City of Sand

by Robert Kroese

  Chapter Eleven

  Benjamin drove directly to the storage facility on Coburn and Ninth that Chris Sandford had mentioned. He pulled the Buick up to unit 429 and walked to the door. The padlock snapped open when he set the tumblers to Jessica’s birthdate, and he pulled open the sliding metal door. Inside were five cardboard boxes.

  Benjamin walked inside and removed the lid of the box nearest him, and the scent of very old paper wafted to his nostrils. The box was filled with manila folders holding sheaves of brittle old documents. He pulled out one of the folders and began looking through the papers. If he was hoping for a smoking gun, he was disappointed. The whole stack of papers seemed to relate to the process of oxidizing the exterior of silicon wafers. He stopped to read a section at random.

  Dry Oxidation

  In dry oxidation, silicon wafers to be oxidized are first cleaned, using a detergent and water solution, and solvent rinsed with xylene, isopropyl alcohol or other solvents. The cleaned wafers are dried, loaded into a quartz wafer holder called a boat and loaded into the operator end (load end) of the quartz diffusion furnace tube or cell. The inlet end of the tube (source end) supplies high-purity oxygen or oxygen/nitrogen mixture. The “dry” oxygen flow is controlled into the quartz tube and assures that an excess of oxygen is available for the growth of silicon dioxide on the silicon wafer surface. The basic chemical reaction is:

  Si + O2 → SiO2

  It continued in this vein for several pages.

  “Well, it’s dry alright,” Benjamin muttered to himself. What on earth made Jessica think these documents were worth sneaking out of Glazier Semiconductor’s archives? And why did Chris Sandford think they somehow implicated Glazier in Jessica’s death?

  By the time he’d taken a sampling of the third box, it was clear that all the documents related in some way to hazardous chemicals used by Glazier Semiconductor in the silicon chip-making process. The documents dated from the 1950s to early 1960s. He found numerous employee accident reports and even internal memos suggesting strategies for downplaying the accidents and the inherently dangerous nature of the chemicals being used. Still, the smoking gun eluded him. Lots of companies handled dangerous chemicals in the fifties and sixties, and back then there was a whole lot less regulation about it. It was hard to believe Glazier would kill Jessica rather than risk this information getting out.

  Most of the documents he’d skimmed so far described primarily employee accidents and internal processes. But in the fourth box, he located a few memos and other documents raising broader environmental concerns. As far as he could tell, Glazier Semiconductor employees had simply been dumping these extremely toxic chemicals into holes in the ground. It apparently occurred to only a handful of the hundreds of Glazier Semiconductor employees—and only belatedly, after health concerns began to be raised in the community—that maybe this wasn’t such a great idea. Even the documents that indicated an awareness of a potential problem tended to be more interested in the public relations impact of this dumping than the effect on the health of Sunnyview’s residents.

  The document that gave him chills, though, was the management memo that acknowledged “a high likelihood of toxins leaching into the municipal water supply as a result of the relatively shallow water table,” and then went on to state that “no change in disposal procedures is recommended at this time.” Sand Hill Creek ran right past the main Glazier Semiconductor plant; it would have been the perfect conduit to transmit chemicals into the city’s aquifers. These guys had dumped poison into the city’s water supply by the ton, and had never been held accountable for it. He was reading about the potential of the various chemicals to cause cancer and birth defects when the label on a folder at the back of the box caught his eye. It read:

  GLARE

  Benjamin pulled out the folder. Inside were a few dozen documents, mostly typed on stationary that bore a logo that looked like lightning bolts shooting out of a radar dish. The first document that caught his eye was a memo from Dominick Spiegel, William Glazier’s partner. It was dated October 3, 1953, and was addressed to the GLARE Board of Directors. It read:

  Gentlemen,

  I trust that I need not present my bona fides to you in order to demonstrate my dedication to the cause. However, in case you have forgotten, I was a founding member of this enterprise, and it was in large part my research that made GLARE possible. I ask you to consider these facts, as well as my current position in both the organization and the scientific community, when you read these thoughts.

