Critical Judgment (1996) (37 page)

“I don’t know.”

“That’s because he never did. You put words in this Schumacher woman’s mouth, and you know it. She hears you, and suddenly she’s thinking about how much she can extort from Colstar.” He stood and handed the tape recorder back to her. “Dr. Dolan, my company is in a very delicate position right now in a number of areas. I warn you not to cause any more trouble for us. My man will show you out.”

He turned and started out of the room.

“Mr. Black, you’re wrong,” she said firmly. “And I think you know it. There was a sustained cadmium exposure—a big one, I’d guess from Cardoza’s blood levels. And somehow the people on those lists were hit, including your son. Go speak to Mrs. Schumacher yourself if you think you’re such a good judge of who’s misguided and who’s not.”

“Good day, Doctor,” Black said without looking at her.

“Okay, have it your way. One more question, then I’m gone. Did Ethan have an MRI?”

Black turned around and eyed her evenly—another penetrating scan.

“That test was done the night of his injury,” he said
finally. “It showed nothing, just like all the other tests. Do you have some reason for asking me that question?”

Abby stared down at the floor, then back up at the man.

“When I do, sir,” she said, “you’ll be the first to know.”

A
lthough Abby had been in the Feather Ridge mansion for less than an hour, by the time she left, the bright, crisp day had turned overcast and humid. She was somewhere between the house and the main gate when the first of a series of squalls hit. The drive back from Feather Ridge, hampered by the wind-driven rain and impassable truck traffic, took a seemingly endless three hours. When hunger got the better of her, she stopped at a roadside diner for an omelette and home fries.

The visit with Ezra Black had hardly gone as Abby had anticipated. But why? Black had been interested enough in what she had to say to invite her out to his home. Yet he refused even to admit to the possibility that Colstar was responsible for a cadmium leak. She had actually planned to suggest exhuming Ethan’s body as confirmation of her theories. Fat chance. If digging up the man’s son was somewhere between third base and home, she was still in the dugout waiting her turn at bat.

She pulled out of the diner lot just as a huge semi roared past ahead of her. The narrow highway looked as if it was going to be solid yellow line for miles, so she slowed down until she was out of exhaust range and
cruised. For a time she lost herself in Nanci Griffith’s latest album. But there was just too much going on in her head to stay distracted for too long. Time was running out for Josh and anyone else who had been exposed. And with that folder sitting inside Joe Henderson’s desk, time was running out for her, too.

The only explanation that kept making sense for Black’s rude behavior was that he knew something about what had happened at Colstar. He knew there had been a cadmium spill of some sort. Perhaps he was aware of, or even responsible for, the subsequent cover-up. But until her call he had no idea his accountant son had been a victim. Even now he wasn’t sure. So he had invited Abby to Feather Ridge to size her up as opposition, and to hear what she had to say.

It had been ridiculously naive of her to believe that he would simply embrace all her facts and theories on the spot. The man had not become a billionaire by taking anyone’s word on blind faith. He had listened to her, and now he was checking out her story.

“What did you expect him to do?” she asked out loud.

But even if Black had no idea that Ethan’s death was connected to his employment at Colstar,
something
she had said over the phone had registered. For the final thirty miles of the drive back to Patience, she played that telephone conversation over and over in her head. She hadn’t said much, really—only that a large number of still-undiagnosed cases had passed through the Patience Regional Hospital ER with symptoms consistent with cadmium toxicity, and a group of at least five Colstar employees had exhibited bizarre, often violent, behavior that she believed was caused by massive exposure to the metal.

Violent behavior
. Was that it? Was that the hook that had gotten Ezra Black’s attention? As she rolled down the final hillside into Patience, Abby mulled over the possibility. Although Ethan’s suicide was tragic, it was
explainable by his depression. According to Ezra, the depression was believed to be a product of his son’s head injury and profound, preexisting low self-esteem. But supposing there had been more going on. Supposing Ethan had behaved with the same illogical, unbridled violence as Josh, Willie, and Gus Schumacher. There would be no reason for Ezra to share that information with her—especially if he had gone out of his way to cover it up. But if he knew that Ethan’s violent behavior was no longer a secret, there was at least a chance he would allow his company to accept responsibility for what it had done … or was still doing.

There was only one person Abby could think of who might be able to confirm that Ethan Black had demonstrated excessive, irrational violence before his death—one person who could effectively tie him to the other four cases—Dr. Graham DeShield. It was clear that Black Ezra blamed the therapist, at least in part, for his son’s death. Considering Black’s reputation, it wouldn’t be surprising if he had already done something to make his displeasure with the psychiatrist known. If so, it was possible that a soothing feminine voice and a little pandering to DeShield’s ego might get him to bend the laws of patient confidentiality just a bit. From what Abby remembered of the man, it was a distinct possibility.

It was just four and still raining when she reached home and swung into the driveway. The large sheet of plywood across her picture window was as obtrusive as missing front teeth. Mindful of her nocturnal visit from Lyle Quinn, she remained in her car for a minute until she sensed no one was about. As had been her habit since Josh moved out, she had left several lights on in the house. Against the dreary late afternoon the glow from the windows was comforting. She entered the kitchen and immediately checked around the house. There was no sign anyone had been there. Everything seemed to be in place.

She called information in San Francisco and got
DeShield’s office number. Then she left notice with his service that her call was an emergency regarding his patient Ethan Black, and that the operator should try to reach the doctor rather than wait for him to call in. Assuming he got her message, it was hard to imagine he wouldn’t respond.

It was only then that she noticed the red light flashing on her answering machine. One message. Her first thought was,
Josh
.

“Abby, I’m assuming you recognize my voice,” the tape said. In just the first few words Abby could feel Kelly Franklin’s tension. “I’m calling from my car. I’ve left an envelope for you with the woman who gave you something from me yesterday. Please try to get it before this evening. If we miss connections, I’ll be in touch.”

