for 1961, 1971, 1980, and 1990. When we had the two photographs closest to the Ferris property identified for each year, Pat picked up a magnifying glass and started with the oldest, while I set up the stereo viewer and began with the most recent, figuring I should start with what the place looked like now and work backwards in time.

  And immediately ran into a problem. The 1990 photographs were flown at very high altitude, affording poor resolution. I couldn’t make out anything smaller than a barn or a large tree. The photograph served only to orient me in a general way.

  Next I looked at the aerial photographs taken ten years earlier, in 1980. Here my luck was better. I could see the tops of the three cars up on cinder blocks beside the barn, or three others just like them, along with several other automotive derelicts. The driveway leading back to the barn showed patterns of heavy wear leading around the barn in a sloppy circuit, as if the barn were the center of a loop in a motocross event.

  The pictures from 1971 were better yet. The disused cars were not there, but trucks and other farm implements were, and I could see the vehicular tracks, as in the 1980 pictures. I showed them to Pat.

  “Yes…” he purred. “That barn had heavy traffic all around it. And what’s that little blip? A pump? Put it under the stereo viewer. If it sticks up pretty sharply, but not so high as the barn, I’ll bet it’s a pump. Makes sense if it was an apple orchard. The hired hands might have brought the tractors there to fill them up. It’s a good thing this year is good, because these ones from sixty-one are unreadable. Too contrasty.”

  I checked my mental notes. In 1971 old man Ferris would already be dead, but Sonja had not yet disappeared. Who was using the place? Was Jaime there? “Okay, Pat, after looking at air photographs, what would Janet have done next?”

  “Question people,” Pat said quietly. “A blip and heavy traffic patterns are only clues. She would need a firsthand account from someone who had seen the tank in use.”

  “Who would she ask?”

  “The owners, first off.”

  I clenched my teeth. The owners, I would not be asking. “Who else?”

  “An old orchard worker, if you can find one, or someone who delivered the fuel.” Pat fixed the woman behind the counter with a good old blarney smile. “We just love air photographs,” he cooed. “You know where we can find any more of them?”

  The woman preened. “Go over to the County Water Agency. They have even older pictures you can look at there. And ask for Bartolo Colotti. He used to pick apples all over that area.”

  * * *

  JAKI WAS RIGHT on schedule, waiting for us at the curb outside the building at eleven forty-five. “Darling Jaki,” Pat caroled, spreading his arms wide. “What luck to see your shining face before me.”

  Jaki grinned and opened the door to her car. “Step in, fair knight, your AA chariot awaits. C’mon, double step, we don’t wanna miss the opening statements.”

  Pat hung his head and smiled, mumbled, “Just a little slip I’m having, is all.”

  Jaki enclosed the big man in her slender arms. “I know. Life sucks. Let’s go.” She pushed him into the seat and buckled him in, then came around to her side of the car, where I stood.

  “He seemed so clear,” I said. “And he didn’t drink that much the first time I saw him do it. When my ma was drunk, she’d get more and more cloudy and then pass out.”

  Jaki smiled cheerfully. “Drunks vary like crazy. This one kids himself he can have wine because it’s Jack Daniel’s that he drinks to get seriously drunk on. And yeah, a little wine kind of calms him down and he gets clearer for a while, but when he’s all the way gone, he cries. Be glad you missed that.”

  I went back around to Pat’s side of the car, scribbled Aunt Frida’s phone number and “stay in touch” on a piece of paper, curled and stuffed the paper into the top of the bottle so it wouldn’t ruin his nice pressed shirt if it spilled, and kissed him good-bye.

  29

  I was on a roll. If the Sheriff’s Department couldn’t unearth the truth with all its power to dig into the privacy of everyone’s lives, then I would show them what could be done with publicly available information.

  Before driving out to the Water Agency on West College Avenue, I figured I’d hit the County Planning Department. It was time to find out a little more about Valentine Reeves’ plans for the old Ferris place.

  In that particular governmental agency, there is no long counter. Instead, one takes a number and waits. That’s a bad sign. A person could collect cobwebs. I took a seat, figuring to wait ten, maybe fifteen minutes.

  After five minutes, the irrepressible Liza stomped in from the street and barked to the receptionist, “Tell Martinez I’m here.” Then she plopped her barrel-shaped body into a chair, folded her arms angrily across her breasts, and arranged her face in a scowl that could curdle milk.

  A moment later, her big friend Trudy came in, panting. “Liza, I asked you to wait for me,” she said. “You were supposed to wait while I parked the car.”

  Liza pouted.

  I said, “Liza, isn’t it? And Trudy? Em Hansen. Liza, you and I met at Suzanne Cousins’, and I saw you at the Spaghetti Feed. You were having words with the County Supervisor.”

  Liza eyed me askance, dredging through her memory banks for my face. Then her storm-cloud eyes cleared for a moment, and she said, “Yeah. Suzanne’s.”

  Trudy settled herself in a chair, hitching her slacks to make room for her crotch as she s
at down. She observed me calmly, but was clearly on the alert.

  “Maybe you can help me with something,” I said, in a neighborly tone. “Janet and Suzanne were friends, weren’t they?”

  Liza hunched her ample shoulders up under her ears, knocking her earrings askew. “Sure. Why?”

  “Because I’m trying to find out what happened to Janet, and I can’t understand why Suzanne’s so blasé about her death.”

  Liza glared at me. “Janet was a warrior. We do not weep when a warrior dies in battle.”

  Trudy sank her face into her hands.

  “What battle?” I prompted.

  “We protect the Great Mother!”

  “Oh. Are you guys a church or something?”

  “We are the Covenant of the Great Mother. Well, Janet wasn’t, but she was a good kid.”

  “Oh. What does the Covenant do to protect the Great Mother?”

  Liza’s eyes bulged. She had the look of someone who has awakened suddenly in the middle of a hurricane, and wonders pettishly why she wasn’t aware of its arrival. “We protect Her daughters! We stop the filthy son-of-a-bitch government from deviling Her body!”

  “Is that what you’re doing here?”

  Liza jumped up like lightning had struck her in the butt. “Grimes!” She began pacing erratically, swinging her fists viciously and muttering under her breath.

  I wondered what in hell Liza had eaten for breakfast, so I’d know to avoid it myself. “You don’t like the County Supervisor, I take it.”

  Liza advanced on me. She loomed over me, arms tight against her sides as if someone were pinning them back to restrain her from a fight, and as she spoke, a fine spray of saliva left her lips. “Fluorine coursing through our bodies and right down the drains into the Body of our Mother!”

  “What’s the matter with you?” I gasped, wiping at my face.

  Trudy jumped up and pulled Liza away from me, but Liza’s oatmeal-paste skin had turned an ugly purple. “I’ve worked hard on this project for three years! You’re just like all the rest! You want to stay ignorant!”

  Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a short, swarthy man in polyester pants who had just one black eyebrow extending across his forehead. He had beetle-black eyes and looked so much like Jaime Martinez that I had to look twice to make sure it wasn’t him. He had wandered out of his office to attend the next visitor on his list, but when he saw that it was Liza, he began to back up quickly. Ready to get Liza off me, I pointed at him, blurted, “Liza, is that your planner?”