by Nick Pirog
Of all the things that should have upset him the most—that five members of his community who were murdered, then later a sixth with Mike Zernan; that it appeared Chief Eccleston was more involved with the company than anyone could have imagined; that Lunhill sent some ex-military goons to do their dirty work—he was most rattled by the fact Lunhill and Neil Felding were still working on Terminator seeds.
“I remember when I first heard about that shit,” Randall said. “Lunhill was sick of farmers reusing their seeds, not paying them for each year, and they were trying to find a way to make sure that wouldn’t happen. So they decided to design this seed that kills itself after each harvest.”
I was up to speed on this part and motioned for him to continue.
“But what these idiots didn’t realize is that most farmers don’t reuse seeds to save money—I mean, a lot of them do, especially in third world countries—but the main reason to reuse seed is because those seeds have adapted to certain conditions and environments. You save only the best seeds from the harvest, year after year. Those seeds have adapted to each climate’s individual conditions, soil, nutrient level, adapted to each farm’s unique farming practices.”
“Survival of the fittest?”
“Sort of. But naturally. Not in a lab.”
I nodded.
“And because each farmer is saving their own seeds from their own farm, they’re all a little different. It’s called ‘crop genetic diversity.’ Those seeds are our global food security. If farmers start using Terminator seeds, centuries of biodiversity will be wiped out.”
“But don’t farmers have to decide to buy those seeds?”
“They sure do. But look what happened to me—cross-pollination. Say my neighbor buys Terminator seeds and the wind or bees bring a couple of those seeds onto my land. They cross-pollinate with my seeds, and after a couple generations all my seeds are now sterile. But that’s not the worst of it. Sure, here in the US we have a choice. But in third world countries that’s not how it works.”
He locked eyes with me and said, “A defining feature of poverty is a lack of choice.”
I wondered if these words stemmed from the topic at hand or growing up in a rough part of Alabama.
He paused for a moment, then said, “These farmers in third world countries are under pressure from their governments to use Lunhill’s seeds. Lunhill kicks in a few million bucks to these fat cats at the top, and they start pressuring, sometimes mandating, that these farmers use high-yielding varieties, which is cockamamie bullshit for GMOs. And worse yet, some of these governments force the farmers to buy the seeds on credit or extension programs.”
“Shit.”
“Yeah, shit. And then you know what happens?”
“What?”
“They get in over their heads, have a bad year, and then they blow their brains out.”
“Suicide?”
“Since the late nineties, when GMOs first started gaining popularity, 300,000 farmers in India have killed themselves.”
“Did you say 300,000?”
He pursed his lips. “Yeah, and that’s just India.”
“And if they introduce Terminator seeds, farmer suicide might go even higher?”
“No ifs about it.”
We both sat in silence for a long moment, conjuring the implications.
“So if that’s what Neil Felding was working on...” I said, more to myself than Randall.
“Then maybe he had a change of heart,” Randall said, “or maybe he finally realized what these seeds would mean for the world.”
I spit-balled, “And he decided he wouldn’t be a part of it.”
“And then he confronts Lord Ramsey and threatens to go public.”
“And that would have cost them millions.”
“Try billions,” Randall corrected. “Several countries have already banned the use of Terminator seeds, and they haven’t even come out yet. It’s not a stretch to think that if a country found out the ill effects of Terminator seeds, which are just slightly altered GMOs, they might ban GMOs altogether.”
“True.”
“And if Felding had solid proof, some hard science proving just how bad they were—shit, coming from one of Lunhill’s top scientists—it could have bankrupted them.”
I thought about this for a moment, then said, “What if they were already out there? What if the GMOs these farmers think they’re planting are actually Terminator seeds?”
“If Neil found that out or was part of it and was gonna blow the whistle on it?” He blew out his cheeks. “I’d say that’s motive for murder, my friend.”
I was still thinking about Randall’s last statement when he asked, “So what are you gonna do?”
