Whitewash

  Anna Copello had ended up in a flushing tank. Was it possible that Dwight Lansik had been pushed into a slaughterhouse refuse tank? Before yesterday she would have laughed at such a bizarre idea. Now she realized she might be looking at the only remains of her late boss.

  Suddenly she pushed the bag away and bolted from the table, stumbling over chairs.

  “Bree,” she heard Eric call out, but all she cared about was catching her breath and trying not to give in to her nausea.

  She ended up at the edge of the pier, staring out at the black, rolling water and the twinkling lights of homes across the sound. She could hear the water sloshing against the boats in their slips. The sensation of movement was overwhelming. It was enough to make her dizzy. She grabbed on to a piling and maneuvered her way to a sitting position.

  She felt Eric’s presence, but thankfully he said nothing. No more questions. No more explaining.

  She pulled her knees up to her chest, wrapped her arms around them and rested her chin on top, waiting for her stomach to settle and the throbbing in her head to subside.

  At some point he sat down next to her and she watched his long legs swing over the edge of the pier. He sat so close his shoulders brushed Sabrina’s, but that was their only contact. He was like their dad, Sabrina realized. Not able to find words or gestures to comfort. Only able to offer his presence and his actions. That’s where the hot-fudge sundaes usually came in. It used to throw their mother into a dramatic fit, sometimes worse than her original outburst of emotion.

  “Sometimes a woman just needs to be hugged,” she’d tell their dad and he would quickly accommodate her, almost relieved to be instructed.

  Sabrina laid her head against Eric’s shoulder and closed her eyes. The urge to retch out her insides subsided little by little. The throbbing in her head eased until it was only the thump of her heartbeat. A cool, gentle breeze came across the water.

  “So what do we do?” she asked so softly she wasn’t sure if he heard her.

  “We find out who the enemy is,” he told her calmly and without a hint of anger. “And then we get the son of a bitch before he can get you.”

  His words surprised her. She jerked her head away from his shoulder so she could look at him. He kept his profile to her as he continued to stare out at the black water. A streak of light appeared on the surface, little by little, as the passing clouds unveiled the moon.

  “You think it’s William Sidel?” she asked, but she knew the answer. Who else would try to have her killed and when it failed have the power to convince the State Patrol she was the killer instead of the intended victim? Who else would be able to have Dwight Lansik shoved into a tank of chicken guts and announce that the scientist had simply resigned?

  “He has access and he definitely has motive. Sounds like he might have some political influence, too.”

  Sabrina rubbed at her eyes and pushed her fingers up through her hair. She couldn’t remember what it felt like not to be exhausted. Her eyelids actually hurt and she knew she was a bit dehydrated. Even her feet seemed to be protesting. She wasn’t used to walking in flip-flops. Her internal clock, the one she had spent years disciplining to a daily routine, had been thrown way off track. Once again she was in a place she had never been before, surrounded by people she’d just met—an odd assortment that her brother was insisting she trust. Trust to keep her from being killed by her boss. And why? Because William Sidel was processing Grade 2 garbage without investing the money to do it the right way.

  “It doesn’t make sense,” Sabrina said. “William Sidel has raised millions of dollars from investors. He’s garnered millions of dollars in government funds. He’s on the verge of locking up a $140-million contract. Why would he risk all that?”

  “What is Grade 2 garbage?” Eric asked. He pulled up his legs and shifted to face her.

  “Various metals, mostly old appliances. Plastics, PVC, wood, fiberglass. Plastic bottles can yield large amounts of oil. The problem is that with Grade 2 garbage most of the breakdown comes in the second stage and it also takes an extra flushing. The hydrogen in water combines with the chlorine in PVC and some of the other garbage to make it safe. Without doing it properly you get dioxins, which are highly toxic. With Grade 1 garbage, the slaughterhouse waste, the process is more organic. It’s full of nitrogen and amino acids, but we’re able to separate those off and they’re used in liquid fertilizer.” Sabrina suddenly realized talking about the process and her work actually calmed her. She checked Eric’s eyes to see if he was registering any of it. Sometimes she got carried away with the techno-babble.

  “So, if Grade 2 garbage takes more steps and is more work, why bother to sneak doing it?”

  “That’s why I said it doesn’t make sense.”

  “Bottom line, how much does EchoEnergy make for taking slaughterhouse waste?”

  “Actually, we pay them twenty-five dollars a ton.”

  “You’re kidding?”

  She shook her head. She knew it sounded strange. “We’re competing with companies that buy it strictly to make fertilizers.”

  “Okay. So how much does it cost to haul away Grade 2 garbage?”

  “EchoEnergy would be paid to haul away Grade 2 stuff.”

  “How much?” Eric sat up.

  “I’m not sure. We’ve never done it before so it’s never been a part of our calculations.”

  “But you must have some idea?”

  “After the hurricanes there was talk of the federal and state governments paying up to fifty dollars a ton for debris. I remember Dr. Lansik—” Sabrina stopped for a minute. The mention of his name reminded her that they weren’t just having a chat about what she did for a living. “Dr. Lansik talked about it last fall, saying it would take EchoEnergy at least two years to add all the necessary equipment and facilities. But the hurricane areas wanted the mountains of debris gone before we could be up and running. He talked about it like it was only a missed opportunity.”

  “Maybe Sidel didn’t want to miss out on it,” Eric suggested and she recognized that look, that tone. He thought they had found the motive.

