House Rivals (4 page)

5

Two hours after leaving Doug Thorpe's cabin, driving eastward on I-94, DeMarco crossed the Montana-North Dakota border and stopped at a scenic vista near Medora, North Dakota (population 112). A sign informed him that he was looking out at the badlands of the Theodore Roosevelt National Park. He'd always thought that
badlands
was just a name for the places where outlaws like Butch Cassidy and Sundance went to hide, but learned that it was a geological term for rocky terrain extensively eroded by wind and water. The sign also said he might see—although he didn't—bison, feral horses, elk, and prairie dogs. He wanted to see a prairie dog, having never seen one before.

An hour or so later he stopped again to get the kinks out of his back and to be treated to the sight of Salem Sue: the world's largest black-and white Holstein cow. It was made of fiberglass, stood thirty-eight feet high, and was fifty feet long. Not a sight he would have seen had he not traveled fifteen hundred miles from Washington, D.C.

He crossed the Missouri River and drove into Bismarck, almost five hours after leaving Thorpe's place. The white, nineteen-story state capital building, the tallest structure in the city, dominated the view. He checked into another Holiday Inn Express and his room seemed identical to the one he'd had in Billings. Even the abstract art over the bed was the same.

He called the number Thorpe had given him for Sarah Johnson and she answered on the second ring. “Hi. This is Joe DeMarco. Would you like to get together to talk?”

“Yeah, you bet. There's a Starbucks—”

“How 'bout picking a place that serves a decent martini. It's been a long day. I need alcohol, not caffeine.”

“Oh, well, let's see.” After a long pause she said, “We could go to Minervas, I guess. It's near the Capitol. I don't drink much, but I've heard it's okay.”

“I'll find it,” DeMarco said. “I'll see you in an hour.” DeMarco figured in a city the size of Bismarck he could get anywhere in an hour. “How will I recognize you?”

With a name like Minervas, DeMarco had been expecting a traditional tavern: neon Budweiser signs in the windows, photos of the softball team Minveras sponsored behind the bar. Or even better, maybe Minerva was the name of a famous madam back when they were building the railroads across the Great Plains, and the bar would be located in a historical brothel with embossed red wallpaper and portraits of plump naked ladies on the walls. It turned out, however, that Minervas was in a low brick building with a green roof and was a family-friendly restaurant with a well-lit bar, tables set with white cloth napkins, large comfortable booths, and a wholesome girl-next-door-type bartender.

DeMarco ordered a martini, and about five minutes after his drink arrived, Sarah Johnson walked through the door dressed as she'd told him she would be: blue jeans, a white turtleneck, and a woolly green vest. When he saw her eyes scanning the patrons looking for him, he raised a hand.

Sarah was six feet tall and according to her grandfather, twenty-two years old. She had alabaster-white skin, blue eyes, a flawless complexion, and butterscotch-blond hair reaching halfway to her shoulders. She wasn't beautiful, but she was striking because she was young and tall and had a nice figure and just glowed with good health.

She took a seat across from DeMarco and started off by saying, “Grandpa's email said you work for John Mahoney and might be able to help me, but he didn't tell me exactly what you do.”

“You want a drink?” DeMarco asked.

“Uh, not really. I've got a lot to do tonight, and would just as soon get to the point.”

“Okay. Well, as for what I do, I don't actually work for Mahoney. I mean, I'm not on his staff.”

“Oh,” she said, looking disappointed.

“I'm a guy Mahoney calls from time to time when he's got a problem or when one of his friends is having one. Like your grandfather. He sent me out here to see if I can help.”

“Does Mahoney listen to you?”

DeMarco shrugged. “As much as he listens to anyone. Mahoney's a politician, and like most politicians, he acts primarily out of his own self-interest. But he's loyal to his friends and he told me your granddad saved his life in Vietnam. So he'll probably help you if he can, and if he doesn't have to stick his neck out, but that's the best I can tell you.”

He could see Sarah wasn't enamored with his answer but said, “Well, since nobody else is willing to do anything, I guess talking to you can't hurt.”

“Tell me what you're doing that's making people want to kill you. All your grandfather said is that you think there's some kind of big conspiracy going on.”

“I don't
think
. I
know
. I just can't prove it and I can't get anybody in law enforcement or the big-time media to listen to me.”

“I'm listening,” DeMarco said.

“You know anything about state government in Montana or the Dakotas?”

“No.”

“Yeah, well, the chances are if you lived in one of those states, you still wouldn't know anything. People pay attention to national politics because that's mostly what's on the news. They know if the president's thinking about bombing Iran or screwing with Social Security, but they don't have a clue what's happening in their own state legislatures. To find out what's going on in a state legislature you have to really
want
to know. You have to watch some little local channel that nobody watches and that's drier than dirt. You have to read bills that are written in some language other than English. So nobody pays a lot of attention to what's going on in Helena, Pierre, or Bismarck, but that's where the action really is. If a state can pass a law that's not covered by federal law, they can make anything happen. Hell, the states can even pass laws that go
against
federal law and sometimes the federal government can't do anything to stop them. To use a simple example, it's like in Washington and Colorado where they passed laws legalizing pot even though the feds say pot's illegal.”

Sarah Johnson's intensity was palpable. After two minutes with her, DeMarco could tell that she was completely committed to whatever she was doing. He could sense her seriousness, her resolve. No, maybe
resolve
wasn't the right word. Maybe
obsession
was more accurate. Whatever the case, he could see the passion blazing in her eyes and he thought: Joan of Arc. That's who this young woman was. She was so zealous about what she believed in that she was willing to be burned at the stake. She wasn't an
activist
; she was a crusader and a would-be martyr.

