Tainted Mountain (25 page)

Forty-One

Nora stirred herself and
took the sheet of paper from Heather. It bore Southwest Consultants' logo. A matrix covered most of the page with printed column and row headings and Scott's scribbled figures in the boxes. “I don't know what this is,” Nora said.

She stomped to the box and peered onto it. Just what she wanted, to paw through the remnants of Scott's secret life with another woman. Her stomach flipped and landed with a dull ache.

The first few items looked innocent enough. Racing magazines and old bike gloves. Under that she extracted a framed snapshot of Scott and Maureen standing in front of his backpack tent with a river in the background. Nora tried not to remember lying in that same tent next to Scott on so many of their own camping trips. When had she stopped backpacking with him? Two years ago, three? Something at Kachina always needed attention and even if she found downtime, the thought of strapping on a forty-pound pack and traipsing into the woods exhausted her.

She'd been stupid to think Scott, the man who loved an audience, would be happy alone while she worked. The pain of her loss made her want to fall to the ground and curl into a tight ball.

She started to put the frame on top of the magazines, but she didn't drop the frame as she intended. Instead, she raised her arms over her head and brought the frame straight down on the edge of the rock, shattering the glass and breaking the frame into two separate pieces held together by the photo inside. She picked up the mess and ripped at the picture and, with a final violent flourish, threw it into the trees.

“Wow,” Heather said. “I never heard anyone scream like that.”

Nora turned around, suddenly aware that her throat hurt. “I screamed?” She swiped at tears.

Heather nodded. “Feel better?”

“Not really.”

“Want me to go through that stuff?”

Nora shook her head. “It doesn't do any good to deny the truth. I need to face it and put it behind me.”

Heather's mouth twitched.

“I know. It sounds like Abigail.” Nora scowled at her.

Seeing his things so neatly in the box hurt nearly as much as noticing Maureen's arm around Scott's waist in the photo. Scott didn't organize or keep anything neat. This had to be Maureen's doing. She took care of him, nurtured him. Nora forced herself to think the last … loved him.

Nora pulled out the stack of charts wrapped in a rubber band. The pages showed dates for twice a month. She flipped to the end of the stack. Over three years. He told her the affair ended two years ago. It had never ended. Damn it. Damn him.

She sank to her knees and gasped for air.

Heather materialized at her side, stroking Nora's back. “I'm sorry.”

Nora struggled through the haze of anguish. She had something to do; exactly what, she didn't know. She couldn't fall apart. The world slowly took shape around her.

Heather stood next to her, uttering soothing words.

After many minutes, Nora pulled herself to her feet and cleared her throat. “Abigail called that one right. I wasted seven years on Scott.”

Focus, Nora. Take care of business. It's what you do.
She picked up the pages again. “What could these be?”

Charlie croaked from the backseat. “Bring them here and let me look.”

Nora jumped. Charlie was like some spook that raised himself from the dead to spout prophecy and then collapsed, only to rise again.

S
he hurried to him to see if he looked close to death. She realized she didn't even know exactly what injuries he suffered in the explosion, other than a burned hand. But his face showed a healthy bit of color and his eyes sparked with life.

Charlie pushed himself to sit with his back against the door. With his good hand he took the page Nora held. He stared at the paper for a full minute, maybe willing his eyes to focus. Finally he handed it back to Nora. “Those are well logs. Scott was a logger for Barrett. He was checking groundwater.”

“How do you know?” Nora asked.

Charlie smiled with reminiscence. “Protested a coal mine a couple of decades ago. Right before I lit the fuse in the office, I saw some logs like that. The company wanted to prove the water content.”

The situation mushroomed in her mind, overwhelming her. “Who
was
Scott?”

Nora spun from Charlie and paced the clearing, anything to drag out the gremlins gnawing at her sanity. “I knew our marriage wasn't as good as it used to be. I didn't know how to make it work but I tried. Everything I did backfired. I should have known he was having an affair. I probably did on some level. But how could I have not known he worked for Barrett for three years?”

Charlie studied the page. “Did Scott know anything about water?”

Nora couldn't stop pacing. “He had an undergrad degree in environmental science. He knew a little about a lot of things. And yeah, I think he took some hydrology classes.”

“So Barrett hired him to track groundwater,” Charlie said.

“Why would he want to do that? Why not hire him outright with McCreary Energy?” Heather asked.

“There's something in the groundwater that interests Barrett and he doesn't want anyone to know about it,” Charlie said.

Heather considered this. “Wouldn't Scott have needed an office and a lab to do the testing?”

“Maureen. Maureen was a graduate teaching assistant at the university,” Nora said.

