After The Fire (The Bill Travis Mysteries Book 9)

by George Wier

  Thus far I hadn’t told her a thing, other than that I had gone and visited Chuck Holland. My women know me.

  “I’ll do that,” I said.

  “Be careful,” Julie said, and kissed my lips. “We’ve got another one on the way.”

  “I know. I’ll call you later.”

  *****

  “Bill,” Sol Gunderson said over the phone. “I need you to bail me out of jail.”

  “What for?” I asked. I took my feet off of my desk and plopped them down on the floor.

  “Causing a public disturbance, they said. Also, uh, resisting arrest.”

  “What did you do?”

  “Nothing, really. I mean, everybody’s all bent out of shape over a little one-man protest march. What’s this country coming to? A bunch of hippies were protesting at the airport when I came back from Viet Nam, and nobody arrested them!”

  “Times are different, Sol. Who were you protesting.”

  “A place called Pico Freightlines.”

  “A trucking company?”

  “Yeah.”

  “How much is the bail?”

  “The bondsman says it’s five thousand bucks. That’s way too much.”

  “Just shut up about money, Sol. You can spare it. I’ll cash one of your money market funds and have you out by two o’clock.”

  “Now hold on, Chief. I was thinking maybe you could talk to the Judge, get the amount reduced.”

  “Criminy! I suppose you’ve already talked to the judge.”

  “I have,” Sol admitted.

  “What did he say?”

  “I guess it’s not what he said, but what I said. I sort of lost my cool.”

  “Lost your cool? To a judge?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Listen, Sol. Don’t say anything further to anybody. Not about anything.”

  “It’s too late for that, Bill,” he said.

  “What does that mean?”

  “Uh. Right before they arrested me, I got this microphone shoved into my face by this reporter. I told her all about Bebe. And about the radiation. About what’s coming from the creek out back.”

  “You don’t know that anything is coming from the creek.”

  “I guess it was Eloise who set me off.”

  “You’ve spoken with her?” I asked.

  “Late last night. I didn’t sleep any after that.”

  “What’d she say?”

  “She told me to take my goats and move while I could. She said that a lot of people were gonna start dying in my neighborhood. When I told her I hadn’t heard of it, she told me about all those tract houses across the way out back.”

  “Okay, Sol. That’s enough. Since you’re calling from the jail, you know this conversation is being recorded.”

  “It is?”

  I suppose my face flushed red.

  “Sol. This is the twenty-first century. There’s no such thing as privacy anymore. Anywhere. Ever.”

  “Oh shit,” he said. “I see what you mean. Can you get me out of here?”

  “Sit tight,” I said. “Three o’clock.”

  “Alright. Dammit. Three o’clock.”

  Sol hung up.

  “Damn,” I said to my office.

  *****

  After I hung up with Sol Gunderson, I plunked myself down opposite Nat Bierstone. He looked up at me, took off his bifocals and put them on the nest of paperwork in front of him and regarded me.

  “I’m not sure what hat you need to wear right now, Nat,” I said.

  “I don’t normally wear a hat indoors. Are we going somewhere, Bill?”

  “I hope not. What I mean is, I don’t know at this exact moment if you should be my business partner, a member of the family, or the Lieutenant Governor.”

  “Ah. How about I just be a friend and listen?”

  “That’s fine. You remember how I used to run off at the drop of a hat and get myself shot at, mess up my car and my shoes, and generally find myself in hot water?”

  “You still do that, just to a lesser degree than before. What is it this time?”

  “I hesitate to say. Let’s just say that if I start down a certain road, there may be repercussions that may be unpleasant, in the extreme.”

  “Define ‘unpleasant’, please.”

  “I don’t know,” I sighed. “I suppose that’s just the thing. There’s no way of knowing. Except that the one person I’ve spoken with about this has had her life threatened. According to her, she once nearly wound up dead.”

  Nat leaned back in his chair and put his hands behind his head. His suspenders were bright red, and matched his cheeks.

