Dangerous Undertaking (13 page)

“Nuts,” said Dad.

The three of us looked at my father, surprised that he had followed and joined the conversation.

“Nuts,” he repeated and held up his half-eaten pecan cookie.

We had to laugh.

“That’s right, Dad,” I said. “Nuts.”

The telephone rang. Mom answered the extension in the hall.

“It’s the sheriff for you, Barry.”

“Let me catch it downstairs,” I said, as I walked out of the den. “You and Susan can visit without me bothering you.” I did not want to have Mom overhear whatever news caused Tommy Lee to track me down. A knot tightened in my stomach, telling me that today’s peace and tranquility was about to come to an abrupt end.

“Stabbed?” I asked, not sure I had heard Tommy Lee correctly.

“That’s what the medical examiner said. I haven’t gotten the full written report, just a briefing by phone. He said no doubt about it. Clean penetration at the base of the sternum, then a twist under the rib cage that punctured the heart. Death was nearly instantaneous.”

I backed away from the kitchen counter, stretching the phone cord until I could sit down at the Formica table. “People don’t commit suicide by stabbing themselves in the heart.”

“No, not that I’ve ever seen. But here’s the really strange part. The M.E. couldn’t give me an exact time of death, but he did determine Dallas had been in the water around five days.”

“But that can’t be,” I stammered. “How could—”

“Yes. How could Dallas have been killed Thursday and murdered Fats McCauley Sunday?”

“I’ll be right there as soon as I take Susan home.”

I placed the phone back in the wall cradle. My knees wobbled as I started for the stairs. Fats McCauley had been murdered by Dallas Willard’s shotgun, but Dallas Willard’s body had been at the bottom of Hope Quarry at the time. A murderer was still on the loose, and he probably had my name on a note in his pocket.

Chapter 13

Tommy Lee was on the phone, but he waved me to a seat. I slid into a chair and sipped my cup of free county coffee.

“It’s two-thirty now. Give me the rest of the afternoon,” he told someone. “I want to see how he reacts to the news. You can move in after that.”

He hung up, visibly satisfied by the call.

“That was Dr. Camas,” he said. “Last night they brought in work lights and a magnetic crane. All the drums have been removed from the quarry.”

“They didn’t find a shotgun, did they?”

“Shotgun? You mean Dallas’? No.”

“Good. Then at least Fats wasn’t killed by a ghost carrying a ghost weapon.”

“No, Fats was killed by someone who wanted us to think Dallas had killed him and who never expected Dallas’ body to be found.”

“Camas give you any leads?”

“Just that those old ruptured chemical drums indicate a possible criminal disposal of toxic waste. The EPA won’t be releasing any official information for at least a week, but they want to begin their investigation immediately. I got him to hold off till tomorrow.”

“Why hold them off at all?” I asked.

“I went back to Hope Quarry at dawn. Dr. Camas was bringing up the last of those containers. The insides of the broken metal shells were lined with some kind of non-metallic material. Looked almost like the glass of a thermos bottle.”

“To hold what?”

“Camas said acid. Acid that would have eaten through metal. Indications are the containers were dumped along with Dallas’ body. Most were damaged, and the acid ate through their rusted exteriors and contaminated the water. I saw one of the drums. The only markings on it were the stenciled letters ‘PPM.’”

“What’s that mean?”

“I’d bet it means Pisgah Paper Mill. Funny thing is they’ve been out of business for ten years.”

I remembered where I’d heard of the company. “Have you seen him yet?”

Tommy Lee smiled. “That’s why I’m holding off the EPA. Come on, Barry. This should be interesting.”

“He’s not expected until four,” said Fred Pryor’s secretary. “He’s been at a corporate meeting in Charlotte the last few days, but he called this morning to say he’s driving back after lunch.”

Tommy Lee leaned over the desk in the cramped mobile office and glanced at the open appointment book. The brunette appeared flustered, not sure whether she should close it or not.

“Wednesday, October twenty-fourth,” said Tommy Lee. “The meeting is not marked for today.”

“It ran over. He normally drives back the end of the day, but Mr. Ludden scheduled an executive committee meeting for this morning.”

“Is that Ralph Ludden?” asked Tommy Lee.

“Yes,” she said. “The CEO. His office is in the tallest skyscraper in Charlotte.” She looked around the dingy room. “I hope we’ll be there someday.”

“Mr. Pryor is in line for a promotion?”

“Well, it’s not my place to say, but Mr. Ludden is sixty-three. He’ll be stepping down in a few years. Mr. Pryor has worked for the company for thirty years. Nobody knows Ridgemont Power better.”