  I did not oppose your efforts to expand the work of GLARE into areas of research outside its initial scope; nor did I oppose your expansion of its purpose to the containment of the Communist menace. To the contrary, I applaud these efforts. I believe it is absolutely vital that America maintain its edge in both technology and intelligence.

  I must, however, go on record as opposing the current line of research. There is simply no possible ethical justification for exposing civilians to this sort of danger, particularly without their consent. The excuse that the initial exposure was accidental is laughable in its childishness. To argue, three years after

  “Okay in there?” said a voice behind Benjamin, startling him and causing him to drop the papers in a kind of unintentional pantomime of a Lucille Ball sketch.

  He turned to see a man standing expectantly at the door. He was maybe five ten, stocky, forty years old. He wore blue jeans and a button down shirt with the storage place’s logo embroidered on it.

  “Jesus Christ,” said Benjamin, his heart beating three times its normal rate.

  “Didn’t mean to startle you,” said the man. “You been in here for a while.”

  “Yeah,” said Benjamin. “Do you need something?”

  “Nope, just seeing if you need anything.”

  “I’m good,” said Benjamin, picking up the papers and trying to put them back in some semblance of order.

  “My records say this unit is rented to a Jessica Stone,” said the man. “That’s the only name on the rental contract.”

  “Yeah?” said Benjamin, putting the papers back in the folder.

  “You wouldn’t happen to be Jessica, would you?” the man asked.

  “She’s my daughter.”

  “Your daughter know you’re in her storage unit?” asked the man.

  “My daughter is dead,” said Benjamin, picking up the box he had been riffling through. Legally, he had no right to be going through Jessica’s possessions, and presumably this guy knew that. If he had to play on the man’s sympathies to get the documents out of the storage unit, he was okay with that. He brushed past the man and opened the passenger door of the Buick.

  “I’m sorry for your loss,” said the man. “But I can’t let you—”

  “She was murdered,” said Benjamin, pretending not to hear, as he set the box down on the passenger seat. “You probably saw it on the news. They found her in the creek. I just wanted to get… a few pictures of her.” He slammed the door, walked back to the storage unit, pulled the door shut and locked the door.

  “Oh my God,” said the man. “I didn’t realize….”

  “It’s okay,” said Benjamin. “You didn’t know. Anyway, I should get going.” He got in the car and shut the door. The man yelled something at him as he drove away, but Benjamin paid no attention. This guy wasn’t going to try to stop a grieving father from taking a box of mementos of his dead daughter. Not for ten bucks an hour.

  Benjamin pulled out of the parking lot and began driving toward the motel, where he could go through the documents in peace. Hopefully the one box he had taken contained all the information he was looking for, because going back to get the other boxes would be tricky. They might even change the lock on the storage unit.

  He stopped at a drive-in on the way to pick up some dinner, and then drove back to the motel. As he opened the passenger door to retrieve the box of documents, he became aware of someone coming up behind him. He turned, but was too slow. He caught a gli
mpse of a tall man in khaki pants and a green polo shirt, then felt something strike the back of his head. That was the last thing he remembered.

  He regained consciousness an indeterminate amount of time later, and for a moment thought he was back in his motel room. But the bed was smaller, as was the room, and the air had a sterile, antiseptic smell. A man was sitting in a chair in the corner of the room. Detective Lentz.

  “How you feeling?” asked Lentz.

  Benjamin grunted, feeling pain rush into his head as he tried to sit up. He lay back against the pillow. “What happened?”

  “You tell me,” said Lentz. “A maid found you lying unconscious in the parking lot of the Sandman Motel. She called 9-1-1. Paramedics found my card in your pocket. Any idea who hit you?”

  “Didn’t get a look at his face,” said Benjamin.

  “Let me rephrase the question,” said Lentz. “Any idea why you were attacked?”

  Benjamin didn’t reply.

