Scratchgravel Road (12 page)

He smiled broadly. “I know these boots.”

She raised her eyebrows. “You recognize the brand?”

“I recognize the
boots
.”

Josie laughed. She had expected nothing to come of the visit.

“Do you know where I worked before I retired?” he asked.

“I assumed you’d always repaired shoes. Had your own shoe store,” she said.

He stood from his chair slowly, easing his joints into an upright position. “Be right back,” he said. He disappeared through a sliding glass door and Josie got a whiff of what she assumed was a pot roast in the oven. She realized how hungry she was.

Through the downpour she could barely make out streams of water rushing down the tail end of the Chinati Mountain chain behind Jeremiah’s property. It reminded her of the mudslides that washed down the mountain a few years ago. Several of Jeremiah’s neighbors had lost their homes. She hoped he would manage to stay lucky.

A gust of wind blew a fine mist across the porch and caused goose bumps to run up her arms: a welcome relief from the heat the day before.

Jeremiah appeared carrying a pair of boots that looked identical to the pair the dead man had been wearing, and he placed them in her lap.

“Where did these come from?”

“The Feed Plant.” He grinned and winked. “That’s where I worked fixing boots.”

“You worked at the nuclear weapons plant?”

“For over twenty years. That’s what brought me to Artemis. I worked here in the fifties when the plant was in full production. When the plant shut down I moved away, but came back when I heard about Drench’s project.”

Josie attempted to keep her face neutral. The place, now closed up behind barbed-wire fences, had always given her an uneasy feeling. “Didn’t it bother you working there, knowing the kinds of deadly material you were working with? Weren’t you scared you might be exposed to radiation?”

He leaned forward to pick his chair up and turned it slightly to better see Josie. His face was animated, his bald head beaded with sweat. She had touched a nerve.

“What scared me was what happened in Japan at the end of World War Two. Those bombs we dropped stopped the war. If we hadn’t dropped them, someone else would have dropped them on us. Don’t you believe otherwise.”

Josie gave him a skeptical look.

“The science was out there. We just figured it out first.”

She squinted at him, trying to understand his logic. “So, we needed to build weapons capable of killing millions? I just never understood that.”

He looked at her, wide-eyed. “One of the safest eras in American history? You don’t understand that? We were top dog during the Cold War. We were proud to call ourselves American. There wasn’t any flag burning back then. We went to work at the Feed Plant because that’s what the country needed.”

“But it turned into a race to see who could build the most bombs,” she said.

He crossed his arms over his bare chest and clamped them down. His expression had turned intense. “We knew, and the Russians knew, we were stockpiling enough weapons to blow each other to kingdom come. And neither country wanted that.” He reached over and grabbed Josie’s arm. “We were in a stalemate. Neither of us could make a move without destroying not just their country, but everyone else on earth! Every country in the world had their safety in our hands. It was science and strategy.” He frowned and leaned back in his chair. “And then it all came crumbling down. And look at us now. There’s no strategy. War today is like street fighting.”

Josie didn’t want to get into a political debate with him so she returned back to her original questions. She needed to get back to the station before the road washed out.

“So, why would a nuclear weapons plant need a cobbler?” she asked.

“Was a time we went through a lot of boots. Back in the fifties? We had two thousand people who rode the railcars into work every morning. Got dropped off in their civvies, changed into regulation uniform and boots, then changed back before they left. That helped keep the radiation inside the plant. We took good precautions.”

He picked his glasses up off the coffee table again and put a hand out for Josie to pass him the boots she held in her lap. He took them and studied the bottom. He pointed to where the leather met the sole and held them up for Josie to examine them. It looked as if the leather had been melted. “See that? That’s from what they called boil-overs. There were eight or ten stations in the factory, and each one used chemicals that did something to the uranium to make it ready for the bomb.” He glanced up at her from over the top of his glasses. “They were powerful chemicals. When they would boil over, workers would walk through the sludge on the floor and the soles of their boots would melt. Rather than throwing the boots away they hired me to resole them.”