  “So what would happen if you did nothing? No, wait a minute. Don’t tell me. Let me guess. Innocent people may be hurt. Or...worse?”

  “That about sums it up?”

  “What are you afraid of? I’ve never known you to be afraid.”

  “The family,” I said. “Julie. Jessica, Jennifer, Michelle. Julie’s pregnant again as well.”

  “Good God,” Nat said, and smiled. “I’m sure glad I introduced you two.”

  “Me too.”

  “We could do the same drill as before. The legislative session is winding down. I’ve got one more appearance to make before the Senate tomorrow. It’s nothing but gavel banging. After that we could all head out to my ranch. Maybe take a couple of state troopers along and make sure all is safe.”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “Everybody has their lives, school, friends. All that stuff.”

  Nat sat forward again.

  “No. A week at the ranch, surrounded by family, sounds perfect to me. Tell you what, I would want Jessica with you, Bill. You need watching. I’ve taught that girl everything I know about firearms. She’s a crack shot and I figure she’s really your guardian angel, only you don’t know it.”

  “She’s a kid, Nat.”

  “Yeah. True. But what a kid.”

  “Let me think about it,” I said.

  “Penny!” Nat called.

  Penny came into the room.

  “Sir?”

  “Clear our calendars for the next week. Do you have anything on your own social calendar?”

  “Why?” she asked.

  “You may be needed,” Nat said. “How does four or five days at my ranch sound with the rest of the Travis clan?”

  “Oh shit,” Penny said. She looked at me, but I held my gaze steady on Nat Bierstone. “What did he do?”

  “Nothing,” Nat said. “Yet.”

  “Thanks, Nat,” I said. “Now I’ve got to go bail someone out of jail.”

  CHAPTER SIX

  It took no more than a few hours to convert twenty thousand of Sol Gunderson’s money to cash. I left the bank with a couple of full envelopes in my jacket pocket.

  Bailing someone out of the Travis County jail normally takes the better part of an afternoon. I had neglected to get myself lunch and found myself ruing it. One of the deputy clerks pitied me and led me to the snack machines, where I had a chicken salad sandwich and a cup of pre-mixed coffee. Wonderful stuff to a starving man.

  By the time I got back, Sol Gunderson was being released. The last thing they gave him was his rubber boots.

  “What about my sign?” he asked.

  “Sol,” I said. “Forget the sign. Let’s go.”

  “If you’ll sign here, please?” the clerk gestured to Sol with a pen.

  “What’s it say?” he asked. “I don’t have my glasses.”

  “Just sign it already,” I said.

  “Okay, Bill. No need to be a grouch about it.”

  I waited.

  When we walked out the door, there was a reporter there. The microphone came up like a karate move toward Sol’s face, and I saw his eyes grow wide and the beginning of a grin at the corners of his mouth.

  “Nothing doing,” I said, and gave the microphone a shove to the side.

  “Hey!” the reporter said. Then Sol nearly ran into the cameraman.

  “You too,” I sa
id, and put my hand over the lens of the camera and shoved machine and man backwards.

  “Come on, Sol.” I grabbed him by the arm and we began running across Woodmansee Plaza.

  “Wait, Bill. I wanted to—”

  “Nope,” I replied.

  A quick glance behind us and the reporter and the cameraman were just beginning to recover. The shocked look on the reporter’s face told me that she was assessing whether or not to give chase.

  “Here’s my car,” I told Sol. “Get in.”

  And we were off into traffic.

  *****

  I was about to take Sol straight home, but he nixed the idea.

  “I called one of my farmer friends to come get all of my goats,” he said. “They’re probably loaded and gone by now. I don’t want to go back there until I know the house is safe.”

  “Well, you can’t come to my office and I’m not taking you to my house,” I said. “You tell me where you want to go.”

  “Hmm. Maybe a hotel.”

  “Hotel it is,” I said. I drove him two blocks south and five blocks east to the Driskoll Hotel on Sixth Street.”