I didn’t have a lot of options. The murder was four years old. Neil Felding was long dead. Lunhill was locked down. And I was on Blackwater’s watch list. I didn’t for a minute imagine there was any evidence out there that would prove my theory. And without evidence, there was only one option—confession.
I would need to get the players to talk.
“I’m gonna do what I do best,” I said. “I’m gonna ruffle some feathers.”
I told him my plan.
His eyes lit up and he ran to his Bronco. He came back a moment later with a copy of the Tarrin Weekly.
He slapped the paper into my hand and said, “This would be a good place to start.”
I looked at the article on the front page and read aloud, “Mayor Van Dixon Campaign Luncheon.”
There were a couple pictures of some of her biggest backers.
One was Chief Eccleston.
Another, Lunhill CEO David Ramsey.
“If you’re gonna ruffle some feathers,” Randall said, “you might as well get some lunch while you’re at it.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
The Mayor’s luncheon was supposed to be outside, a white tent affair in the park, but the torrential rains of the past few days sent the organizers scrambling for another venue. I’m guessing there weren’t many options capable of holding the one hundred or so guests who would be attending the $500 per plate gala, hence, the Tarrin High School gymnasium.
The bleachers were pushed back into the walls, the basketball hoops were retracted up near the ceiling, and the court below was crowded with round tables, each with a different colored or patterned tablecloth.
It wasn’t all that different from my prom, except in place of the banner that read “Puget High Prom ’99” there was a big banner that read “Paula Van Dixon, Mayor ‘16.” And instead of green and blue balloons—our school colors—the balloons here were red, white, and blue.
God bless America.
The luncheon began at noon and it was now fifteen after. Most of the seats at the tables were taken, and I approached a woman sitting behind a desk near the entrance.
“Well, hi there,” she said. She had an aura of PTO president or the lady who ran the local bake sale. “Is it still raining outside?”
I should note that I was drenched. Head, drenched. T-shirt, drenched. Jeans, yep, drenched.
“Uh, yeah, it stopped raining.”
“You look wet,” she said with a cock of her head.
“I had a water fight with some pesky kids out in the parking lot.”
“Really?”
I wasn’t sure why I was harassing this poor lady and I decided I would attempt to act like a functioning member of society for at least a little bit. “I was just joking. It’s still raining.”
“Oh,” she said, blushing. “Of course you were.” She gave her head an imaginary smack, then she asked, “Are you here for the luncheon?”
“I’m here for the dodgeball tournament.”
Dammit, Thomas.
I took a breath and said, “Yes, I’m here for the luncheon.”
She checked a printout to make sure I paid my $500—which I’d done online twenty minutes after Randall showed me the article in the paper—then handed me an adhesive tag with my name and occup
ation from the online form.
“Here you go, Mr. Prescott,” she said, glancing at my occupation with raised eyebrows. “You are assigned to the lavender table right over there.” She pointed to a table that had a lavender tablecloth.
I made my way through the many tables, searching out the faces. I saw a few I recognized from around town, but not many I knew by name. There was a long rectangular table up front, and I could see Mayor Van Dixon, Chief Eccleston, David Ramsey, plus a few other official looking people and presumably their spouses.
I came abreast of the lavender table and stopped.
Filling one of the six seats, wearing a dress nearly the same color as the tablecloth—which I’m positive was not a coincidence and took a few phone calls to accommodate—was Caroline.
Our eyes met and she tried to bury a smile in her cheek. The man to her left glanced at her, then up at me. He was ten years my senior, with salt-and-pepper hair and a trim goatee. I didn’t recall ever seeing him before.
There were three other gentlemen at the table, and the only seat available was on Caroline’s right. After searching for an empty seat at any of the nearby tables and coming up empty, I reluctantly sat down.
“Caroline,” I said with a light nod.
“Thomas,” she said, her hand gently brushing over my thigh under the table.
Ruh roh.