“And you’ll go with Pryor if he gets the job?” asked Tommy Lee.

She smiled. “It’s customary.”

“Well, I hope your days here in the wilderness pay off, Miss—”

“Cummings. Jane Cummings.”

“Jane, my associate and I are going to grab a burger.” He tapped the calendar. “Pencil us in.”

As we walked toward the car, a voice called behind us. “Is there a problem, Sheriff?”

We turned and saw a workman hustling across the parking lot to catch us. He wore a green John Deere cap, blue flannel shirt, and dusty jeans.

“Somebody die?” he asked as he stopped in front of us.

“Why would you say that, Odell?”

I didn’t recognize the man until Tommy Lee spoke his name. Odell Taylor, the construction foreman who had stayed glued to Pryor at the Colemans’ visitation. Last time I’d seen him he’d been more formally dressed.

“Ain’t he the undertaker?” he said looking at me. “I thought maybe y’all had come to tell somebody their kinfolk was dead.”

“No, not this time. We came to talk to Pryor.”

“He ain’t here. Something I can do?”

“Thanks, but we’ll be back.”

Taylor cut his eyes back and forth between us like he wanted to ask another question. Then he shrugged. “Suit yourself. Well, I got to get to work.”

When we were in the patrol car, I asked, “What do you know about him?”

“Not much. I run into Odell around the county now and then. Couple years back he put in a driveway for Reece.”

“Seems like he doesn’t want anyone getting too close to Pryor. At the Coleman visitation, he was like a guard dog around his boss.”

Tommy Lee laughed. “Maybe that’s something he picked up from Reece. Of course, I didn’t say that.”

At the junction with the main highway, Tommy Lee said, “You don’t want a burger, do you?”

“No.”

“Good, because we aren’t going anywhere.” He looked right and left. “Pryor should come in from the south, from the expressway. Let’s see if we can find a cozy spot to wait.”

About a quarter mile from the entrance to the Broad Creek site, Tommy Lee found a gravel road where we could park with some degree of secrecy.

“You remember the cars by Pryor’s office?” he asked.

“Just that secretary’s Subaru. Only one I saw.”

“I mean from last Friday.”

“You’re kidding.” I thought for a few seconds. “Your pal Bob Cain’s car. You pointed it out to me.”

“Beside it was a blue Buick Park Avenue. A typical executive-mobile. That’s what we’re waiting for.”

Tommy Lee’s memory didn’t fail him. Within twenty minutes, the Buick zipped by. The sheriff’s tires sprayed loose rocks as he kicked the patrol car in pursuit. We caught up with Pryor as he turned into the project entrance, and Tommy Lee rode the man’s bumper all the way to the trailer.

Pryor quickly opened his door and stepped out. This time he looked the board-room part. Gone were the jeans and cowboy boots. He wore a well-tailored, blue pin-stripe suit and a natty yellow tie, and carried a slim, smooth, black leather briefcase. Gold cufflinks flashed above his wrists.

“Good afternoon,” said Tommy Lee. “How was your trip?”

He stared at us in bewilderment. People like Pryor fear not having control, hate not knowing what is going on. Pryor obviously despised this situation.

“We need to talk a few minutes,” said Tommy Lee, and he started for the door of the trailer. “Glad to see you have power today. Maybe Jane can make us a cup of coffee.”

When Pryor entered his private office, he assumed his executive posture behind his desk. He had used the last few minutes to regain his composure and now felt confident to deal with our unannounced visit.

“I’m very busy, Sheriff. Is this a social call or can I help you in some manner?”

“A little of both,” answered Tommy Lee. He took a cup of black coffee from Jane and sat down in one of the two guest chairs as if he had all the time in the world. I followed his lead and set my cup on the edge of Pryor’s desk.

“So, how’s the project going? Is my friend Mr. Ludden pleased?”

Some of the regained confidence ebbed out of Pryor’s voice. “You know Ralph?”

“We’ve done some charitable work together. Veteran causes.” Tommy Lee touched the patch on his eye. “Ralph has been very supportive, but you probably know all about that.”

“Yes, I understand he was in the Marines.”

I knew Tommy Lee had been active on issues for veterans, but he never dropped names. A CEO, a Congressman, or an unemployed vet all received equal treatment from him.

“Yeah, Ralph’s a hell of a guy,” he said. “Must be great to work for. Gives you the independence to do your job your way.”

Pryor nodded enthusiastically.

“Wants you to have your own mind. I know he’d tell me ‘Tommy Lee, if Fred Pryor wants to support Bob Cain, that’s his business.’”

