She knew her nephew was a born adventurer. He spoke with firsthand knowledge of exotic places many people only knew from the pages of National Geographic. He went from country to country, job to job—and woman to woman—with effortless ease, never finding anyone or any place that could hold him for long. The only real stability in his life was her house.
Aside from her time in college Bea Fontaine had spent her entire life in Sycamore River. When asked if she ever got bored, her invariable answer was, “A town can be the whole world in microcosm.”
The cat flap in the back door banged several times as the other members of Bea’s feline family entered the room. They knew better than to beg for food; they would only be fed after she had eaten. They contented themselves with making figure eights around the ankles of the humans. Silent reminders of their presence.
Jack put the dinner plates in the oven to warm while he grated cheese for the omelets. “Tell me about this awful day of yours, Aunt Bea. Did they have the bank auditors in?”
“I wish it were that simple. Actually we had a couple of rather nasty incidents. This morning Dwayne Nyeberger suffered a nervous breakdown in the lobby; for a while it looked like he’d lost his mind. He had a hallucination that really scared him. Aren’t those omelets ready? I’m starving.”
They ate at the kitchen table. Bea sat with her back to the sink, Jack preferred to sit with his to the wall. The table was laid with a checked cotton tablecloth, as practical as it was plain. Over the years Jack had brought his aunt Belfast table linens and damask napkins from Belgium, but she never used them.
After one bite of her omelet Bea put down her fork and beamed at her nephew. “That’s absolutely delicious! What on earth did you put in the eggs?”
“Bit of this and pinch of that. You should know, you watched me.”
“Watched you work some sleight of hand, more like. You must have stirred in cream cheese when I wasn’t looking. By the way, there’s still coffee in the pot if you want any.”
“I’d prefer some of that vodka you keep in the freezer.”
“That’s Stolichnaya from St. Petersburg, the genuine article! One of our best customers brought it to me.”
“You have life by the short and curlies, don’t you?” Jack teased. “Break out the Stoli and I’ll replace it the next time I go to Russia, I promise.” He sketched a cross over his heart. “You mentioned a couple of incidents at the bank, Aunt Bea. What was the other one?”
“What were you doing in Russia?” This was an old game between them. She tried to put together the patchwork quilt of his life from the bits and pieces he chose to reveal.
“Handling a little matter for North Atlantic Refineries.”
“A refinery?” she said eagerly. “Do you know much about oil?”
“I’ve needed a basic knowledge of petrochemistry because of some of the work I do. And I have degrees in—”
“I know all about your degrees; you have a mind like a vacuum cleaner, but you’ve never used any of that education to get a permanent job.” It was an old sore point between them. Bea pushed back her chair and stood up. “I have something to show you; wait right here. And finish your supper before it gets cold.”
She went into the living room and returned with her black leather handbag. From its capacious depths she produced a white handkerchief stained with a dark, partially clotted substance. She held the handkerchief toward Jack’s face. “Sniff this. What is it?”
4
Jack’s nostrils flared at the acrid odor. He drew back and gave her a puzzled look. “That reeks of crude oil, Aunt Bea. And something else I can’t identify. Why’s it on your handkerchief?”
“This morning it was a counter pen in the bank.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Neither do we. But our pens and their holders have turned into this stuff.”
“Weren’t they made of plastic?”
“They were this morning; this evening they’re like the goo on my handkerchief. Our bank cards have dissolved too.”
Jack raised a single eyebrow. It was a trick he had practiced for hours in front of a mirror when he was a teenager. “They did this while pigs were flying overhead?”
“No, really. They turned to sludge in a matter of seconds. I was hoping you could explain why, as you’re a fund of useless knowledge.”
Jack laughed—and this time the warmth reached his eyes. “No knowledge is useless if you need it.” He enjoyed showing what he knew; he had what his aunt called “a lecturing voice.” “Let’s start with the basics, Aunt Bea. Crude oil is liquid petroleum formed by the decomposition of organic matter.”
“Even I know that,” she said impatiently.
“Okay. Petroleum contains hydrocarbon compounds that can be extracted and used to create petrochemicals, which are a major component of fuels, explosives—and all the items we call plastic: meaning synthetic material cheap to manufacture and easy to mold into any shape you want. A lot of people pay good money for things they think are wood or metal but which are really plastic. It fattens the profit margins.
“As for your question—that’s a tricky one. When plastic breaks down it usually disintegrates into tiny bits that are damned near indestructible. Marine biologists say there are more tons of plastic rubbish in the world’s oceans than tons of fish. But some plastics will dissolve to a certain extent if they’re broken up and boiled with oil. In poor countries the fumes are distilled and used as a substitute for gaso—”
“What about my handkerchief?”
“I can’t identify the stuff on your handkerchief, Aunt Bea. But there’s no doubt what its base is.”
She lowered her spectacles and gave him what Jack called “the Aunt Bea Look.” Without glasses her eyes were dark hazel, almost amber. She was the only person who could intimidate him. “I don’t want a tutorial. All I want is to know is why our plastic’s doing what it’s doing.”
“Beats hell out of me,” said Jack Reece.
When they finished their meal Bea said, “You’ve used every dish and bowl I have. Help me clean up?”
“I’ll load the dishwasher, but I want to catch the main news on the wallscreen.”
“Then we’d better hurry,” she said briskly.
When speaking of his aunt Jack often remarked, “She takes no prisoners.”
By the time they entered the living room the network news had concluded. On the wallscreen a commentator in three dimensions was saying, “… due to the ongoing danger of cyber sabotage. Now for something lighter: We have a couple of stories that prove the Silly Season has arrived. In San Diego an amusement park owner has claimed that vandals are destroying the concessions. The little plastic ducks in the…”
Bea caught Jack by the arm. “Do you hear that?”
“Ducks in San Diego?”
“No, my dishwasher; it shouldn’t be making those churning noises. We’ll have to unload everything before it breaks my plates. I’ll call the service man tomorrow.”
Jack switched off the wallscreen. “Don’t waste your money, I’ll take a look at it right now. Sounds like a bearing’s going, or maybe it just needs greasing. If it’s not purring like one of your cats by morning I’ll buy you a new one. In the meantime why don’t you have a cool bath and tuck up in bed with a good thriller? I brought you a couple from the airport, real books with covers. They’re on your bedside table.”
Hours later, with the dishwasher performing normally and the kitchen littered with the contents of his aunt’s household tool box, Jack realized he was tired too. His flight had been a long one and the taxi driver did not know he was a local, so had tried to bring him to Sycamore River the long way.