"Better to be safe than sorry. We noticed that first thing this morning Dan Young went off to a photo place and delivered some film. We don't think it was a coincidence."
''So you don't even know for sure that they took a picture of anything to do with the theft of their money. We might have pictures of some Little League game."
"True. But we can't take that chance."
"How much if I get you the negatives and the photos?"
"Twenty thousand."
On the corner of her table sat a bottle of sulfuric acid. She picked it up, removed the lid, and half-filled a tiny metal cup a little larger than a thimble.
"My, my, you are lustin' after those pictures. And why me? Why all that money?"
"We've got nobody else."
Next she undid each of the four snaps on the five-gallon drum and donned rubber gloves.
"Cut the crap. If I get caught, you can deny you know me, and I've got a built-in motive. I'm the crazy-ass enviro who already stole their money. The cops would think I was worried they had pictures of me or the car or my sidekick.''
"We don't think you'll get caught."
"What if I don't believe you're telling me everything?"
"There's still the twenty thousand. Believe that."
"How do I know you'll pay?"
"You know we value the relationship."
The five-gallon can was lined with heavy plastic and inside it was a white powder. Using a small scooper that would hold about a quarter teaspoon, she scooped up the powder.
"I'll think about it."
"Just get us the film. We don't care what's on it. You'll get the twenty grand."
"Call me back in three hours."
Corey hung up, knowing they were holding out on her. But stealing those pictures would give her the chance to find out what was on them. That alone might make it worth it. She had to find out who owned the calm, somewhat detached voice on the phone. Maybe something in the pictures would give her a clue. They sure wanted them badly enough.
She set the scoop of powder on her desk and carefully closed the canister and shoved it in the corner. In a few minutes she would take it back to the outbuilding where she stored it. She was saving it for something big, but at the moment she wanted to reassure herself of its potency.
On the table was a small metal ball. It was comprised of two half spheres the bottom of which was solid and the top of which was filled with little holes. It was used to make tea.
She opened the window of her workroom and placed a large fan in it, turned it on, and created an air current flowing to the out-of-doors. Next she put food pellets in a feeder at one end of the terrarium. Immediately the mouse began eating. Placing the white powder in the solid portion of the ball, she set it at the end of the terrarium opposite the feeder. After opening the ball, she placed a small cupped piece of plastic over the white powder, then placed several drops of sulfuric acid on the plastic. Quickly she placed the plastic lid on the terrarium and stepped back to the doorway of the workroom. It took only seconds for the acid to eat through the plastic and hit the white powder.
Gases, like smoke from a Marlboro, drifted into the terrarium. Within seconds the mouse was stone dead. She stepped out, closed the door to the room, and stuffed a towel under the door. She would wait twenty-four hours for the room to clear of any residual gases.
She had gotten the stuff two years earlier at a metal-plating plant where one of her cousins worked. Although she had not been exactly certain what she was looking at when she first saw the five-gallon canisters, she had a fairly good idea. A few minutes' research at the library told her that by mixing the stuff with ordinary sulfuric acid she could create hydrogen cyanide.
Entering her den, she stopped to study a drawing on the wall. It was a set of plans to the courthouse given to her by a disgruntled, former maintenance man. He had been fired from his job because he had been working on the roof with some tar and caused an unfortunate accident. It seemed that there was a rectangular-shaped cavern in the roof about ten feet deep. On the wall of this chamber, there were louvers that allowed air to enter a mechanical room inside the building. It was the air intake for one of the air conditioners and heating units and it fed the courtrooms on the west side of the building.
Working down in this ventilator well, he was spreading hot tar and didn't think to close off the air intakes. People in the courtroom began instantly choking on the stink. One angry judge demanded somebody's job. Corey had sympathized with the man and said she would consider hiring him a lawyer if he would get drawings that depicted what had taken place. She never got the lawyer hired but did keep the drawings.
Corey looked out the window of her den. Through a break in the overcast, a shaft of sunlight beamed through the shadows. Looking down at her glass-topped desk, she saw that both the sun and the clouds were reflected there, in an interplay of gray and gold. She sat and closed her eyes.
The sea, the sun, the dolphins, appear, but this time the sound of waves crashing on rocks in a steady, rolling rhythm. She sits in her forest, alongside the rocks. Soon the rhythm becomes insistent, taking over her body. And she becomes the rhythm, relaxing, reveling in it. Like sex. Leaving her forest, she swims. Her hands pulling against the glass-smooth surface, the rhythmic sound of her breath, the bracing smell of salt in the air, the silken sensation of the water's passage under her outstretched arms.
When she woke, she felt suddenly angry, as though she had been in a fight. Sitting back in the oak chair, the straightness of it feeling good against her twisted back, she focused her anger and sorted out her plan. Photographs. The pharmacy on Fourteenth in Palmer would receive a visit.
Getting the film was almost effortless: No one really expected someone to break into the film section of the pharmacy. It was only the narcotics they kept locked up in a safe inside a heavy metal cage. A simple electrical fire that she had ignited in just under five minutes would further confuse the issue. She realized she was getting good at this stuff and mostly because she was calm and just thought her way through it.
On her way home she decided to stop at the courthouse. The irony did not escape her. Much of the epic struggle between mainline environmental groups and the timber industry over the redwoods took place at the county courthouse in Palmer. Often these court battles were attended by twenty or so environmental activists and one industry lawyer.
On occasion, however, the troops for both sides turned out in mass. It was this eventuality that Corey had in mind.
She entered the building by the front door and headed for a narrow staircase next to the main elevators. Running up the concrete stairs for five flights felt like exercise in a mausoleum. The stairwell was encased in rectangular concrete and painted light cocoa in a column that rose to the fifth floor.
On the fifth floor were various, smaller county offices, like the office of the public guardian, and a small section of the county assessors group. There the main stairwell ended at the door to the fifth-floor main hallway. Doubling back from that door, there was a narrow hallway leading to another door. This door had a small 8" x 8" window and opened onto more stairs that went up to the roof.
The stairway to the roof was not a fire exit and was kept locked at all times, but the window in the door could be easily broken with a heavy metal object. There was no alarm.