  “No way,” Sol exclaimed. “You have any idea how much they charge for a night here?”

  I handed him an envelope full of hundred dollar bills. “Do us both a favor. Shut up, get a room, have dinner and maybe a few drinks at the bar, and then call me in the morning. You’re paying me through the nose for this, Sol, so don’t whine about the cost of the room.”

  Sol looked at me, and I gave him the same face I gave him when I had to talk him into to paying off Eloise what she had coming from the divorce settlement. That was about eight years ago.

  “Alright,” he said. “I see. Call you in the morning.”

  Sol got out of my car and I waited until he disappeared into the double doors of the hotel. At that moment I remembered that I meant to ask him again about the fire he had mentioned back at his place. The one after which Eloise hadn’t spoken with him since. Maybe I’d remember next time I saw him.

  I put my car in gear and lead-footed it back to the office.

  *****

  The reporter was waiting for me back at my office. She was standing in the middle of the sidewalk out front. To her credit, she’d left the microphone and the cameraman with his camera in the van. The guy watched me with steely eyes.

  “What do you want?” I asked her.

  “I got your name from the jail.”

  “You’d have to have filed an open records request for that. I don’t think you could have done it so fast.”

  “The forms were still on the counter when I walked in. I saw Mr. Gunderson’s name, and who was there for his bond. I pulled up your office on a simple internet search. Imagine my surprise that it was a few blocks away from the jail. Also, you’re partners with the Lieutenant Governor.” She pointed to the sign on the front lawn that read BIERSTONE & TRAVIS.

  “So?”

  “There’s a story here,” she said.

  “Not the story you would want.”

  “Try me.”

  “You’re what? Twenty-three? Twenty-five?”

  “I’m no kid,” she said.

  “Maybe not. Still, you’ll have to dig elsewhere.”

  “That’s okay,” she said. “I’ve got a shovel. Maybe I should start by digging in the creek behind Sol Gunderson’s goat farm.”

  I looked from her to the guy in the van, then back again.

  “Dammit,” I said. “Why don’t you come in. Bring Ringo Starr with you. But no cameras, no microphones, and no hidden tape recorders. Got it?”

  “I promise,” she said.

  I turned up the walkway, then thought about it and turned back toward her. “Look. It’s been a rough couple of days. My manners are normally better. What’s your name?”

  “You don’t watch the news?” she asked.

  “Never,” I said.

  “Okay. I’m Shawn Tannen. Spelled like a guy’s name.” She held out her hand.

  I reluctantly took it, and shook.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  They sat across from me at my desk. Penny brought in cokes for Shawn and Driesel—I couldn’t possibly have made up a name like that. While Shawn wore the hard-hitting demeanor of an investigative reporter, right down to the steady, unrelenting gaze, her sidekick was in a black tee-shirt that, at some time in the past, had a run-in with a wet paint roller. He needed a shave, and likely a breath mint. I didn’t get close enough to find out.

  “Mr. Travis, is the Lieutenant Governor somehow involved in this?”

  “Bill,” I said. “Folks call me Bill. No, he is in no way involved, whatever ‘this’ is.”

  “How much do you know?” she asked.

  “I don’t. I got called out yesterday because my client’s goat died.”

  “Bebe,” Driesel said. “If his sign had said that Bebe was a goat, we’d likely not have attempted the interview.”

  Shawn shot him a look, and he traced his fingers across his lips.

  I chuckled. “I see, now. You two were out trolling for a story and ran across the one-man protest march. I had wondered what the sign said. What did Sol tell you during his ill-conceived brush with fame?”

  “That the freightliner company was responsible.”

  “Did he say how he knew that?” I asked.

  “He didn’t,” Shawn said. “But he seemed righteously indignant about it.”

  “He seems to think the creek out back of his place is radioactive,” I said.

  “Is it?” she asked.

  “I dunno. I don’t carry a geiger-counter around with me, or at least not often.”