“The other thing you need to understand,” Sarah said, “is that the people elected to state legislatures are paid hardly anything. They barely make minimum wage. In South Dakota, a legislator is paid twelve thousand dollars a year and gets a hundred and ten dollars a day in per diem when the legislature is in session. If you do the math, that's less than eighteen grand if you don't take special sessions into account. And it's about the same in Montana and North Dakota.

“What this means is that these legislators, unless they're rich or retired with pensions, all have other jobs. They're ranchers and farmers and salesmen and teachers. Hell, half of them take the job because they
need
the lousy salary it pays. The other thing is, a lot of times they'll run unopposed because who else wants a job that pays so little?

“So what I'm trying to tell you is if you want to control what happens in a state, you don't waste your money bribing Montana's only congressman in the U.S. House of Representatives. What you do is introduce a bill in the Montana statehouse that does what you want, and if you need the votes, you pay off these part-time politicians who need the money.”

“And that's what you're saying is happening? That somebody is bribing state legislators?”

“Yeah, but that's not all. They're bribing judges, too. If a law gets passed they don't like, they'll file a lawsuit and then if they need to, they'll bribe judges to overturn the law.”

“Who's this
they
you're talking about?”

“There are a lot of theys,” Sarah said. “I mean there are a lot of individuals and political organizations and corporations who are manipulating state legislators and judges, but the guy I'm after is Leonard Curtis.”

“I've never heard of him,” DeMarco said—and Sarah's expression said:
And why am I not surprised by this?

“Curtis is an independent natural gas driller,” she said.

“But what makes you think—”

“The biggest thing happening in this country, energy-wise, is natural gas and North Dakota has been called Kuwait on the Prairie. South Dakota and Montana also have gas and oil reserves, and huge corporations like Exxon and Conoco, and big independents like Devon and Anadarko, are all going after the gas. It's like the California gold rush out here. Workers are living in shantytowns in trailers and RVs, and so many people are coming here that housing prices have skyrocketed and it's hard to get a motel room. They just can't develop the infrastructure fast enough to support all the drilling. At the same time, there are all kinds of issues—environmental issues, property issues, tax issues—­related to natural gas. I mean, you've heard of fracking, haven't you?”

“Sure,” DeMarco said. “That's when they pump in water to get the gas out.”

“Not just water but chemicals, and fracking can contaminate ground water and cause earthquakes.”

“Earthquakes? Is there any scientific evidence that fracking—”

“My point,” Sarah said impatiently, “is that there are all sorts of legal issues related to natural gas, which means laws are getting passed to regulate the industry, and sometimes the laws are good for the gas companies and sometimes they're not. And what Leonard Curtis is doing, in every way he can, is making sure the laws are favorable to him.”

“Aren't other companies doing the same thing?”

“Yeah, probably. Almost certainly. But I
know
Curtis is doing things that are illegal and I can't take on an entire industry. I figured if I focused on one guy I'd have a better chance of making a case. And Curtis is into everything: drilling, land leases, pipelines, drilling equipment. Anything to do with natural gas.”

“And you think he's bribing people?”

“Quit saying that! Quit saying
I think!
I
know
he is.”

“How many people are in these state legislatures?” DeMarco asked.

“In Montana there are a hundred in the House and fifty in the Senate. North Dakota is about the same as Montana. In South Dakota there are seventy in the House and thirty-five in the Senate.”

“And Curtis is bribing all of them?”

“Of course not. Don't be stupid. First of all, the statehouses in all three states are currently controlled by the Republicans, and a lot of Republicans support drilling because they want the United States to be energy independent and because the industry creates jobs. Right now, North Dakota has the lowest unemployment rate in the nation thanks to natural gas. So the statehouses are tilted in Curtis's favor and he doesn't have to do much to get a lot of these folks to vote the way he wants. He contributes to their campaigns, and these are little local campaigns where a few thousand bucks goes a long way.

“But these Republicans aren't a bunch of sheep, and a lot of them are farmers and ranchers and they care about the environment and anything that affects their property and mineral rights. And Curtis doesn't always need to get a law passed. Sometimes all he needs to do is slow things down, so legislation gets delayed. Or if there's a politician who's ranting against something Curtis wants, he just needs to quiet the politician down.”

“Sarah, have you actually got any evidence that Curtis has bribed anyone? I mean, have you witnessed him bribing somebody or has anyone been willing to go on record that Curtis bought them off?”

“No.”

“Then how do you know . . .”

“Let me give you an example. You know what a blowout preventer is? The device that failed in the Deepwater Horizon and dumped five million barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico?”

“Yeah, I know what you're talking about,” DeMarco said.

“There was bill going through the North Dakota statehouse to increase inspection requirements for blowout preventers, and naturally Curtis was against the bill because more inspections would delay production and increase his costs. This one Republican named Stevens sided with the Democrats on the bill and he was pushing his party to approve it. Stevens is actually a pretty good guy when it comes to balancing energy production against environmental concerns.

“Well, Stevens is a farmer and to get to his farm he uses a road that passes through another farm. Stevens has an easement from the other farmer allowing him to use the road, and his dad had it before him. But one day, the other farmer says he's not going to allow Stevens to use the road anymore, and this meant that Stevens would have to drive an extra twenty miles to get to his place. To make matters worse, the road he'd be required to use has a bridge that goes over a little creek, and it's not rated for heavy loads. Stevens filed a lawsuit, of course, but the lawsuit was going to drag on for a year and in the meantime, Stevens would go broke. The next thing that happens, don't you know, Stevens stops supporting the bill, it fails in the Senate, and he gets the easement back. You see?”

DeMarco shook his head. “And that's it? A guy won't let him use a road and then the guy changes his mind and Stevens changes his vote?”

“Yes. Nobody gave Stevens a bag full of cash. Curtis just created a situation where Stevens would go bankrupt if he didn't play ball.”