Bitter Cold (2 page)

THREE

“It’s February eighteenth, isn’t it?” Logan stared at the flowers in the backseat before he sat down. Jeff realized maybe he should have hidden them.

“You don’t have to get out if you don’t want. I’ll be quick. Pretty cold today. Just like—that day.”

Logan slid onto the split bench seat and adjusted the settings. “No, I’ll go with you this time.”

Jeff stopped, his butt hovering over the chair. “What? Are you sure? Because it’ll probably be pretty nasty out there.”

“Yes,” said the boy, his voice solid. “I’m sure. I want to. Mom would want me to.”

Jeff eased into his seat. He couldn’t remove his eyes from Logan. If Emma could only see this. Their son, growing up. Maybe she
could
see him. He liked to think she could.

“Why do we have to go in this, though?” Logan complained about the pickup, finally. Jeff knew it was coming.

“The minivan’s in the shop. Besides, that thing would never make it in this crap. If you haven’t noticed, it’s snowing like crazy.”

“It smells in here.”

“Smells like what?”

Logan sniffed. “I don’t know. Wood. Gas. Feet.”

“And flowers.”

“Naw. It did at first. Now it mostly smells like feet.”

Jeff laughed as he pulled his burgundy Ford F250 onto the lonely highway. Logan laughed, too, but only for a moment, then he stopped. His face grew still and serious as he watched the wintry landscape race past his window.

“Something you want to talk about, little amigo?”

“Dad?”

Uh oh.
Whenever Jeff heard that tone, it always meant trouble.

“Why haven’t you had a girlfriend? I mean since…”

Jeff held his breath, waiting for Logan to say it. The kid let his words dangle out there in the chill the way dead bait swings on the end of a line. It compelled him to answer.

“Well, I don’t know. I guess I’ve been busy, you know? And besides, I’ve been on a few dates.”

“Aunt Carla doesn’t count!” Logan giggled.

“I’m not talking about her. I’ve…I’ve seen a few people.”

“Oh, yeah? Who?”

“A nice lady,” he eyed Logan. “Someone you don’t know.”

“Bullshit!”

“Logan!”

“What? Kids say that all the time. You say it.”

“That doesn’t mean you should.”

“Well it
is
bull…I mean, I know you’re not seeing anyone. Why not?”

Jeff stared at the road while the frantic windshield wipers swept away layer after layer of wet, white flakes. A passing eighteen-wheeler kicked up some slush, momentarily obscuring his vision. The wipers had to work even harder to clear the view.

“Dad?” the boy kept his sights on his father. “Is it because of me? Are you staying single because you’re worried I might think you’re trying to replace Mom?”

Jeff snapped his stare toward Logan. How could he have known?

“Because I wouldn’t feel that way,” he continued. “You know, like she was trying to take Mom’s place or something.”

“Who?” Jeff wondered aloud.

“I don’t know. Whoever. The woman you end up with someday.”

Jeff grinned and flashed his son a suspicious look. “Someday.”

Logan turned to watch the windshield wipers, their never-ending left-right, left-right. He looked again at his dad.

“Don’t you think it should be soon? You don’t want to, you know, lose it.”

“What!” Jeff had to maintain eye contact with the frozen highway. A caravan of school buses came plodding in the oncoming lane. “What did you say?”

“You know what I’m talking about. Haven’t you heard what they say? ‘Use it or lose it?’ I’m afraid you’re gonna lose it.”

He flinched and the Ford hopped over the ruts in the snow. It looked like they were driving directly into the grill of bus number 26.

“Dad!”

He guided the pickup to the center of the lane, tires sliding back into the icy grooves.

“Where do you come up with stuff like that?” Jeff couldn’t hide his smile.

“I’m twelve,” Logan crossed his arms.

He nodded. “Right you are, my man. Right you are.”

Their visit at the memorial proved less painful than he’d expected. Jeff remembered how much he liked having someone by his side when he stood in front of the tree that killed Emma. With Logan next to him, it seemed like a ceremony again. Logan even said a brief prayer, tears streaming down his cheeks. Jeff didn’t bring tissues, so it became a mess. No matter. It gave him a sense of family, like they could all be together again, there, in the bitter cold, in the ditch along US 30.

FOUR

April looked at her watch. Eleven. She knew the clock on the wall had to be off. Way off. Like almost four hours off. She guessed building maintenance wasn’t high on the priority list in the now mothballed visitor center. No need to set the clocks when there were no more visitors.

She felt out of sorts in the small, outdated auditorium, its rounded, arched motif harkening back to an era long since passed. NWP had tried to update it over the years—changed the seats in the theater, painted away the seventies orange that once dominated the place. They couldn’t shake the disco era look, though, with those half-circles built into the wooden architecture. It gave the room a stale feeling. That and the dust.

A sharp, burning pain pierced her side.
Cramps. Great!
Not a good time for PMS
. She breathed it away. At least she pretended to. In reality, her goddam stomach burned with the white-hot fury of a supernova.