  Lentz sighed. He looked tired, like he hadn’t been sleeping any better than Benjamin. He leaned forward and looked Benjamin in the eye. “I’ve been straight with you, haven’t I? Went out of my way to give you access. I’ll grant you, I had a selfish motive. I thought letting you loose in Sunnyview might yield some results, maybe get this case solved a little quicker. But it doesn’t work if you hold out on me, Mr. Stone. Then you’re just another civilian fucking up my investigation. I don’t need that, understand? You’re either helping me solve this or you’re an obstacle that needs to be removed.”

  “I’m telling you,” said Benjamin, “I don’t know who attacked me. Maybe if you’d spend less time grilling me and more time looking for my daughter’s killer—”

  “Fuck you, Stone,” Lentz snapped.

  “Excuse me?” Benjamin said, adrenaline suddenly pumping.

  “You don’t get to play me,” said Lentz coldly. “You and your fucking head games. Always the smartest guy in the room, huh? No wonder Jessica tried to get away from you. You’re the most manipulative asshole I’ve ever met.”

  “You son of a bitch,” growled Benjamin. “You have no right…”

  “I have every right,” Lentz barked. “I’m trying to find out who killed your daughter. I don’t know what the fuck you’re doing, but you can either help me or get out of the fucking way.”

  Benjamin glared at Lentz for a moment. He wanted nothing more than to leap out of his bed and strangle that skinny little fucker. He had to admire the man’s dedication, though—and if Benjamin were in his position, he’d have been pissed off too. In fact, Benjamin would never have given the father of the victim as much leeway as Lentz had given him. Benjamin had taken Lentz’s acquiescence as a sign of weakness, but maybe him giving Benjamin so much free rein was an indication of Lentz’s confidence in his own ability.

  The remark about Benjamin being manipulative struck a nerve too. Isn’t that what Katherine had always used to say about him? That he used his quick wit to run roughshod over any objections, playing on others’ emotions as he saw fit—whatever it took to win. Benjamin had always protested that he couldn’t be blamed for having a quick wit. After all, what was he supposed to do, lose arguments on purpose just to be more likeable? On some level, though, he had known that wasn’t what she meant, but he rationalized his abrasive behavior until he had alienated most of their friends. The worst of it was how he had treated Jessica. Jessica had the soul of an artist, not a logician. She couldn’t hope to stand up to his rhetorical assaults, and finally she had cut him out of her life altogether. He liked to think that he had softened somewhat since she left, but when he heard she was missing, he had snapped back into his investigative persona—the same brutally logical, manipulative persona that had driven her away.

  Beyond his personal foibles, though, there was another reason he had been reluctant to level with Lentz: Chris Sandford’s insistence that Glazier “owned” Lentz—and presumably the rest of the Sunnyview police department. There was no doubt that Glazier pulled a lot of weight in Sunnyview, and it wouldn’t surprise him if he had ways of influencing the outcome of a criminal investigation in this town. Not only that, but Sandford had apparently been onto something with the documents in the storage facility. Benjamin hadn’t had time to go through the documents very thoroughly or to process what he had seen of them, but it was pretty clear that Glazier and GLARE had been up to some pretty shady business back in the day. Of course, now he’d probably never know the full story, because whoever had slugged him had undoubtedly taken the box. Maybe if he had leveled with Lentz about what Sandford had told him, they’d have all of those boxes in police custody. The investigation certainly wouldn’t be in any worse shape than it was right now. At this point it looked like he didn’t have much choice but to trust Lentz.

  “Did you find anything else in the parking lot? In my car, or around it?” he asked.

  “Why?” said Lentz, without skipping a beat. “You lose something?”

  “Papers,” said Benjamin.

  “Yeah? What kind of papers?”

  “Chris Sandford told me about a storage unit in Jessica’s name. Said there were documents inside that would exonerate him.”

  Lentz sighed disgustedly. “And now you’ve lost them.”

  “There were five boxes altogether. Four are still in the storage unit. But the one with the damning documents is gone.”

  “Any idea what was in these documents?”

  “A lot of stuff about dumping chemicals at Glazier Semiconductor. Dangerous stuff, carcinogens.”

  “Recently?”

