“Kind of like cancer statistics.”
“Don’t be an asshole. We don’t live in a zero-risk environment. Never have and never will. And if we tried, there’d be no creativity. No scientific advancement. Innovation would be stifled.”
“Let me see if I got this straight. If we want to keep listening to ‘No Nukes’ albums and Willie Nelson, we need to accept the fact that the environment may get fucked over.”
“Crane, it’s bad business to market hazardous products; it’s good business to market safe products. Have you been around Annie so long that the simple logic of that is lost on you? It’s crazy for you or Annie or anyone to think the chemical industry is going to make a practice out of being irresponsible. Just to make an extra buck or two. It just ain’t necessary, Crane. It ain’t good business.”
Crane sipped the Pepsi. His first sip. It was warm now. “Then why do some Kemco plants still make Agent Orange?”
“You mean 2,4,5-T.”
“Yes. They’re not dumping it on Vietnam anymore. But it’s still being dumped on American forests.”
“Of course it is. It’s an established tool of forest production.”
“It’s got dioxin in it.”
“Yes.”
“Dioxin is only the worst foul fucking thing in the world, Patrick. It causes cancer. Birth defects. You name it. Good shit, as a retread ’60s doper like you might put it.”
“Accusations like that have been leveled at 2,4,5-T for years, but the government has yet to ban it. And we believe it provides an important service.”
“Sure.”
“I’m surprised you haven’t realized yet how one-sided Annie’s research is, Crane. How conveniently she ignores the facts she doesn’t like. The U.S. Forest Service did a study on the use of 2,4,5-T in the Northwest, and found that discontinuing the use of the herbicide would have an economic impact of several hundred million dollars on Oregon alone. That’s jobs that would be lost, Crane. Families that would suffer. All because without that herbicide, the brush would come in and take over what would’ve been a healthy new forest. Did Annie’s research tell you that?”
Crane said nothing.
“You know, Crane, these well-meaning leftists are engaging in what you could call ‘chemical McCarthyism.’ The chemical industry makes such an easy target. The public doesn’t understand the science, the technology involved. The environmentalist types come along and spout some half-truths and whole lies, all because of an irrational, unscientific distrust of anything that isn’t ‘natural,’ that might tamper with Nature in a way God didn’t intend, only most of them don’t believe in God, so go figure. I don’t know. I’m just a guy trying to make an honest buck. I never hurt anybody.”
Crane said nothing.
“I’ll get somebody to take you home,” Patrick said. No more smiles. No more rhetoric. He seemed tired.
“I’m sorry about Mary Beth,” he said. “I really am.”
The hell of it was Crane believed him.
Chapter Nineteen
Crane was sitting on the couch in Boone’s house, watching a late movie without paying attention to it, when Boone got home.
He could tell things hadn’t gone well for her. Her face looked tired. Her hair was messy, greasy. But she still looked pretty, as she gave him a weary smile and came over and joined him on the couch.
“I could use a kiss,” she said.
“Who couldn’t?” he said, smiling a little, kissing her.
He put an arm around her and she cuddled against him.
“How did you and Billy get along?” she asked.
“Swell. He spoke twice: ‘What’s for supper?’ and ‘I’ll stay up as late as I want.’ ”
Tired as she was, she managed a smile. “You cooked for him?”
“Sure. Another of my specialties: frozen pizza.”
“When did he get to bed?”
“Half an hour ago.”
“He’s got school tomorrow.”
“That’s his problem.”
“Well, you didn’t fare much worse than most of his baby-sitters.”
“How did you fare?”
“With the ‘Hazardous Waste Strike Force,’ you mean?”
“Yeah.”
“Don’t ask.”
He didn’t say anything for a while; neither did she.
Then she rose and said, “How about some wine?”
“Sounds almost as good as another kiss.”
“Doesn’t it?”
She went away for a few minutes, came back with a bottle of red wine and some wineglasses. She poured. They drank. They kissed again. Then she got thoughtful.
“It was like talking to you,” she said.
“What was?”
“Telling my story to the Task Force guy. His name was Hart. Sidney Hart. He was a nice guy, about my age. A special investigator assigned through the state police to the Task Force. He spent hours listening to me.”
“What did he say?”
“Like I said, it was like talking to you. He was interested in what I had to say, polite, but skeptical. He said he’d heard rumors about Kemco, but that the company had never been caught in a major violation. He questioned what we’d really seen last night. Yes, it’s suspicious for trucks to haul waste to a landfill at night; but it isn’t necessarily illegal.”
“What about the manifest system? What if Kemco didn’t report the dumping?”
“Then it’s just our word against Kemco’s that any dumping took place at all. We didn’t even write down the license number of the fucking truck, ’cause we thought we had it on film.”
“It was New Jersey plates.”
“But you don’t remember the number, do you? Me either. So all we’ve got is our story, and who’s going to take us seriously? Who are you, but the fiancé of a woman you think Kemco killed? And who am I, but the disgruntled ex-wife of a Kemco executive, out for blood, right? What kind of credibility does that give us?”
“That’s what Patrick said.”
“Patrick?”
“Yeah. I talked to him this afternoon.”
“You talked to Patrick?”
Crane told her about the Kemco car stopping for him, about going out there and spending half an hour with her ex-husband.
“I can’t say he struck me as... a monster or anything.” Crane said.
She moved away from him on the couch, just a little. “How did he strike you?”
“I didn’t exactly like him. And I can understand why you couldn’t put up with his attitudes. But I find it difficult to believe he’s in any way involved with Mary Beth’s death.”
“He must be.”
“You really think your ex-husband is a murderer? Your son’s father?”
“Patrick is... it’s possible.”
“You can’t say it, can you? The guy’s selfish and self-centered and I think he’d do a lot of shady things if his bosses asked him to... like maybe pay off some midnight haulers in cash... but not murder. I just don’t buy it. And I don’t think you do either, if you’d be honest with yourself.”
“It’s a criminal conspiracy, Crane. It’s Watergate. It’s something that got out of control, that people got caught up in. And Patrick was one of them.”
“It’s not Watergate, Boone, and even if it was, I don’t remember anybody getting killed over Watergate.”
“Who really knows?”
“Oh Christ. Let’s not sing the Paranoid Conspiracy Nut Blues again.”
“What do you think happened to Mary Beth, then? You think she killed herself?”
Crane put down the wineglass. He looked at Boone. Their eyes locked.
“Yes,” he said.
“Crane...”