She forgot about her pain when the table in front of her began to tremble. She noticed it by the ripples in her water bottle. Then she felt it, a thumping in her chest. Finally, the sound reached her, rattling her eardrums with a constant beat, an unrelenting, approaching thunder.

A few hundred yards away, a black helicopter touched down, lights flashing, swirls of frozen dust ejecting from the spinning rotor blades. Before the rotors stopped, a door on the side opened. Automatic stairs lowered, and out stepped a man wearing brown hiking boots, jeans, a tan jacket, and a blue hardhat with safety goggles strapped to the top. He strode onto the helipad with his chest out and his chin high. Two men climbed out of a white van to meet him. They all had on tan jackets, brown mountain boots and blue hardhats.
Branding
, she thought.
Corporate America at its best. Or worst
.

The men spoke as they hastened into the van, gesturing toward where April was waiting. As the van pulled into the visitor center parking lot, she saw them looking at her, talking, shaking their heads. The three men got out at the same time, smiling, two of them talking into their phones. She choked on her own saliva, wondering how they got service. She had to get on their carrier. They hurried to the building, the man from the helicopter in the lead, nodding to her as they filed in.

“Miss Murray?” the boss gestured. “Have a seat.”

The men stood next to their chairs on the other side of the rectangular table, waiting for her to take hers. She hesitated, studying each of them. The one in charge motioned again.

“Please.”

She flashed a subservient smile and bowed her head, allowing them to sit.
How polite
, she thought.
But when comes the throat slashing? The shark-bite to the ribcage?

“Thank you for coming in such terrible weather, Miss Murray. My name is Gary Strawn.”

Strawn had some youth left in his middle-aged blue eyes. He had a boyish grin, but crow’s-feet and a receding hairline gave away his age.

“We talked on the phone,” she remembered verbally.

“Yes. We did. I asked you to come here today to request you to, well...”

“To cut the shit,” the man on Strawn’s left leaned forward. He was a little older than Strawn, and a lot heavier. His fiery red hair looked like it came out of a box, but she had a feeling it was natural.

“Oh, I’m sorry. This is Buck Armstrong,” Strawn eased the man back with his forearm, then gestured to his right. “And this is Ted McCullah,” the third man nodded. Larger than the other two, his thick, black hair, heavy with silver highlights, made him seem older, too. His pockmarked face and large, deeply wrinkled nose confirmed it. “They’re, well, they’re in our public relations department.”

April gave them each a polite smile, saving a little sneer for Armstrong.

“What Mr. Armstrong meant to say was that we’d appreciate if you’d consider backing off from the earthquake story,” Strawn’s voice was cool. “Of course we’re willing to make it worth your while.”

April squinted. “Am I hearing this correct?” she shook her head cynically. “Are you offering me money to keep quiet? Just what kind of a journalist do you think I am?”

“A poverty-stricken one. They don’t pay reporters much these days, do they?” he glanced outside. “Is that your car? On its last legs. I’d bet there are a lot of things in your life like that. Leaky roof? Late credit card payments? Probably no retirement plan to speak of. Shall I go on?”

“I’m not poverty-stricken,” she lied. “Besides, even if I
did
need the money, what makes you think I’d take it? What makes you think I wouldn’t write a story about how you tried to bribe me? What makes you think I won’t just go to the cops?”

Strawn remained calm. The men beside him shifted in their chairs. McCullah became especially agitated, glaring at April, clenching his jaw.

“Everyone has a price, hmm? What’s yours, Miss Murray?” Strawn shattered the silence.

She stared at him. His perfect, outdoorsman veneer didn’t fool her one bit. She smelled the deceit in his aftershave. “You guys must really be sitting on something, here,” she eyed each of them again. McCullah made her nervous. “What if I took this story to the Feds? Something tells me the NRC would come down on you like a ton of bricks if they caught wind of this. Am I wrong, boys?”

The men sat silent, jaws firm, eyes narrowed.  

McCullah prodded Strawn in the side. “I told you. Just let me take care of it,” he glared at her, making her heart flutter. For the first time in her professional career, she felt concerned for her life. Once, when she covered a shooting in Old Town, they thought the gunman was still lurking in the area, targeting bystanders. It turned out to be a hoax, though the ordeal sharpened her senses. She could sniff bullshit from a mile away after that one. And McCullah wasn’t bullshitting.

“Yeah, let him take care of it,” Armstrong agreed.

She leaned back, tightening her grip on her purse, wondering if the can of pepper spray she got from Nicolas last Christmas had expired.

“Just hold on a minute,” Strawn said. “Let’s not get hasty, gentlemen. Let’s give the lady a chance.”

McCullah bristled. “You heard her. She won’t be reasonable. Maybe she needs to be taught a lesson.”