  “We need to get going,” Shawn said to Driesel. “We’ll need to change clothes if we’re going down there.”

  “Hold on a second, kiddos,” I said. “Before you go charging off, and potentially into a hazardous area, why don’t we contact someone who knows something about hazardous waste?”

  “Who?” Driesel asked.

  “I don’t know,” I said. “I’ve been thinking about it. See, that’s one thing. The other thing to do is to figure out where all this came from.”

  “You saw the goat, right?” Shawn asked.

  “Yeah.”

  “What’d it look like?”

  “A dead billy goat,” I replied.

  “I know that. I mean, did it look different from any other dead goat?”

  Bebe’s dead eyes looked back at me for a moment.

  “Uh huh,” Shawn said. “That’s all the answer I need.” She started to rise.

  “Okay,” I stood and made a staying motion with my hands. “Look. I’ll even go out there with you. But let’s do this right.”

  That got their attention.

  “What do you have in mind?” Shawn asked.

  “First, hold on.” I punched the phone intercom button. “Penny? Can you come in here?”

  “I’ll be right there.”

  I fished the thumb drive out of my pocket. Penny came into the room and I held it out for her. “Penny, there’s a file on this thumb drive. Can you copy it to the server and bring it back to me?”

  “Sure. Give me a second.” Penny trotted back out.

  “What’s the file?” Driesel asked.

  “A map I obtained from a friend who downloaded it from the Centers for Disease Control. It’s a disease cluster map showing an unusually high incidence of disease in the neighborhood behind Sol Gunderson’s goat farm.”

  “You have been busy, Mr. Travis,” Shawn said.

  “Bill.”

  “Sorry. Bill. So where did you take Mr. Gunderson?”

  “To a hotel. He won’t go home and I don’t have the, uh, facilities for him here.”

  Driesel nodded.

  Penny re-entered the room.

  “Mr. Travis,” she said. “There’s nothing on this thumb drive.”

  I could now put a name to the sensation I had felt while I was going down Chuck Holland’s garage apartment stairs the night bef
ore: suspicion.

  *****

  At that moment Jessica came into the room.

  “Hey dad,” she said.

  Shawn and Driesel turned.

  “Hey yourself. What are you doing here?”

  “Apparently I’m right on time.” Jessica turned toward Shawn and offered her hand to shake, which drew the reporter’s hand. Jessica pumped it up and down. “I’m Jessica Travis. Nice to meet you.”

  “Shawn Tannen.”

  “I’ve seen you on the news.”

  “You father doesn’t watch the news.”

  “Yah. I know.”

  Jessica shook Driesel’s hand as well. “Jessica Travis. Good to meet you.”

  “Driesel,” he said.

  “Driesel. Cool. I like your name. You’re kinda cute.”

  “Thanks. So are you.”

  “Enough,” I said. “Did mom send you?”

  “No, dad. Uncle Nat.”

  Shawn Tannen raised her eyebrows at me.

  “Look” I said. “Nat Bierstone is my wife’s uncle, which makes this business all family. That’s the only involvement.” To Jessica I said, “Look, you. Aren’t you supposed to be out at the gun range, getting yourself qualified?”

  “That’s not till this evening. We’ve got hours. Besides that, I don’t know if I can do it today.”

  “Why not?” I asked. “Nervous?”

  “Yeah. Shouldn’t I be?”

  “No. Jessica, go home. I’m knee deep in something here.”

  “Yeah. Looks like you are. Which is why I’m here. You need more chairs in here.”

  “I’ve got the exact number of chairs I need.”

  Shawn said to Jessica, “You can go with us. We need a balance for the testosterone level around here.”

  “Thanks. Dad, did somebody give you an empty thumb drive?”

  “Yeah. Shut up, okay?”

  “I’ll bet it was Chuck.”

  “That’s enough,” I said.

  “Who’s Chuck?” Shawn asked.

  “Chuck Holland. The world biggest conspiracy theory nut. Nice guy, though. I think.” Jessica looked at me uncertainly.