They both looked at her.

“She worked for a biologist.”

“You knew her?” Heather asked.

Nora tried not to think about it. “She had a project tracking a vole or something out here a few years ago. She and some field techs camped on the meadow on the other side of the mountain. Scott probably met her there. Or maybe she chose to come here because they were already together.”

Gradually Nora forced her mind from the Wronged Woman track. She didn't have time to mourn for a husband or life she never really had.

Heather frowned. “So Poppy hired Scott on the side. Looks like Scott took samples every two weeks from,” she counted on the page, “ten wells. He hired Scott on the sly to keep the findings secret.”

“And Scott found something he couldn't keep quiet about,” Nora said.

“This is it! Got a phone?” Charlie sounded suddenly alert.

Heather found her bag under the backseat and grabbed her phone. When she handed it to Charlie he waved his bandaged hand.

Nora snatched the phone. “What's the number?”

Charlie recited and Nora punched, having no clue who she dialed. She didn't wonder long. She recognized Cole's voice the moment he picked up.

He sounded frantic. “Where are you two? Never mind. Stay put. The cops are everywhere looking for you. Charlie is gone and they think you kidnapped him.”

“I did.”

Silence. Big inhale. “Okay. We'll figure this out.”

“Charlie's here. He wants to talk to you.” She held the phone to Charlie's ear.

“We got it. Proof that Scott worked for Barrett. Well logs, pay stubs.” He paused while Cole responded.

“Not sure where they're located. Got to be maps at Barrett's office with the wells numbered.” Again he waited.

“No. You gotta stay with Abigail. I've got Heather and Nora with me. Take care of my girl, man.”

Charlie nodded at Nora. “Wants to talk to you.”

Cole spoke quietly. “I don't know if you want to tell Heather, but they found Alex. Cops think he stole Big Elk's Escalade and rolled it outside of Winslow. He's dead.”

Big Elk and Alex both dead, along with Scott and Maureen. Corpses were piling up on Barrett. Nora had to make sure there would be no more.

She pushed the words from her mouth. “You and Charlie are working together on this, aren't you?”

“We're going to stop Barrett. I promise.”

Nora swallowed. “Just keep Abigail safe.”

“I'm on my way,” Cole said. “Be careful.”

Careful. As in, don't let the bad guys kill me and the people I love?

“Nora,” Cole paused. “It will be okay.”

“Okay.” It sounded more confident than she felt.

“I really care about you, Nora” he said, his voice low and urgent.

She hung up the phone and turned to Charlie.

He nodded with conviction. “We're going into enemy territory.”

Forty-Two

Heather climbed into the
driver's side. “This is a good plan. Poppy will be all relieved to see me. I'll get him to walk to the stables. He thinks we always bond over horses. And you and Charlie can read the logs and maps and find the wells.”

Fear lodged in the pit of Nora's stomach. “This seems ludicrous to go right into Barrett's grasp.”

“He'll be so happy I'm home it won't occur to him that I brought you with me.”

It might work in a perfect world. But the last few weeks proved how imperfect her world could be.

Charlie lay down in the backseat and before they even hit the main forest road his snores echoed in the vehicle. His excitement was no match for his tired body and a moving vehicle. Nora watched the mirrors for headlights, stared down the road ahead, turned to the side, then back.

“You're making me nervous,” Heather said.

“Maybe we should go to the cops. I'll turn myself in. They don't have any evidence on me because I didn't kill Scott or Maureen or blow anything up.”

Heather rolled her eyes. “Sure. Let's do that. You can convince them you didn't kidnap Charlie. Then you can tell them that Poppy really killed all those people and blew up your house, and you have a theory it has something to do with groundwater. That will fix everything.”

“Okay, fine. But this is stupid. What if we do figure out which wells he's monitoring. How will that tell us anything?”

Heather shook her head. “I don't know. But it's all we've got.”

Normally, the drive would take them back to the highway, through town, out to Interstate 40, and ten miles on the other side of the peaks: a forty-minute commute. But going through the peaks on a curvy, steep dirt road took much longer. The night grew darker and more sinister. Heather didn't spare the tires, suspension, or comfort of the passengers as she sped down the rocky mountain pass. Nearly two hours of driving tied Nora so full of knots her blood pressure nearly popped the veins in her forehead.

Still, when they turned down the one-lane blacktop road leading to the McCreary headquarters, Nora found her right foot pressing phantom breaks, dreading entering the lion's den.

They rounded the last corner to the imposing ranch house.

Heather frowned. “He's not home. Where would he be?”

“Maybe he is home, he's just trying to fool you.”