April stood, kicking over her chair. “I don’t know what kind of sick games you guys have going, but I’m not gonna be taken for a meek mouse. I may be a woman, but that doesn’t mean you can isolate me out in the middle of nowhere during a snowstorm and start pulling this macho bullshit! You got that? I won’t be intimidated!”

Strawn got up, holding his hands out in a submissive gesture. “Of course, Miss Murray. I apologize for Mr. McCullah. He can be a little insensitive.”

“Insensitive!” she glared at McCullah. He returned her dirty look. “From where I come from, that sounded like a threat! Teach me a lesson, huh? Maybe I should teach
you
a lesson,” she approached the table. “Here’s a lesson for you. Don’t ever threaten a journalist!”

She didn’t wait to watch their reactions. As she ran out the door, Strawn gave chase. He caught up with her in the iced-over parking lot and held her arm. She looked at his hand on her wrist and he let go.

“Miss Murray. April, listen. I’m trying to be as diplomatic about this as I can, but I represent a large number of shareholders. Your story could mean a lot of expense to these people. A whole lot of expense. Not only to my investors, but to others who stand to profit from the nuclear industry in America, and worldwide. We just can’t have a story like this undermining the public’s confidence in this industry. You can understand that, can’t you?”

“And what about health and safety? The people, the wildlife? Do they matter? Or are they figures that don’t calculate into your bottom line?”

Strawn puffed steam through his reddened nostrils. “Do you realize how many millions of dollars the taxpayers in this state and this country have spent on nuclear power? Your story could cause serious damage to their investments. Have you even stopped to consider that?”

April shook her head. “People like you. You’re all the same. You see everything in terms of dollar signs. Nothing else,” she pointed to the highway where a couple intrepid drivers braved the inclement conditions. “Look around you. If something happens to your containment system and this place becomes uninhabitable, you can just hop in your fancy helicopter and fly off into the sunset. These people live here. Some for generations. So money be damned. If there was a radiation leak as a result of that earthquake, you need to get it out in the open. Covering it up is the worst thing you could do. Don’t you remember Chernobyl? They made it worse by trying to pretend it didn’t happen.”

Strawn stiffened. “We have nothing to cover up. No leak occurred, so there’s nothing left to discuss.”

“I think you’re full of shit! I think something
did
happen, and I’m getting too close to the truth. That’s why you brought me out here—to intimidate me. You want me to shut the hell up. Well, I won’t!”

His eyes narrowed into a glare and he moved close, lowering his voice. “Young lady, I’m not here to threaten you. I’m here to warn you. If you keep writing these stories, the wrong people are bound to get angry with you. And when that happens, you’d better have eyes in the back of your head, journalist.”

She glared at him, feeling a twitch in her cheek. Nick called it a ‘tell,’ but she didn’t buy it. She didn’t want to seem the least bit worried about Strawn’s aggressive tactics, so she looked right at him.

“Are you through?” she asked. “I’d like to get going before this damned storm makes the highway completely impassable.”

“Of course,” he stepped aside, letting her continue on to her snowbound Neon. “Oh, there’s one more thing.”

She stopped, her back toward him. “What?”

“You wouldn’t be using any sort of recording device, would you?”

She turned her head. Her body followed. “What the hell are you talking about?”

“A recorder? You don’t have one on right now, do you?”

“Mr. Strawn, I’m a professional. If I wanted to record our conversation, I would have at least informed you about it.”

“Then you wouldn’t mind submitting to a search?”

“What! You gotta be kidding me!”

Over Strawn’s shoulder, April saw both Armstrong and McCullah step outside. They didn’t seem to mind the numbing gale as they fixed their sights on her.

Strawn’s face resembled a statue. He didn’t move, not even to blink.

“It’ll only take a second. Completely painless. I promise.”

She glanced at the men, then back to Strawn. “Just make it quick,” she rolled her eyes. She had nothing to hide. Unlike those crooks.

Strawn crouched and patted her ankles, working his way up to her waist. He felt her belly, then held his hands over her crotch. He hesitated, smiling at her. He moved behind her, feeling her back up to her shoulders then up and around to her breasts. April noticed a noise behind her. She turned to see Armstrong slapping McCullah’s back and pointing.

“You sick perverts!” she hurried to her parking spot. She stopped and pointed her finger. “You guys are covering something up here. I know you are. And as soon as I get the proof, I’m gonna blow the lid off of this place!”

Though her Neon had been naturally repainted with a half-inch of snow, she didn’t stop to use the scraper. Luckily, it was powdery. She turned the ignition until the engine roared to life, then put it in reverse, cranked the wheel right, and peeled off. When the car pointed to the main road, she shifted into drive and punched it, sending shimmery rooster tails from the front tires as they dug into the ice.

She threw her purse on the passenger seat and rifled through an outside pocket, steering with her knee. Once she found what she sought after, she paused to chuckle. She grabbed the wheel with her left hand and held her prize with her right—a digital voice recorder, still on and rolling. She never left home without it.

“Gotcha, bastards!” she smiled.