“Oh but I do,” Robert said.
“I heard you.” Henry’s voice stronger now. “The test failed.”
“Doesn’t matter.”
“Yes it does.”
“It doesn’t. That’s the beauty of it.”
Henry frowned.
“What matters,” Robert said, “is the name. We named the company AquaHeal.”
“Why does that matter?”
“Because it’s a shell.”
“A what?”
“A front, Henry. For the parent company, the money guys. They don’t care that the test failed. They don’t care if the cleanup works. Yes or no, it doesn’t matter.”
“It has to.”
“No it doesn’t. The money guys make their money in the oil market. That sample Dad and I were taking, when you saw us at the river? It was for their dog-and-pony show, a stunt for the press. AquaHeal is their green cred.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means the money guys want people to look at what they say and not what they do.”
“That’s illegal,” Henry said.
“No. That’s strategy.”
“That’s… That’s….”
Shameful, I thought. Shameful is the word you want, Henry. I glanced down at Walter seeking I didn’t know what, some kind of help here, some way to take this in a better direction than it was now heading, but Walter was hunched over staring at the ground, perhaps trying to come up with a word, an idea, with something and if the answer was there in the dirt I wished him good luck finding it.
Robert finished it for us. “Bottom line, Henry, I kept you out of it. I kept you pure.”
Henry Shelburne laughed.
“Did Cam know?” Henry asked.
Robert answered, “Does it matter?”
Henry reached into his belt bag.
Robert appeared unconcerned. Still waiting for that Margarita.
Walter said something, whispered something, so hushed that I could not make it out and I moved down into the trough and knelt beside him thinking okay finally he’s got an idea.
Something landed in front of me.
I jerked, and looked. It was entirely commonplace. And unsettling as hell.
Now that I was on eye level with Walter I turned to him — what now, because things are really going to hell here, because we really need an idea here. He met my look and gave a shake of the head. Don’t.
Don’t what? I could think of a dozen things not to do. I could think of nothing useful to do.
“You need to sit ankles together,” Henry said. “You need to do them first.”
I looked up.
Henry nosed the Glock in our direction.
Walter took hold of my arm and tugged me down to sit beside him in the space he had cleared.
The package Henry had tossed was closer to me. So I picked it up and ripped the plastic open. Took out two cable ties. Passed one to Walter. They were heavy-duty, rated to handle a couple hundred pounds. I’d used heavy-duty ties like these to bundle duct hoses when I installed my washer and dryer, two years ago. Now, slowly, Walter and I began to bind our ankles. Threading the cable ties, a micrometer at a time. Sounded like a clock ticking.
“Zip them.”
We zipped them tighter than I’d wished. Sounded like a machine gun.
“Now you need to do your wrists,” Henry said.
I took out two more cable ties. Passed one to Walter. We bound our wrists. At Henry’s instruction, zipped machine-gun tight.
Walter hunched over his knees and muttered, “Blast it.”
I whispered, “You okay?”
He hiked a shoulder.
Henry crabbed close and retrieved the open package. He moved to the mouth of the grotto. He took out a tie and tossed it to Robert. It landed short, in the brush edging the pothole. He took out another tie. Hands shaking. He crabbed closer. “I don’t want to shoot,” he told Robert.
“You don’t need to.” Robert leaned forward and held out his hands.
Henry tossed the tie. It landed true. It floated on the pool like a stick. Robert picked it up and began to loop it around his wrists.
“Only do one hand,” Henry said. “Thread it through the handle first.”
Robert’s face tightened. He had to twist his torso and stretch his arm to reach the spigot. He slid around the surface of the pool like it was ice. He gripped the spigot. He anchored there. And then with an effort he threaded the cable tie through a wheel cutout in the handle and closed it off around his wrist. He pulled the zip tight. Quite clearly it was not going to slip off over his big hand. He adjusted his position to face his brother. Awkward, now. No relaxing on the raft, no Margarita on the horizon.
Henry returned the package of cable ties to the belt bag. He asked, again, “Did Cam know?”
“You’re like a dog with a bone, Bro.”
“Did Cam know?”
“I kept him out of it.”
“Then why were you fighting?”
Robert took a long pause. “Fighting?”
“That day on the Yuba.”
Robert took a longer pause. “I’ve never fought with Dad. Which day on the Yuba we talking about, Henry?”
“That day Cam died.”
I thought, oh shit. I thought, as if it mattered, Robert lied about being in Sacramento the day his father died.
Robert slowly held up his uncuffed hand. Palm out. “Let’s be clear, Henry. You overheard us talking about the company, right? So if you heard that, you also heard me giving Dad the strategy, the way it got funded. And you heard Dad disagree. He waved his hands around, like he does. But no blows were exchanged, for Christ’s sake. We argued. That’s what you heard.”
“No,” Henry said. “I didn’t hear the strategy. I didn’t hear that part.”
“Then I don’t follow, Bro.”
“I saw that part.”
Robert gave a strained laugh. “You’ve lost me, Bro.”
“You said, Henry would not be an asset in my world. When I heard you say that, I left.”
“You left? Well then…”
“The trail is steep, Robert. I saw from up above.”
Robert gave a little jerk.
“I saw Cam wave his hands.”
Robert gave a stiff nod.
“I saw Cam fall over.”
“He had a heart attack,” Robert said.
“I saw Cam fall into the water.”
Robert sat stone still in the quicksilver.
“I saw you watching. That’s all you did.” Henry holstered his gun. “And then you left.”
19
Henry turned and walked away.
Robert remained silent.
Walter and I were silent. I could hear my own heartbeat, the pulse in my ears. I could hear the distant cry of a bird, the crunching sounds of Henry’s boots upon gravel, Walter’s quickened breathing beside me. I could hear the hiss of the mercury through the spigot. A constant sound. Otherwise, the silence went on and on, excruciating.
At last Walter spoke. Whispered. “This is news.”
Was it? Hadn’t I suspected as much, when I obsessed on the steel clip on the mesh pocket of Robert’s pack? Yes I had. And then I’d let it go. And then Henry had come on scene. Henry and his gun. And I had a new suspect in my sights.
Now I fixed my sights again on Robert Shelburne. One expression after another seemed to chase across his face. Worry, confusion, anger, calculation. No, what I saw was mounting fear. And then he started yanking his cuffed hand, trying to free it from the wheel handle of the spigot.
I glanced at my partner. He was doing the same. Bent over his feet, shifting position, trying to find an angle to work.
Good idea.
I followed suit, hunching over my own feet, positioning my ankles, hoping for a little give in the binding, a space between one foot and the other which could be capitalized upon. Maybe if I took off my boots I could slip one foot free. Hands bound at the wrists but that left my fingers free. I yanked the laces on my right boot, the boot with the torn tongue, didn’t even feel the bruise anymore, that damage entirely inconsequential, and now in my haste I’d knotted the laces and I thought fiercely pay attention but already another thought had entered my mind. A geologist thought. How many times have I used a rock pick to pry out minerals deep inside a pocket in an outcrop? I didn’t have my tools at hand but I sat in a field of rock debris. I started raking through the gravelly soil.