Critical Judgment (1996) (14 page)

“That stream?”

“Almost a river in the melting season. Only it’s not visible anymore. Colstar built a huge addition right over
it. I have no idea where the water goes, except it eventually must end up in the quarry where the town gets its water.”

“Has the quarry water been tested?”

“All tests negative.”

“What do the people from EPA and OSHA say?”

“Mostly they don’t bother paying attention to us anymore. They came on-site two years ago at our request but reported finding nothing significant. But, remember, we’re talking about the potential economic death of an entire town here. That’s powerful stuff, especially when it involves an influential senator. We think EPA is closing its eyes to whatever is going on.

“The story I’m going to tell you may be hard to believe, but it’s absolutely true. There’s a tire company down south that has about the same relationship to the town it’s in as Colstar does to us. A few years ago the workmen’s-comp cases reported by the company to OSHA began piling up. Many of them involved limbs lost or mangled in substandard, obviously dangerous machines. The secretary of labor, who is the ultimate head of OSHA, rode into town personally and closed the plant down for innumerable violations. He expected a bushel of public-opinion points for the administration. But surprise! The outcry from the town was immediate and the political pressure intense. The plant was reopened within a day or two pending more in-depth investigation. It has never closed since. And as far as I know, the manglings just continue.”

“Do you think Patience would become a ghost town without Colstar?”

Gil Brant answered.

“I believe we’d go through some hard times, but I think we’d rebound—especially if some other manufacturer took over, or Colstar retooled.”

“I think we could manage off tourism,” Barbara said. “And with time I’m certain something else would come along.”

“But you haven’t been able to get the community behind you?”

That word again
. Only this time it was Abby herself who was using it.

“In the beginning,” Lew responded, “we had a pretty staunch core group, even after our posters got torn down, the
Chronicle
stopped covering our meetings, and we started getting intimidating phone calls. But then David died.”

“What do you mean?”

“David told me he had proof—a tape of a conversation and some papers—that Colstar was tampering with the blood samples sent to the hospital lab. A few days later he was found dead at the base of a rock called the Spike. It was ruled an accidental fall by the police and the coroner, but we all have our doubts. David was an experienced freehand climber, and the Spike wasn’t that hard. He’d climbed it alone many times. After he died, we decided to make our meetings less conspicuous. In fact, we’ve virtually gone underground.”

Not far enough to escape Lyle Quinn’s notice. Abby felt a chill at the thought of her predecessor’s death not being accidental.

“If he was murdered, who do you think is responsible?”

“I’ll show you in a minute,” Lew said.

“So now there are just the three of you?”

“We would certainly like to have more,” Barbara said. “But the truth is, it makes no difference to the commitment we feel. We believe the company is making a lot of people ill, and we can’t just stand by and allow it to happen.”

“What if it means forcing Colstar to close down?”

Barbara shrugged helplessly.

“Then Patience has to hitch itself up and move in another direction. In the twenties, after the Patience mine failed, it looked like the end. But some enterprising
people attracted Colstar here in its place, and Patience became a winner. We can do it again.”

“We want to get the government to close Colstar down until it locates the source of the environmental contamination,” Brant added. “I think there are people who care as much as we do and would support us.”

“But that support depends on finding proof,” Abby said.

“Exactly.”

Lew flicked to the next slide, a newspaper head shot of Lyle Quinn.

“We believe that this man and the woman I’ll show you next are the two main villains of the piece,” he said. “Lyle Quinn is ex-CIA. He’s the head of security at Colstar and is politically well connected, especially with Corman. He’s also tight with just about everyone who matters in Patience—the mayor, the police chief, our esteemed hospital president, Joe Henderson, you name it. You asked who I thought was responsible for David’s death if it wasn’t an accident. This man’s your answer.”

Abby considered recounting her run-in with Quinn but decided not to. She was there to listen and learn, and, right or not, these people had a definite bias.

“Who’s the woman you spoke about?” she asked. “The other villain?”

Lew advanced the carousel to the slide of an austere-looking woman with tortoiseshell glasses and short, conservatively styled hair. She looked familiar, but it took most of a minute before Abby placed her—the woman at the picnic in the Save the Planet T-shirt; the woman whose sensitivity toward Angela Cristoforo was such a contrast to Quinn’s displeasure and disgust.