The man to her left cleared his throat, and Caroline straightened. “Oh, forgive me. Thomas, this is my dear, dear friend, Jerome.”
Jerome and I shook hands. I read his nametag: Jerome Bidwell, Law firm of Bidwell & Benson.
I could see him reading my nametag, then sneering in annoyance.
Caroline followed his eyes to my nametag, then read aloud, “Thomas Prescott, Farmer, Detective Extraordinaire, and Naked and Afraid Enthusiast.”
She stifled a laugh. “What is Naked and Afraid?”
“It’s a show on the Discovery Channel.”
“It’s amazing,” quipped one of the three gentlemen to my right. “They put a guy and girl in the wilderness naked and they have to survive for twenty-one days.”
“They’re naked?” Caroline huffed.
“Naked as the day they were born,” I said.
“Sounds pretty dumb,” said Jerome.
“No, really, it’s great,” another gentleman said. “We have a viewing party every Sunday.”
I gently slid my chair a couple inches to their side of the table.
Battle lines had been drawn.
The three gentlemen introduced themselves as the Fulton brothers: John, Mark, and Luke. They owned a tire business on the south side of town.
“You guys Muslim?” I asked.
All three laughed.
A few moments later, the first course was served. A tomato and corn salad. The waitress gave a long-winded explanation of each and every ingredient and which farm it came from. Mallory Farm’s butter lettuce, Wildwood Farm’s tomatoes, Joe Schmo Farm’s roasted corn…
I made small talk with the three brothers, mostly about N & A, but a little about tires, and some about my being a famous detective.
Caroline kept sneaking glances my way, but Jerome was clearly threatened by my nearly dry Hanes T-shirt and furrowed his brow at every snippet of conversation he overheard.
At one point during the main course—hazelnut-crusted halibut on a bed of purple cauliflower puree—I counted the number of tables.
Twenty tables.
Six people at each table.
One hundred and twenty guests—nearly five percent of the entire town of Tarrin—and at $500 a plate that was nearly $60,000 for the Mayor’s reelection campaign.
I fixed my gaze on David Ramsey up front.
How many people would have paid the $500 if he hadn’t been speaking? And more importantly, how much was he being paid to speak?
The servers took coffee orders and since they didn’t have Pumpkin Spice Lattes available, I declined. But I was interested in dessert. I’d been eating healthy for nearly a month now and I was eager for some crème brûlée. But first, I had to use the restroom.
I excused myself, then made my way through the hallway and to the restroom. Halfway through my whiz, the door opened and in walked Caroline.
She teetered on high heels, a consequence of the several glasses of wine she’d slugged down over lunch.
“You never called,” she said.
I finished, zipped up, and turned around.
I never called, but that didn’t mean I hadn’t thought about it. That I hadn’t thought about what she’d whispered in my ear: Oh, the things I would do. I dialed her number twice but stopped short of hitting Call. Finally, I ripped up the card she wrote her number on and flushed it down the toilet.
I didn’t know what to say, so I didn’t say anything. I just washed my hands instead.
“What?” she said, with pursed lips. “You don’t want my apple pie?”
“I don’t know if your apple pie is exactly what I need in my life right now.”
She closed the distance between us. Put her hands around the back of my neck and pulled my head down toward her chest. Caressed her fingers through my hair. My nose was inches from her breasts.
I knew I should stop this.
But I couldn’t.
The ship had left the harbor.
SS Dingdong.
Bound for Mistake Island.
She pressed her hips against me.
Against it.
Then her lips against mine.
The Mayor was speaking when I returned to my seat. Caroline had left a few minutes ahead of me and she was turned in her chair, eyes focused on the woman behind the podium on the dais. I don’t know how she explained the five minutes she was gone, the five minutes she had her tongue rammed down my throat in the high school bathroom.
Whatever she said, Jerome knew the truth. I could feel his eyes boring into the side of my head as I sat. Jealousy and anger will do that.
