Surest Poison, The (7 page)

They strolled out to Jaz’s Lexus, and Sid
directed her toward the HarrCo plant. They had gone only a short distance
when he glanced at the mirror on his side. It felt like deja vu.

“See that blue car behind us?”

She turned her head. “What about it?”

“It looks like the same one that followed
me into town when I left HarrCo.”

“You’re kidding.”

“Yesterday, a green Volkswagen followed
me when I left Bailey’s office.”

“Who would be doing that? And why?”

He didn’t reply.

“Is there somebody from your past who
might have a reason to come after you?” she asked.

He watched the mirror in silence before
replying. “I’d have to pull off
both shoes
and
count toes as well as fingers. But I don’t know of any reason for it to
happen now.”

The car made each turn as they did,
though it held back a little farther than before. When Sid spotted a farm
gate set back from the road up ahead, he told Jaz to pull onto the graveled
entrance and stop.

“We’ll check his license plate when he
passes,” he said.

As soon as Jaz stopped, the other car did
the same. The road was a bit wider here. The car suddenly swung into a tight
turn. A cloud of dust boiled up from the shoulder. The blue vehicle
disappeared around a curve back toward Ashland City.

“Want to give chase?” Jaz asked.

“There were too many turn-offs back there
where he could hide.” He looked toward the road ahead. “I’ll get another
shot at him. He must have been watching the restaurant parking lot.”

“You think somebody’s just trying to be a
nuisance?”

Sid twisted around for a final look
behind them. “He’s being that all right. For now, let’s go find that road on
the other side of the hill and see what it leads to.”

She drove past the last of the picketers
up to the intersection beyond HarrCo and turned in the direction Harrington
had indicated. They found the creek and followed the road beside it, soon
reaching a spot where the land sloped away from a high wooded hill that
appeared to be the one behind the HarrCo plant. Along the bottom of the
hill,
a hodgepodge of small frame or asbestos siding
houses were
sandwiched among a few single or doublewides. They saw
one typical old two-story farmhouse. Most had battered pickups parked in
front. A hayfield spread off to the other side of the road. Large, round
bales lined a rickety fence.

“I imagine a lot of the people who
picketed the plant live around here,” Jaz said.

Sid watched a school bus heading in their
direction. No doubt the area included families with children, too. That made
it all the more tragic. From the looks of the houses, the people here clung
to the lower rungs of the economic ladder. He had learned such people
responded better to outsiders who left the impression of being more on their
side of the financial divide.

He turned to Jaz. “I’d like to talk to
some of these folks and see what they have to say. But I don’t think a fancy
Lexus would provide us with the kind of intro it takes. I’ll come back in my
pickup.”

She cut her eyes toward him and took a
deep breath, looking ready to chew glass. “Next time I’ll eat an extra
helping of humble pie before we start out.”

“Hey, what the—?”

“I’m damned tired of people implying I’m
some kind of stuck-up socialite. I’ve gotten that from cops I used to work
with. I expected better of you.”

He looked at her and shook his head. Why
did women get so touchy?

“I didn’t mean to imply anything of the
sort,” he said, keeping his voice calm. “You can drive a Lexus or a
Lamborghini, whatever you like. It’s only logical that this isn’t the right
car to approach these people in. If they came to the door and saw it, they
probably wouldn’t talk to us.”

She exhaled a noisy sigh.
“Maybe so.
But it sure struck a nerve with me. Do
whatever you like. I need to get home and prepare for a board meeting in the
morning. It may be contentious.”

More contentious than this, he thought?

Jaz had little to say the rest of the way
back to the restaurant.

“Good luck with your meeting tomorrow,”
he said as he got out of the car. “Thanks for the ride. Let me know if you
hear anything else from Bobby Wallace.”

“I will,” she said.

And roared off like a NASCAR driver
coming out of the pit.

Back at the
road
behind the HarrCo plant, Sid
made his first stop at the old white frame two-story. He had on his usual
informal attire, black pants, knit shirt, and tan windbreaker, which seemed
adequate for the task. The house had a wide front porch with a vintage swing
and two wooden rockers. The dried brown remains of several large ferns
zapped by a recent freeze dangled from hanging baskets. A dying odor of
another sort lingered in the air, likely from an animal carcass nearby. The
deep-throated bay of a hound echoed through the woods in back.

A short woman with stringy gray hair and
the mournful look of a troubled past opened the door and stared out at him.

He gave her a gentle smile. “I’m Sidney
Chance, a private investigator. I’ve been hired to look into the pollution
problem at the HarrCo plant just over the hill.”

She grunted,
then
spoke. “You ask me, there’s been enough lookin’ into.
It’s
high time somebody done something about it. My husband died last
month from cancer. They said he probably got it from that stuff they put in
the water at that plant.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,
Mrs.
. . . ?” He paused.

“Jeffords.
They ought to put that place out of business. They hire you to come down
here and tell us we’re just imaginin’ things?”

“No, ma’am.
I’m quite sure you’ve got real problems. And so does—”

“My daughter, Emily,” she continued,
“lives just down the road. She’s been having headaches and gets real dizzy
at times. The doctor says it’s that tri-whatever-it-is stuff.”

Sid gave a sympathetic nod.
“Trichloroethylene.
You’re right, it’s bad stuff.
But the company that dumped it occupied the plant back before HarrCo came
along. It was called Auto Parts Rehabbers. Do you remember anything about
them?”

The lines deepened in her forehead. “That
was a long time ago. How could it cause all this trouble now?”