Heather pulled up in front and put the Toyota in park. “What's the point in that? If he were home, the lights would be on.”

Charlie stirred in the backseat. “Got a powerful headache. Sure could use a cold one.”

Heather pulled the keys from the ignition and dropped them in the console. “Let's get that taken care of at least.”

Nora got out and grabbed the well logs. “It's after ten. You're sure he's not in bed?”

“Poppy hardly ever sleeps.”

Nora and Heather helped Charlie out of the backseat and up the porch steps. Heather opened the door and turned on the hall light.

“If he wasn't here, he'd have locked the doors,” Nora whispered, already pulling back.

Heather led them through the front door, past an entryway and great room with enormous windows looking across the valley to the peaks. A three-quarter moon rose, brushing the tip of Kachina Peak. “Poppy doesn't lock doors. In his world, no one would dare cross him. Maybe he's right; we've never been robbed.”

Heather left Charlie supported on Nora. She walked to a wet bar at the edge of the room and opened a small refrigerator. She pulled out three cans of beer and, lodging two between her forearm and belly, she popped the third open. She held it out to Charlie.

“Jewels in your crown, darling.” He took it and tipped it back, chugging it down.

She opened another, handed it to him, and took his empty. “Feel better?”

“Immeasurably.”

“Barrett really believes he's above it all?” Nora asked.

Heather stopped at a closed door and punched a code into the lock. “Yes.”

“He doesn't lock the door to his house but he locks his office?” Nora asked.

Heather grinned. “That's to keep me away from his guns.” She opened the door. “People hardly ever say no to him, and when they do, he's got ways to deal with them.”

“Like Big Elk and Alex.”

Heather froze. “Alex?”

Ugh, what an idiot.
Nora put an arm around Heather. “I'm sorry. I shouldn't have told you like that. Cole said they found him dead in Big Elk's vehicle.”

Heather stood motionless for three seconds, then took one deep breath. “Poppy needs to be stopped.”

Nora shivered. “Thank God Cole is with Abigail.”

Heather switched on the light, illuminating the office. She walked to the wall opposite the desk where a four-foot by three-foot framed map hung next to a full gun cabinet. “Okay, what are the well numbers?”

Charlie dropped into the leather desk chair and opened the third beer.

Nora spread a few logs on the desk and studied them. She listed off well numbers.

Heather turned around. “There are so many maps here. I don't know where to start or even what we're looking for.”

“Do you have your phone?” Nora asked Heather.

Heather handed it over and Nora hit the last number. After two rings Cole picked up. “How's Abigail?” she asked.

She heard the smile in his voice. “Sleeping.”

“Good. Is U the symbol for uranium?”

“Yes.”

Nora leaned over and looked at the well logs. “Now that I can read the logs, I see that uranium levels are increasing in the last few months. We can't figure out where, though.”

“What are the well numbers on the logs?”

She read off the list.

He paused. “Those are water wells on the Colorado Plateau.”

Nora passed that along to Heather, who flipped charts. While Nora explained about finding Scott's logs and the increase in uranium counts, Heather located the wells on Barrett's maps.

“If uranium levels are increasing, it must mean McCreary Energy didn't do such a grand job of cleaning up their spills,” Charlie said. He sipped instead of gulped his beer. A good sign. “But why would Barrett kill Scott because he discovered the contamination? Someone was bound to do a study and find out sooner or later.”

“Unless he wanted to clean it up before anyone found out,” Heather said.

Charlie shook his head. “You can't suck uranium from water in the middle of the night. It's a big operation and he'd have to get permits and jump through the EPA's hoops.”

Cole listened, and then said, “The wells are in Hopiland.”

“Scott knew it and was going to say something at the hearings,” Nora said.

Heather nodded. “And Poppy must have found out about Maureen and figured she knew too.”

Charlie rose from the desk. “Now he thinks you know, and maybe Abigail too.”

“Barrett is getting desperate,” Nora said. Cole didn't weigh in.

Charlie leaned back and picked up one of the log sheets. “My ancient eyes can't see this miniature log.”

Heather leaned over the desk. “I think Poppy keeps a magnifying glass in the drawer.”

Charlie opened the drawer and rummaged around under a few papers. He pulled out the glass, then stopped and stared. He took out an old snapshot of a woman, a little girl, and a man holding a baby.

He held the picture under the glass and stared at it. “Oh! How could I not know?”

Heather bent over the maps. “What?”

“I remember Sikyatsi.”

Heather looked from the picture to Charlie.

He set the glass down but held the picture. “I don't know how I missed the resemblance. I'm getting old and forgetful, I guess. But you have her eyes.”