I thought the man would choke. He spit coffee back in his cup and his face turned neon red.

“That’s not true,” sputtered Pryor. “I just use Cain as a security consultant. I don’t think he’d make a good sheriff.”

“Well, thank you for your support. You may want another security consultant since somebody stuck Cain’s bumper sticker on the back of your Buick.” He paused and took a sip of coffee, savoring the man’s discomfort. “So, the project is on schedule?”

“Ahead of schedule,” Pryor said, anxious to move to another topic, “and under budget. The utility commission, our stockholders, and the Ridgemont customers will be glad to know that.”

“Then you don’t need to excavate as much as planned?”

“We are excavating more. Our work force has done an excellent job, and we’ve been able to go deeper. The volume of the lake will be over ten percent greater without flooding any more land or exceeding the specs of the dam. It’s now a four-hundred-acre battery.”

“Battery?”

“I’ve started calling it that. You’ve probably always heard it referred to as a pumped-storage project, but since power-generating potential will be stored in the water of the new Broad Creek reservoir, it’s like a battery. We charge it at low-demand times and tap it at high-demand times.”

“Wasn’t there some question about energy efficiency?”

“Opponents tried to make something out of that. Yes, it will consume more power than it generates because Broad Creek is not a large enough body of water to feed the reservoir fast enough to run the generating units. That’s why a tunnel is being dug to help fill the reservoir from Lake Montgomery fifteen hundred feet below.”

“That’s quite a distance,” said Tommy Lee.

“It’s true the electricity required to get water up into the reservoir is greater than the power generated when that same water falls down through the powerhouse chamber. But that’s not the point. We pump the water with excess electricity at night or other times when our other facilities are under-utilized. A significant percentage of what would be lost generating capability is stored for use at times of peak demand. It’s clean, it’s safe, and it’s responsible energy management.” He punched this last phrase with all the PR tones of a television commercial.

“I’m just a local sheriff and you have to make it real simple. You’re saying, at night, when there is plenty of extra electricity, you use it to pump water up out of Lake Montgomery and top off the reservoir?”

“That’s right,” said Pryor.

“Then when your customers are really pulling the system, say air conditioning on a hot day, then you use the reservoir water to make extra electricity, even though it puts out less than the power it originally took to pump that water up the mountain.”

“Exactly.”

“The water just flows back into Lake Montgomery?” asked Tommy Lee.

“Yes. We control that lake too. It is an inexhaustible, reusable supply.”

“It’s also the drinking water for many of the small foothill towns—the heart of their watershed.”

“Plenty of water is available. Three years of drought conditions did not seriously affect Lake Montgomery.”

“I was thinking of the water that is recycled and stored in your newly created basin. What safety measures have been taken to see there is no contamination?”

“The tunnel and the turbines will be as clean as the equipment at any treatment plant.”

“And the land to be flooded? Has it been checked for any pollutants, either natural or unnatural?”

“Hundreds of tests have been run, soil samples taken. The EPA has crawled over the ground like ants.”

“If they found something, would the project be stopped?”

“No. Just delayed until any cleanup is completed and the EPA standards are satisfied. But I assure you, we have been given full clearance. Our working relationship with the federal government is exemplary. Ralph Ludden even helped the Administration with energy policy.”

“I know my buddy Ralph would want everything done by the book,” said Tommy Lee.

“Broad Creek is a pet project of his. I don’t mean to brag, but it is unusual that someone at my level of management would be on-site. This project is very important, and Ralph has entrusted me to personally see that every step is taken precisely by the book.”

“Then will there be a thorough recheck of all the basin land in light of the Hope Quarry problem?”

Both of us saw the puzzled look cross Pryor’s face.

Tommy Lee looked at me. My turn.

“You do know about the chemical spill?” I asked. “The EPA has been up there since yesterday.” I caught the flash of panic in Pryor’s eyes and the flick of his tongue as he moistened his lips.

“I’ve been out of town, you know. First I’ve heard of it.”

Tommy Lee leaned forward in his chair and the chatty tone of his voice disappeared. “Mr. Pryor, containers were dumped in the quarry lake—containers filled with highly concentrated acid waste. The EPA thinks they may be chemicals used to process wood pulp into paper, or the toxic runoff collected from such a process. I’m surprised you haven’t been notified.”

“Why should I be? Hope Quarry is a good ten miles from here. That water is isolated from our operation.”

“I saw the containers being pulled from the quarry. Each was stamped with the letters PPM. The Broad Creek Project does encompass all the land formerly occupied by the Pisgah Paper Mill, doesn’t it?”