Josie shook her head in amazement. “The workers had to walk through chemicals so hazardous they melted the rubber and leather on their boots?”

“Yep. I never saw anybody get burnt from the chemicals. Leastwise, not their feet. We were careful. We took precautions. Wouldn’t happen like that today, but back then we had a serious job to do. We were protecting our country, and we took the job serious. We did what we had to do.”

“If the plant is closed down, how would the man in the desert have a pair of the boots? Especially if the workers weren’t allowed to take the uniforms home at the end of the shift,” she said.

“I’m guessing they’re using the old leftover boots for the cleanup. From what I hear, they’re pretty lax on safety. They probably let the workers wear their uniforms home now since there’s no production. No new uranium coming in.”

Josie considered what he said for a moment. Jeremiah had worked at the plant in its glory days and he was obviously proud of the work he had done. She wondered at the validity of his comments.

“When you say ‘lax on safety,’ have you heard workers complaining about something specific?”

Jeremiah frowned and rubbed at his chin, a gesture Josie took to mean he was uncomfortable with the question.

“Just stuff I hear from people,” he said. “Makes me wonder what those workers might be carrying out on the bottoms of their shoes.”

She nodded and decided to let it go. “You ever see anyone who worked at the plant with sores on their arms?”

“What do you mean?”

“Open sores. Something that might have been caused by exposure to the chemicals or the radiation?”

He looked insulted. “No, ma’am.” He paused, and then asked, “You aren’t going to turn this into a witch hunt, are you? The media did enough of that. We don’t need the local coppers stirring things up.”

Josie assured him that was not her intent. “You did an important job for the country. I respect you for that.”

His face softened a bit and he nodded at her peace offering.

Josie thanked him for his time and pulled her poncho back on to wade back out through the mud.

On the slow drive back to town she replayed her conversation with Jeremiah in her mind. Artemis had been ready for war the year she moved to town and took her job as a city officer. As in the Erin Brockovich case, the town was convinced there was groundwater contamination, although instead of chemicals leaching into the groundwater from a gas company, they were leaking from a nonoperational nuclear weapons facility. Artemis received national media attention when a group of local mothers staged a sit-in around the courthouse, protesting the high rates of cancer in the youth living in Arroyo County. A small group of citizens signed with a law firm who specialized in environmental disasters. As a result of the lawsuit the government hired a research company who finally revealed two years later that the rates of certain types of cancer were slightly elevated in and around Artemis. The court ruled against the citizen group in the first trial, citing insufficient evidence due to the small sampling size from the small number of people living in Artemis and Arroyo County. The group appealed and the case returned to court.

During the same time period, the Environmental Protection Agency came to town to survey and evaluate the Feed Plant and discovered abysmal conditions: hundreds of rusted barrels containing nuclear waste, cracked concrete silos filled with radioactive gasses, contaminated soil and water, equipment used in the production of uranium sitting unprotected and unmonitored. The EPA put the plant on a fast track for cleanup and a private company, Beacon Pathways, was hired for undisclosed millions to clean the plant up over a period of ten years. The media coverage died down after the citizens’ case was lost on appeal, and Beacon’s ten-year cleanup contract was extended an additional ten years. Other than occasional grumblings in the local paper about the abuse of taxpayer money, it was a one-time sensational issue that most residents preferred not to think about. For others, Beacon paid well during troubling economic times and those workers hoped the cleanup would be around for decades. Josie wondered if the extensions would ever end.

*   *   *

Josie pulled her jeep in front of the police department, anxious to tell Otto what she had discovered. She ran through the rain and into the building, forgoing her umbrella. The bell above the door dinged and Lou, who was pulling folders out of the filing cabinet, turned around, an irritable look on her face.

“Better tread lightly,” Lou said.

“What’s the problem?”

“You heard about Teresa?” Lou scowled and looked behind her as if scouting for spies. She loved gossip. Josie thought the world of Lou, but she had a mean streak a mile wide and she looked ready to use it.

Josie shook her head, and Lou motioned Josie back to her desk.

“That girl did it this time. Teresa took her savings account money and posted bail for Enrico Gomez!”