Abby listened to the message a second time. Kelly’s paranoia seemed to be building by the hour. But given her own experiences, first with Lyle Quinn, then with Joe Henderson, Abby was not surprised. The woman Kelly was referring to had to be Esther at the library. There was still half an hour before it closed. But what to do about DeShield? Clearly, she had to drive into town. The only thing she could think of was to change the greeting on her answering machine.

“This is Dr. Abby Dolan,” she said. “I’ve had an emergency and will be away from my office until five. Dr. D., please leave a number where I can reach you then. It is very important. Thank you.”

The repetition of her new message was still playing when she snatched up her windbreaker and hurried out to her car. She reached the library at exactly four-thirty, just as Esther was locking the front door.

“We closed at four today,” the librarian explained as they huddled in the doorway against the continued steady rain. “Kelly came by at about two with an envelope for you. She said I was to destroy it if you didn’t pick it up before we closed.”

“Damn,” Abby murmured.

“Fortunately,” Esther went on, with a tiny smile, “I decided to do so after I got home.”

She passed the white business-sized envelope over, and Abby thanked her.

“I know it’s probably none of my business, Dr. Dolan,” Esther said, “but is Kelly in some sort of trouble? This is all very cloak-and-dagger, and she’s seemed very nervous these last couple of days. That’s just not like her.”

“She’s under some stress at work,” Abby ventured. “But I’d rather let her tell you about it.”

“We’re in a quilting group together. Every Thursday night. The Thimblefingers. We raffle the quilts off for charity. I sure hope she’s okay.”

The woman was stalling for more information. Surely her interest was just the concern of a friend, but suddenly Abby felt herself prickle with caution. There was no telling how tightly the Patience grapevine was coiled. She thanked Esther and hurried back to her car, wondering how people who were intrinsically mistrustful ever managed to function in the world. Then she drove to a deserted street a mile out of her way before she would chance opening Kelly’s envelope.

Abby read the letter until she had nearly memorized it, then tore it up and studied the hand-drawn map. Kelly had marked the park and her house. She included her home address and phone number, as well as a note at the bottom that the key to her house was beneath a large planter by the back door, and the phone number of her ex-husband was taped to the kitchen phone. Paranoid, frightened, or more likely both, Abby decided.

She hid the map beneath the repair records, owner’s manual, and bag of corn chips in her glove compartment, and headed home. It was almost five. She would give Graham DeShield until six, and then would stop by the ER to bring Lew up to speed on all that had transpired. After three years of chipping away, he deserved to know that Colstar’s facade was beginning to crumble.

Kelly Franklin sat in her locked office, the blinds drawn. She had been hunched over blueprints and builder’s notes for most of a day and now could feel the strain at the base of her neck. The drawings and blueprints were kept in an archive room, and she was one of the few who had a key. As environmental health and safety officer, she had to be expert on the heating and ventilation systems of the plant, as well as on the disposal route for all toxic materials.

There were records dating back to the 1920’s when the first construction of the California Battery Company began, and literally hundreds of sets of drawings and blueprints, many of which were rolled, held with rubber bands, and carelessly piled in bins. The newer drawings, necessary for occupational health and safety, were quite carefully filed. Because so many years elapsed between the initial building and the massive reconstruction by
Colstar, Kelly had never examined the original plant blueprints or the several additions that were completed before Colstar took over. But now she had spent much of the past night and all day scanning those earlier drawings, often beneath a magnifying lens, and comparing them to more recent ones. What she was looking for was a staircase or passageway of some sort that she knew nothing about. There were dozens of stairways leading down to the basement level where the power plant and some of the manufacturing units were housed. But the basement, she had been told, was built on solid rock.

Now, thanks to Abby Dolan’s persistence and her own research, she knew better. There were huge, man-made caverns, two of them beneath the plant at depths of forty and one hundred feet. And somewhere in the massive factory there was access to them. At about one that afternoon she had found something in a drawing done in 1946—a staircase at the very back of what would one day become C Concourse. The area containing the stairway was eventually partitioned with eight-foot-high walls that were still four feet short of the ceiling. The dozen or so large rooms created by the partitioning were used for warehousing and storage. Kelly had patrolled the spaces on any number of occasions searching for safety violations or potential sources of trouble. She did not recall seeing a door or staircase in the spot depicted in this one drawing. It was possible the flight had been sealed off, but there was no such notation as there were for other stairways on other drawings. It was as if, sometime between 1946 and the next set of blueprints in 1968, the staircase had simply disappeared.

It seemed to her that other drawings containing the area around the staircase might actually be missing, but there was no way to tell for certain. The only way she would ever know would be to check out the area for herself.

She carefully put the blueprints back together and returned them to the archive room, keeping only the
ones showing the warehouse area. Then she clipped a small, powerful flashlight onto her belt, locked her office, and slipped behind the wheel of her golf cart. If she couldn’t find the staircase, it was back to the drawing board. But Kelly was betting it was still there.

For whatever reason, no one at Colstar had ever told her about the caverns left over from the Patience Mine—caverns that could have been the source of natural-gas leaks, collapse during earthquakes, or even collapse from the weight of the plant itself. As she rolled up A Concourse toward the reception area, careful to maintain a normal speed, she wondered who in the company might know. As far as she could tell, none of the officers had been there for more than ten years—none except Lyle. Was it possible that no one knew about the caverns or about the three ventilation shafts that had been sealed off? Not likely. As environmental health and safety officer, she reported directly to the president, a keen businessman named Roger Sealy. Together they had walked through every inch of the plant. If he knew there
were
subterranean spaces, she had to give him credit for being one hell of an actor. The same would go for Lyle Quinn.