“Kelly Franklin,” Lew said. “Director of environmental health and safety—EHS. Franklin has been at Colstar for about five years. She acts as if she would do anything to uncover dangerous practices at the company, but we’re convinced she’s a fraud—a puppet of Quinn and the company officers.”

“Why do you say that?” Abby asked.

“Franklin told us on any number of occasions that she’d conduct an exhaustive investigation of the plant and even send blood off, in our presence, to an independent lab. But she never followed up.”

“Maybe she’s just waiting for some objective proof,” Abby said. “Or perhaps we—I mean
you
—should be more aggressive about forcing her to give your concerns more than lip service.”

“We intend to be,” Lew said. He flipped on the lights and gave her some time to process what she had seen. “So, then,” he said finally, “what do you think?”

Abby stared into her glass, her thoughts a swirling montage of Lyle Quinn, Josh, Colstar medical director Martin Bartholomew, Kelly Franklin, George Oleander, Lew, Claire Buchanan, and any number of other NIWWs. She could feel the silent expectation in the room. Should she even bother telling them that there was a very good chance things wouldn’t be working out with her boyfriend, and that she would soon be looking for a job back in the city?

“I think there’s something environmental linking many, if not all, of these patients,” she said, carefully choosing her words. “And if that’s true, it’s hard to believe Colstar isn’t responsible.”

“Then you’ll join us?” Brant asked.

“Not in any formal way, not yet anyway. I just don’t feel as strongly about these issues yet as you do. Besides, the man I moved up here to be with works for the company. I’d have to see a pretty solid case against them before taking a stand.”

“Is there any way your friend would listen to what we have to say?” Torres asked. “If we could get just one person we trust inside the company—”

“Barbara, please!” Lew snapped. “That’s not fair.”

The woman deflated visibly.

“Sorry,” she said. “We’ve been at this for a long time, and I’m just getting a bit frustrated.”

“I understand,” Abby said. “Show me more conclusive proof, and I’ll certainly consider sharing
that
with Josh. Meanwhile, I’ll tell you what I
can
do. I’ll begin keeping a log of the patients I see whose conditions are suspicious. And if I have time, I’ll bone up on cadmium toxicity. If it seems appropriate, I’ll send blood on any suspicious patient off to a toxicologist friend of mine at St. John’s in San Francisco. If Sandra Stuart says the blood is clean, believe me, it’s clean.”

“As long as you go at least as far away as Caledonia to mail it to her,” Brant said.

The four of them walked together to where the cars were parked. Torres and Brant expressed their appreciation to Abby for coming and left.

“I’m grateful, too,” Lew said as the others pulled away. “I honestly didn’t think you’d come. Will you promise to think over what you’ve seen tonight?”

“I will.”

Abby sensed that he didn’t want her to go home. If he asked, she had already decided she would stay—for a while. The craziness with Josh had worn her down, and she craved Lew’s saneness, the warmth of his company. But, instead, Lew extended his hand and shook hers in a most businesslike way.

“I’ll see you in a couple of days,” he said. “Abby, if you think it’s appropriate, I’d like to meet your friend Josh sometime.”

“Actually, Josh isn’t in much shape to be meeting anyone. He’s been having a bad time lately. Some pretty striking mood swings. Plus headaches. I’ve been very worried about him.”

“Has he been evaluated?”

“Only by the physician’s assistant at the Colstar clinic. Today he made an appointment with Garrett Owen. It’s anyone’s guess whether or not he keeps it.”

“Tell him he really should.”

“I would if I could. The truth is, we had another blowup and he left. I don’t even know where he is.”

“I’m sorry. Are you two engaged?”

“Unofficially, I guess. But all bets are off until the current situation gets straightened out.”

There
, she thought.
Now you can ask me to stay
.

“Then we must help you do just that,” he said instead, opening the car door for her. “Based on what you’ve told me, and what we’ve observed in a number of others, I would suggest part of Garrett Owen’s evaluation of your friend should be a measurement of his serum-cadmium level.”

