“A company town,” Joe repeats. “How quaint.”
“When is ETL sending techs?” Raj asks. He even sounds depressed. Environmental Testing Laboratories specializes in clean water supplies, with a focus on heavy metal contamination. Unfortunately, they’re one of the few trustworthy labs in the Midwest, and their backlog runs months deep.
“Next week,” Joe says. “But we shouldn’t expect results on the water to come in before July.”
“If that,” I say. “What else can we look at? What about accelerated rates of cancer?”
“In the past few years? Nope.” Only in our line of business is there reason to be disappointed that cancer doesn’t work faster.
“Optimal moved in twenty years ago,” I point out.
“You expect us to go back that far? We don’t have the manpower. Besides, you know how these hospitals work. It’s easier to get blood out of a quarter, and half of what you do get is restricted.”
“It’s data. Even if it isn’t admissible later, it isn’t a waste. We should do a survey of local doctors at least.” This is how we work: quick back and forth, push and pull. The first time I met Joe, he pointed out that the water bottle I was drinking from was a source of chemical leach, and I pointed out that he was a dick. We’ve been friends ever since.
I decide to push my advantage. “What about the old cases I sent around? Do we think there’s anything there?”
“You mean the Mitchell case?” Flora speaks up. Brightly, of course.
“The Mitchells, Dales, Baums, and Allens were the primary plaintiffs,” Portland jumps in. He doesn’t miss the chance to get some Brownie points. I like him. “Apparently their daughters—teenagers, four of them—got really sick. Tremors. Vision disturbances. Episodes of fainting. They filed a civil suit when it began to spread—”
“Right. Then dropped it.” Joe tosses the stack of notes back on his desk. “It was a hoax. Just young girls trying to get rich in a corporate payout.” Then, without warning, he rounds on me. “Wasn’t it, Abby?”
Fucking Joe. He’s always litigating.
“That’s what they said.” I think of Kaycee trying and failing to pick up her pencil in art class. I think of her friends, twitching through the halls like insects. “There was a lot of attention on them. One of the girls skipped town afterward. The others withdrew their complaints. I’m originally from Barrens,” I explain into a room of blank stares, taking on the originally as if afterward I hopped around to, who knows, Paris and Rio and Santa Monica. “I was in school with the girls who got sick.”
“But there was an audit.” This is from Raj, our first-year associate. I suspect, from the distant courtesy with which he and Joe treat each other, that maybe they are screwing after hours. “Someone from the EPA came down and spent a month doing tests. Optimal passed. They’ve passed every review since then, too.”
“Still, it’s a pretty big coincidence, don’t you think?” I say, casually, as if the idea never occurred to me before.
“But it wasn’t a coincidence,” chimes perky Flora again. “Before Optimal moved to Barrens they were headquartered in Tennessee for a decade. At the time, they were called Associated Polymer. I guess that’s still the parent company. In the early 2000s a group of plaintiffs brought a case accusing Associated Polymer of illegal dumping. They paid out rather than fight the case, though they always denied wrongdoing.” This girl is really working for her A. You gotta love overachievers.
“If they didn’t do anything wrong, why would they settle?” Portland asks.
“Optimal’s come close to skirting the line a few different times over the past decade,” Joe says, riffling through a stack of papers as if checking his notes. It’s all for show. He has a photographic memory, or close to it. “Labor violations, tax audits, even a discrimination case. But nothing sticks. No one wants to press them too hard, not when they’re bringing in so much cash.”
“That’s small-town politics for you,” I say.
Flora picks up where she left off. “Well, that’s how the girls got the idea to shake them down in the first place. One of the girls—Misha Dole—said so.”
“Misha Dale,” I correct her.
“That wouldn’t help us now unless we can prove continuity,” Joe puts in. “If we want to do a deep dive on Optimal, we’ll need to convince someone there’s a reason we’re even looking. That means sworn testimonies and affidavits from people who are experiencing symptoms now. It also means ruling out other causes. I do not want to put my ass on the line only to find out we got some bedbugs and a crazy old man with a vendetta.”
“You have to understand.” My voice echoes to the old rafters, and something startles. A bird. I can’t see what kind, though. “We’re not the heroes here. We’re the enemy.”
“Oh, good.” Joe smirks. “The villains always get better outfits. Let’s get to work.” When he claps, the bird alights and swoops down over our heads, beating its way out the open door. Flora screeches.
“It’s just a crow,” I say. And then, because I can’t help it, “Crows have amazing memories. They can distinguish between human faces, too. They’re like elephants. They never forget.”
“No wonder they always look so angry,” Joe adds, and when I look up at him he’s lifting an eyebrow at Raj. Yeah, they’re fucking.
—
I claim the empty desk and busy myself sorting through the notes that Gallagher left us: detailed notations, almost hieroglyphic, of changes to the soil pH, unfamiliar bacterial blight, unexplained crop failure.
One thing leaps out at me right away: Gallagher provided a statement from a woman named Dawes who claims that her kid has been getting rashes. But if they’ve been using a private well, as most families do in Barrens, it’s bad news for us. If the contamination is in the groundwater it will be much harder to tie to a single source. And there’s always the possibility the whole case is fluff to begin with, that some locals might be sniffing around for a payout like Kaycee and her friends tried to ten years ago.
For the rest of the team, this is just another case. For me, it’s a chance to finally take on the demons. To root out the ugly secrets. I wish I could say I was here to get justice for the voiceless, for those who have no power, just like I once had no power. I wish I could even say I want the bad guys to suffer.
But I just want to know—for sure, for good, forever. For a decade the same questions have been knocking around, over and over, in my head. Only the truth can shut them up.
Chapter Three
At six o’clock I call it: type on the page has begun to collapse before my eyes. Joe packs up when I do, and watching him shove papers into a leather carryall, I wonder what he thinks of this place. I’ve tried to explain to him where I’m from before, in minor detail and broad generalities. Rural, sticks, wide-open spaces, twenty minutes to get a loaf of bread…I wonder if he sees me differently now amid the faint smell of manure and hay and the acres and acres of unpopulated land.
Gallagher’s dogs are working overtime, and start up again as soon as Joe and I step outside to lock the place up. Several hundred yards away, the furnace behind the farmhouse feeds the smell of charcoal into the evening air. Gallagher must be home.