He was probably thinking of something he could sue me for. Wrongful making out with his luncheon date. Three counts of violating the Bro Code. Acting like a horny sixteen-year-old in public.
I ignored him and turned my attention to Mayor Van Dixon. She was wearing a green blouse and tan pants. Her gray-streaked hair was tucked behind her ears. She had a massive gold and bejeweled broach on her shoulder that was the size of a small bird’s nest.
“Our town is prospering,” she spoke. “Small businesses are not only surviving in Tarrin, they are thriving.”
Many of the guests applauded. I guessed many in attendance, like the Fulton brothers, were small business owners.
She prattled on about the many great things she’d done over the past eighteen years and the many great things she planned for her next term. I listened halfheartedly, giving the majority of my attention to the crème brûlée in front of me.
Finally, after what seemed like an hour, but was probably closer to twenty minutes, she said, “Now it is my great pleasure to introduce my dear friend: visionary, benefactor, Lunhill president and CEO, David Ramsey.”
There was a smattering of applause. Tarrin was decisively a pro-biotech town. But then again, in a time when many farmers were struggling to make ends meet all across the country and the globe, farmers in Tarrin were thriving. And I didn’t doubt this was in large part to the higher yields they were getting from using Spectrum-H(R) seeds.
Ramsey gave Mayor Van Dixon a quick hug, then took the podium. Like before, he was impeccably dressed in a suit with a navy blue tie. He adjusted the microphone, then said, “How good was that halibut?”
There was a murmuring of agreement.
“Have you guys ever seen a halibut?” he asked with a smile. “The ugliest damn fish on the planet. Both their eyes are one side of their head. Mutant looking things. But man, do they taste good.”
I had intended on waiting a few minutes to make a scene, but patience has never been my virtue.
I cleared my throat and shouted, “Maybe the
fish you saw came from the river in Simon Beach. Maybe it just had a bad case of dioxin poisoning.”
One hundred and twenty heads snapped in my direction. Most appeared shocked at my outburst. Others, like Jerome and the Fulton brothers, seemed embarrassed at their proximity to me, as if they might be guilty by association. Like when your plus-one gets hammered at the Christmas party and starts getting handsy with your lieutenant.
Up front, I could see Chief Eccleston’s gaze narrow as he realized the words had come from his BFF. I half expected him to stand up and attempt to have me forcibly removed, but either he thought it would only make things worse or Ramsey had given him some sort of signal to stand down.
Ramsey glared at me for a long second, then said, “If you aren’t aware, what Mr. Prescott is referring to is the tragic dioxin poisoning that occurred in Simon Beach twenty years ago. Though not entirely Lunhill’s fault, we did play a role in the tragedy, and we were forced to pay upward of two hundred million dollars in settlements and restitution.”
The gymnasium was silent. You could actually hear the rain outside.
Ramsey continued, “We could have stopped there, but we at Lunhill felt obligated to do more. That’s why we invested nearly half a billion dollars into the research and development of a new technology that eliminates dioxins more safely and efficiently. Because at Lunhill we want to set an example that we must protect and preserve this planet we call home.”
This was met with heavy applause. A handful of people glanced smarmily in my direction as if to say, “Suck on that.”
For good measure, Ramsey added, “And just for the record, Mr. Prescott, halibut is a saltwater fish.”
Most of the audience jeered. Jerome was smirking so hard his cheeks would probably be sore tomorrow.
“I know about Neil Felding,” I said. “I know what he found out.”
I watched his face. For the first time, I saw a small twitch in his forehead.
“Terminator seeds,” I said. “He was working on a second iteration of them.”
There was a soft murmuring. Many of these farmers knew the danger of Terminator seeds, knew that it was an ecological disaster waiting to happen.
“Yes,” Ramsey said. “Neil Felding was working on revamping what you refer to as Terminator seeds or what we call Sterile Seed Technology.”