“Whose eyes?” Heather demanded.

“Ester. The only woman besides our sainted Abigail that I ever loved.”

Heather stared at him.

“Barrett's wife,” he said.

“Poppy had a wife?”

“And what a woman she was. You are so much like her. How could I have not figured it out?”

Heather stared at him.

“You asked about Sikyatsi earlier, but I forgot.” He pointed to the picture. “This is Soowi.”

Heather leaned in to look.

Charlie's wistful voice croaked in the quiet. “She was your mother.”

Heather's knees buckled and she caught herself on the edge of the desk. She grabbed the picture.

“You are Barrett's granddaughter.” Charlie stood and walked to Heather. He held her face cradled in his one good and one bandaged hand. “I thought we'd lost you too.”

Heather barely breathed the words. “My grandfather?”

Charlie stood back and let Heather process. She finally looked at him. “He had a wife. And kids?”

“A boy and a girl.”

“Where are they?”

“Ah, angel,” Charlie said, his voice thick with sympathy.

Barrett as a young family man. Nora had a hard time with the concept. “You'd better tell us the whole story,” Nora said.

Charlie rubbed his hand along his grizzled jaw. “I thought Mac was a true believer. It was him who helped me with that logger's office. I took the heat so he could stay with Ester and the babies. He settled onto the rez and lived the good life.”

Heather stared at him with dry eyes. “He lived on the rez? Which one?”

“Ester was Hopi through and through. She wanted good things for her people—your people. She worked hard to keep the old ways and fought to stop the rapers and extractors from tearing out the heart and lungs of the Mother.”

Nora cringed at Charlie using the same vernacular as Big Elk.

“Barrett was a little less peaceful. More like me. But we needed to make people aware. It wasn't like now, with Al Gore making movies and everyone wanting to be green. Back then, it was all greed and exploitation.”

Heather's voice sounded like a mouse. “What made Poppy leave the rez?”

“
Choices, man. Bad choices.” Charlie shook his head. “Blood is thicker and all that. Barrett McCreary the Second, your great-grandfather, had a heart attack. Bam. Dead. And just like that, Mac turned coat and became The Man. He left the rez and Ester and those babies. And he made a fortune gouging the vitals of the Mother, throwing away everything we'd worked for.”

When Charlie stopped and Heather couldn't form words, Nora stepped in. “What happened to his family?”

Charlie stared at the beer while seconds ticked. Finally, he looked in Heather's eyes. “He broke her. Ester took the baby and went to the land for solace. Or maybe she just couldn't do anything else. She lived on the desert for months, eating in the old Hopi way, drinking from springs and seeps.”

The story wasn't over, but Charlie stopped as if going on would be too hard.

Finally he inhaled and started again. “She and Mac had been working against the mining companies, trying to force them to clean up. She knew about the uranium leaks and contamination. But she drank from the springs anyway. And she nursed that baby boy.”

Nora's stomach twisted.

“When she came back, there really wasn't anything we could do except watch them die. The baby went first. Even if Ester hadn't been so sick, that loss would have killed her. I was with her at the last.” His breathing sounded heavy and labored. “She suffered.” He drew in a shaky breath. “So much.”

Heather didn't move.

Charlie sank to the desk chair. “And Mac wasn't there to see. He was making money.”

“My grandmother and uncle died. What happened to the little girl? My mother. Did Poppy raise her?”

“The tribe hid her. They wouldn't let Barrett near her. But it was a hard life for the little darling. I kept in contact with her for a long time. But she … ” Tears filled his eyes and he swallowed. “Lost soul. The drink got her.”

Heather stopped breathing.

“Alcoholism?” Nora asked.

He nodded. “Found her in Gallup in an old wash.”

“My mother.”

“If the tribe hid Heather and her mother from Barrett, how did he end up adopting her?”

Charlie stared at the desktop. His voice didn't rise above a whisper. “I heard Soowi sold the baby.” Aside from a deathly pallor, Heather showed no signs she'd heard Charlie. “Wouldn't be
hard for
someone with Mac's resources to have bogus adoption papers drawn up.”

Nora hugged Heather, but the girl didn't soften. “He's a monster. We have to stop him.”

The only way to help Heather was to finish this business. Nora studied the map and dialed Cole. When he picked up she said, “If the uranium is building in the aquifer, does that mean it will get in the Hopi water wells?”

His phone went dead.

“Cole?” Nora slapped the phone closed and redialed. It immediately shifted to voicemail. Something was wrong.

She turned to Heather and Charlie. “I've got to get to the hospital. Now.”