A
bby drove home in no particular hurry, stopping at a convenience store for a quart of skim milk and a can of Maxwell House. On the way out she yielded to a wave of self-pity and snatched up a package of Oreos. The last place she felt like going was back to an empty house at the end of a dead-end street on the south side of Patience, California.

She flipped on the Mazda’s interior light and checked herself in the rearview mirror. There was strain around her eyes, all right. But she still looked pretty much like the woman who had been pursued by interesting, attractive men throughout medical school and residency and, in fact, right up until the time she’d met Josh. The hints she had dropped on Lew Alvarez could have broken his toe. But here she was, heading home alone. The man was either a modern Sir Galahad, or he was simply not interested in her as anything other than a 33 percent increase in the membership of the Alliance.

As she drove, she mulled over Lew’s suggestion that cadmium poisoning might be at the root of Josh’s symptoms. Emotional lability, lassitude, and brain atrophy were among the signs and symptoms listed on Lew’s cadmium-toxicity slide. Still, it was hard to believe. Josh
was so meticulous about his health. How could he allow himself to be exposed at work to a known toxin? And if it had happened outside of Colstar, why hadn’t
she
been affected as well?

One thing was certain. When she and Josh finally did see one another again, it would not be wise to bring up the subject of Colstar and cadmium pollution—not as long as he felt she was trying to outdo him or undermine his success. She
would
give the neurologist a call and suggest that he might squeeze in Josh’s evaluation sooner if possible, and also that he might send off some blood for a cadmium level. If he seemed approachable on the subject, she might even offer to make a trip down to her toxicologist friend, Sandy Stuart, with a few tubes of Josh’s blood. Heavy-metal poisoning was serious, but if diagnosed in time, it was treatable and curable.

As she pulled into the driveway, Abby was thinking that cadmium poisoning, as awful as it sounded, might be a better thing for Josh to have wrong with him than migraine variant or temporal lobe epilepsy, two of the diagnoses that ranked at the top of her list of possibilities. Both conditions had fairly effective treatments, but no cure.

The house was completely dark.
The first lesson in living alone
, she thought.
Leave a light on
. She locked her car—an unnecessary precaution in Patience, but a vestige of her days in the city—and was halfway to the back door when she suddenly sensed someone was watching her. She whirled, her pulse hammering.

“Josh? … Josh, is that you?”

A man
was
there, by the garage. She could see his silhouette now. Desperately, she tried to think of what move to make. The back door was locked. Even though her keys were in her hand, she would never make it inside before he got to her. There was a fist-sized rock not far from her foot. She could use it as a weapon while she screamed, hoping that one of her neighbors, none of
whom was very near, might hear. But before she could act, the man emerged from the shadows.

For a moment she felt her heart stop. Then she recognized him. Quinn.

“Sorry if I startled you, Dr. Dolan.”

He was dressed in black, exactly as he had been at the picnic. But the effect as he emerged from the shadows at eleven-thirty at night was much more menacing. Abby had no doubt that was exactly what he intended. His silver hair glowed in the dim light.

“What do you want?” she asked.

“To talk.”

“Josh is inside. Let me go tell him you’re here.”

“Josh
moved into the Sawicki place last night, out beyond Five Corners. They’re off in San Diego tending to Sally Sawicki’s mother, who has cancer. Today he called to say he wouldn’t be at work. Wherever he is tonight, it isn’t here.”

“I don’t think I like you, Mr. Quinn. Besides, I’m tired. And I know I don’t like being dealt with by men who skulk around on my property.”

“Ten minutes,” Quinn said. “If you want me to leave then, I will.”

“Maybe some other time.”

“I want to talk with you about that little meeting you just attended at Dr. Alvarez’s place, and also about your friend Wyler’s place at Colstar.… Ten minutes.”

Abby was too stunned by Quinn’s revelation of Josh’s movements to be surprised that he also knew where she had been. She felt wary of the man, even a bit frightened of his power and confidence. But she was also intrigued. She reminded herself that if what Lew and the others believed about David Brooks’s death was true, she would be strolling off with a murderer. But if Quinn was going to harm her, this didn’t feel like the time or place. Still, she had no intention of being alone in her house with him.