Josie looked confused. “I just saw him this morning.”

“Sheriff must have got him right after you left. Sheriff Martínez just got off the phone with Marta. He told her that Teresa was at the bail bondsman’s before the ink dried on the paperwork.”

“Damn that kid. What were the charges?”

“Possession. Couple grams of coke. Teresa paid standard bond fees and he was out within two hours.”

“Who arrested him?” Josie asked.

“Sheriff’s deputy. Pulled him over for speeding, driving toward Marfa. Deputy found the drugs in the glove compartment. Boy wasn’t even smart enough to throw it out the window.”

Josie sighed heavily. “How did Teresa find out about Enrico getting arrested?”

“Supposedly the jailer allowed him two phone calls. He placed two collect calls, one to his grandpa, who didn’t answer. Then he called Teresa.”

“How can a kid with so much potential be so hell-bent on destroying her life?”

“Teresa claims he was framed. He’s the love of her life and all that garbage. Marta’s ready to rip her kid’s eyes out over it.”

*   *   *

Josie shook her head and walked toward the stairs in the back of the office. Gossip, especially accurate gossip, was torture in a small town. Marta would be living in her own private circle of hell when word got out on the streets that her daughter had bailed out a drug dealer.

Josie saw Otto leaning against the office doorway when she reached the top of the stairs, his expression grim. “Lou filled you in, I have no doubt.”

Josie nodded.

Marta was sitting at her desk talking loudly into the phone.

“Who’s she talking to?” Josie asked.

“Wee Wetzel.”

“You’ve got to be kidding,” she said.

Otto poured them both a cup of coffee, placed Josie’s on her desk, and carried his back to his chair. “Marta wants to know how a bail bondsman could let a minor bail out a convicted felon,” he said in a loud whisper. “Wetzel said Marta’s daughter paid cash, and she had picture identification. Nothing he could do about it. Marta is threatening to sue him and throw his butt in jail.”

“Where’s Teresa?” Josie asked.

Before Otto could answer, Marta slammed the phone down, stood from her desk, and planted her hands on her hips. “I will have his ass in jail by nightfall. I don’t care if I arrest him for loitering or jaywalking or peeing on a tire, he will break a law by sundown.” She was breathing heavily and her voice was low and measured.

“Hold on. Let’s think this through,” Josie said.

“How could Wetzel allow a sixteen-year-old girl to implicate herself with a sleazy bastard like Gomez? Why didn’t he call me first? No professional courtesy?”

Josie stood and shut the door to the office and pointed to the conference table. The three sat down and allowed Marta to rant against the bail bondsman for several minutes.

Josie finally cut her off. “Wetzel is scum. He has no concept of professionalism or courtesy. Don’t waste your time trying to figure someone like that out. You can’t do it.” She leaned forward in her seat, watching Marta closely. “You know we’re behind you on this, one hundred percent, but my advice is to slow down.”

“She had to sign a contract—a legally binding contract—to bail him out of jail. You can’t tell me a sixteen-year-old can legally do that!”

Otto cleared his throat. “The worst thing you can do is go after him and have it backfire. You need to make sure you can wrap him up tight before you do anything.”

Josie nodded agreement. “I’ll call the county attorney and ask his opinion first. We need to make sure the law backs you up. Then we’ll take care of Wetzel.”

Marta blew air out as if a balloon deflated in her chest. “That girl is going to kill me. She will literally be my death.”

“She’s just being a kid,” Josie said.

Marta closed her eyes. “Please. Do not make excuses for my daughter’s behavior. She’s gone too far this time.” She ran her hands back through her hair several times, blinking her eyes, trying to keep the tears from coming. “I appreciate you both, more than you can imagine.” She took a deep breath and looked away from Josie, her voice softer. “I hope this doesn’t cause problems for you.”

“You let me deal with that. Your conduct isn’t at issue,” Josie said. She imagined the notion had been weighing on Marta since the sheriff had called her with the news.

Marta’s expression lightened and she nodded slowly as if forcing herself to move on. “I’m okay then. Tell me where we are with the body.”