  “The docs I saw were mostly from the fifties, but—”

  “Jesus Christ, Stone. The EPA shut that down in the seventies. Do you have any idea how many Superfund sites there are in the Bay Area? Nobody with any sense drinks the groundwater around here. Was there anything else incriminating in the documents?”

  “I didn’t get a chance to look at all of them, but there seems to have been some kind of cover-up related to the dumping. Dominick Spiegel tried to—”

  “I’m sure there was,” said Lentz. “Glazier and his money-grubbing pals probably kept a lid on it as long as possible, just so they wouldn’t have to spend a few bucks to properly dispose of their waste. But I’m a homicide detective, Stone. I don’t investigate cancer deaths.”

  “What about a murder?” said Benjamin.

  “I’ve already got one of those.”

  “Another one. I think Dominick Spiegel threatened to go public about the dumping, and Glazier had him killed. Jessica found evidence of Spiegel’s threat in those documents.”

  “I don’t suppose you have proof of any of this.”

  “I had a box full of documents.”

  “Yeah, well, you don’t anymore.”

  “I’m sorry, Detective Lentz,” said Benjamin, through gritted teeth. “I fucked up.”

  “You have no idea who hit you?”

  “Khaki pants, green polo shirt. Tall. White. I didn’t see his face.”

  “Fantastic. I’ll just put out an APB on all tall white men with khaki pants. Can’t be more than half a million in the county.”

  Benjamin said nothing. There was nothing he could say. After a moment, Lentz spoke again.

  “So your theory is that Glazier had Jessica killed because she was going to go public with these documents?”

  “No,” said Benjamin. It pained him to say it, but the truth seemed clear to him. “I think she was blackmailing him. She used the documents as leverage to get Glazier to invest in XKredits, and she worked out some kind of partnership with Cameron Payne.”

  “Wow,” said Lentz. “That’s… pretty dark.”

  Benjamin shrugged. “I wouldn’t have thought she was capable of it myself, but I’m learning I didn’t know my daughter as well as I thought I did.”

  “Maybe she’s more like you than you thought.”

  “Manipulative,” you mean.

  “Smart and manipulative.”

  “I’m not a t
hief, though. And I didn’t raise Jessica to be one.”

  Lentz shrugged. “It’s this town, this place. Money doesn’t seem real here. If you’re not filthy rich with stock options twenty minutes after you arrive, you start to feel like you’re owed something. I’ve seen it lots of times.”

  “Yeah, maybe so,” said Benjamin.

  “Get some rest,” said Lentz. “And stay out of trouble.”

  Chapter Twelve

  Benjamin leaped the creek, landing awkwardly on the other side. Regaining his footing, he broke into a run again. He didn’t stop to yell after the boy this time, instead focusing all of his energy on catching him. The dark castle loomed in the distance.

  Getting within a few paces of the boy, he dove at his legs, throwing his arms around the boy’s ankles. The boy went sprawling on the orchard floor.

  Benjamin panted heavily, sweat stinging his eyes and his fingers tingling from lack of oxygen, but he held the boy’s legs tightly.

  “What is that place?” gasped Benjamin.

  “Shhh!” the boy hissed, and began kicking wildly at Benjamin. Benjamin struggled to keep hold of the boy’s legs, but it was like trying to wrestle an ornery mule. The boy broke free and got to his feet. Exhausted and short of breath, Benjamin dove after him, getting a grip on the back of his pajama tops. He heard button pop and the shirt came loose in his hands. The boy, his brown skin glistening in the orange light of dusk, ran toward the dark castle.

  “Please,” gasped Benjamin. “Don’t go in there.”

  Benjamin fell on his back, wiping his brow with the boy’s pajama top. As he pulled it away from his face, he noticed a nametag embroidered on it. The tag read: FELIPE.

  Benjamin awoke with a start, finding himself once again back in the motel room. He’d been diagnosed with a mild concussion and released from the hospital. After staying up another twelve hours on doctor’s orders, he finally knocked off around four am. It was now past noon. The dream was still fresh in his mind.