“They say it takes several years for the
chemical to drain down through the soil and the rock until it reaches the
water supply. Do you remember anybody who worked for Auto Parts Rehabbers,
or maybe who managed the plant?”

“They didn’t stay all that long, seems
like.” She rubbed her brow with a wrinkled hand. “I didn’t know anybody up
there. They never came around here.”

He gave her what he hoped was a
comforting smile. “Well, I appreciate your talking to me, Mrs. Jeffords. You
can be certain I’ll do my best to find out who was responsible.”

“I hope they burn in hell for what they
done to us.”

She had the eyes of a wounded animal. Her
look of despair haunted him as he walked back to his truck. He always made a
point of keeping a neutral stance on cases he participated in. It didn’t
help to become too involved on an emotional level. But this interview left
him troubled.

His next stop was a doublewide with a
clutter of balls, ragged dolls, and various toys, including a battered
Etch-a-Sketch, in the grass out front. A young woman with tousled blonde
hair, toting a small girl in diapers on her hip, answered his knock. He
introduced himself and explained what he was doing in the area.

“You talking about the stuff that came
from that plant up on the hill?” she asked.

“Yes. Has anyone in your family suffered
any health problems from it?”

“Look at this,” she said, holding the
baby out, turning it around to show her face.

The little girl’s mouth twisted to one
side. Her left ear appeared only a gnarled stub. It was the child in the
picture Bailey had shown him.

Sid looked down at her. “That shouldn’t
happen to a pretty little girl like you.” He glanced back at the mother with
a pained look. “How old is she?”

“Almost two.
Her daddy has headaches and gets real dizzy at times. He’s had to miss some
work.”

“The chemicals causing the problem came
when a company named Auto Parts Rehabbers occupied the plant. They were
there until 1995. Did you live around here then?”

“No. We’ve only been here about five
years.”

After hearing similar stories and failing
to turn up any helpful information at several other houses, Sid gave up and
headed back to Nashville. The trip made him more determined than ever to
find who had caused the problem, but he was no closer to the answer than
when he’d left the office that morning.

9

Jaz’s office
occupied a bookshelf-lined room her mother had called the library and her
father
ma cachette
, French for “my hiding place.” A framed photo of
Jaques LeMieux sat on one side of the cluttered desk, a similar picture of
his wife, Gwendolyn, on the other. Jaz had calmed down since accepting that
Sid’s comment about her Lexus was perfectly reasonable, not intended to make
her sound elitist. But coming after an accusation of acting uppity by one of
her old police colleagues, the remark had hit her like a slap in the face.
Sure, she liked nice things now that she could afford them, but that wasn’t
always the case. Her exposure to the humble life had lasted several years
after her mother effectively banished her from the family.

She needed to get to work on Sid’s case.
Turning to the computer, she began checking her sources. She soon had a long
list of Deckers, more than 200 in Tennessee, but none with the name Tony or
Anthony. Of course, she reasoned, he could have moved out of state. Then she
had an idea. She ran a criminal check on the name and came up with a Tony
Decker from Memphis, who had served three years for armed robbery. He was
released from prison in 1989. At the Board of Probation and Parole, she
learned he had reported living in Ashland City in 1993. That put him on the
scene when Auto Parts Rehabbers was in business. He had been off probation
for more than ten years now, so they had no information on his current
whereabouts.

She put in a call to a Memphis contact
and got assurance that background on Tony Decker would be available in a
matter of hours. Nothing got faster results than the promise of a bonus.

Turning to Auto Parts Rehabbers, she
checked the Secretary of State’s office and soon found the company was
formed in 1992. It went inactive in 1995. Then she began to dig deeper. What
she could add to Sid’s arsenal of investigative techniques was
hacker-strength computer savvy and contacts with people who had resources
not available to most investigators. And, if need be, she also had a pretty
face and a set of curves she knew how to use to her advantage.

After completing her search with the
return call from Memphis, Jaz phoned Sid at his office. She told him about
Tony Decker’s record.

“I’m surprised he got a position like
that so soon out of prison,” Sid said. “I wonder if the Rehabbers shut down
because he absconded with the
funds?
”

“Maybe.
It’s also possible he worked on a degree while doing time. Some do that, you
know. It gives them a better shot at a decent job.”

“What else do you have on him?”

“My Memphis contact says Decker lived
there with his mother until he finished high school. His dad abandoned them
when Tony was a baby. Apparently he was a good kid until he took up with an
older boy who got him involved in armed robberies. His mother died a few
years ago, and Tony hasn’t been seen around the neighborhood since he got
out of prison.”

“I’m impressed,” Sid said. “You did a
great job on Tony. What about the company?”

She checked her notes. “Auto Parts
Rehabbers was an LLC, a Limited Liability Company, organized as a
partnership. The registered agent was a lawyer in Lewisville. I thought that
might pique your interest.”

“What’s his name?”

“Bronson Fradkin.”

“Figures.
I remember that shyster well.”

“Somebody you ran into in court?”

“There, among other places.”

“What other places?”

“He’s big in county politics, one of the
sheriff’s main supporters.”

“Would that be the sheriff who accused
you of taking a bribe?”

“It would. Sheriff Zachary set up the
deal, but somebody else had to have been behind it. He’s only capable of
shooting at targets of opportunity. I never figured out who masterminded it.
Could have been Fradkin, although he wouldn’t have had
much reason to.
I seldom managed to get the best of him.”