  “No,” Sabrina told him, shaking her head. “I still can’t believe it would be enough to kill two people over.”

  “How many tons of slaughterhouse waste does EchoEnergy process now?”

  “Anywhere from two hundred to three hundred tons a day.”

  “And they pay five thousand to seventy-five hundred for that. But if they were able to process that much Grade 2 and were paid fifty a ton, that’s ten thousand to fifteen thousand dollars a day they’d bring in.”

  “But murdering people…”

  “Bree, do the math—we’re talking about three hundred thousand to four hundred fifty thousand dollars a month that EchoEnergy could be taking in without reporting it. That’s—” He stopped to do the calculation in his head. “That’s almost five million dollars a year. I hate to tell you, Bree, but people have been murdered for a lot less than that.”

  79

  Tallahassee, Florida

  Leon sat in the van with the windows rolled down. The hot night air stuck to him. He drank the last piss-warm soda in his cooler, the ice long ago melted. He couldn’t risk running the engine and the air-conditioning or he’d draw too much attention to himself. Plus, he was low on gas. What the hell was taking the old lady so long?

  He sat patiently while he watched her go through her condo. Her blinds and curtains were pulled tight in every window, but Leon knew where she was by the trail of lights that peeked around the window frames. He figured her condo had to be similar to her neighbor’s, the Galloway woman, and he imagined which room she was in as the lights went on and off. If he was correct, she was spending some time in the kitchen. Probably fixing herself a late-night snack. He didn’t need a reminder that he was long past dinner. In Leon’s book there were two uncontrollable factors in life that could make a man do stupid, impulsive things. Those two factors were hunger and the need to take a leak. He’d h
ate to whack a little old lady before he got any information out of her just because he wanted a burger something awful.

  Finally she was moving upstairs to bed, turning on and shutting off lights as she made her way. But even then her bedroom light stayed on for longer than Leon thought he could endure.

  He popped a couple of Tums into his mouth just to have something to chew on. Son of a bitch! What the hell was she doing? It was close to midnight according to his cell phone.

  A half hour later the bedroom light went out. Leon waited another grueling fifteen minutes, then he left the sauna of a van and found his way around to the back of the condos. This time his jumpsuit stuck to him in places that made it uncomfortable to even walk. In the silence he thought he could hear the sloshing of his sweat inside his shoes. Served him right for not wearing socks. How could anybody wear socks in this fucking heat?

  He didn’t remember it being this dark on the patio side. He waited for his eyes to adjust. The moon was almost full. A good thing for seeing, not such a good thing for creating shadows. Finding the key to the Galloway woman’s condo had been a piece of cake. Leon doubted he’d find a spare to the little old woman’s condo. For one thing, she’d never think to leave a spare because she’d never forget her original.

  He was thinking he could pry open a window or dismantle the lock on the sliding glass door. He’d figure something out. It might just take a little more work. He sneaked around the crepe myrtle, keeping close to blend in to the landscape, so close he could feel the branches scratching his back. But when he came to the old woman’s patio it was Leon who was startled and actually jumped.

  Son of a bitch. He almost pissed his pants. Sitting there in the dark all calm and cool, sipping a glass of something tinkling with ice was the little old black woman, looking right at him.

  “What took you so long?” she said.

  80

  Pensacola Beach, Florida

  “She could simply disappear,” Russ suggested. “Become somebody else.”

  “I’ve thought about that,” Eric said.

  Truth is, he had already considered it. He was leaving the idea open as a contingency plan though he didn’t think Sabrina would agree. If it did come to that, he knew Russ and Maxine could easily make it a reality.

  Russ came off a bit immature. Max had once commented on his dimpled boyish grin being irresistible. Here was a fit, trim, muscular, good-looking young guy who seemed totally unaware of his charisma, a total innocent when it came to women. That was Maxine’s take. Eric, on the other hand, knew Russ played the part simply because he could pull it off. He reminded Eric of a younger version of himself. Eric had been doing it for years, figure out who—not what—people want to see and become that person. That was exactly how he had gone so easily from being Eric Galloway to Eric Gallo.

  But he also knew Russ was a gentle sort of intellect who, at first, Eric would never have believed capable of any criminal behavior. Russ told stories about identity theft and online fraud, some of which Eric guessed—though Russ would never admit—were actually tales from his previous life. And Russ never mentioned being incarcerated, not even in jest, but Eric recognized a homemade prison tattoo when he saw one. He suspected Russ Fowler wasn’t his real name, either, and he suspected the so-called hobbyist “Dumpster Diver” had not really stopped. He’d only gotten better at not getting caught.

  As for Maxine, she came with a story all her own. Eric had actually met her in Washington, D.C., not a great place for starting over when your previous life included senators and congressmen, many of whom Maxine knew from what she liked to joke were “horizontal” relationships. One of those relationships ended up giving her HIV and forcing her into early retirement at the age of twenty-eight. Eric had directed her to a Pensacola physician who was discreet and could care less about politics or gossip. The rest she had done on her own.

  She had a nice chunk of money that Eric didn’t ask about or want to know the origin of. He only guessed that the source might be a guilty congressman’s donation to her health insurance fund. With that donation, Max was able to change her identity and bought the salon on the beach. Seems she was a natural at creating new looks for others, as well. After all, she had already managed a whole transformation for Eric’s sister. Sabrina’s picture was all over the local and national news, yet a news junkie like the Mayor hadn’t recognized her—a true test if ever there was one.

  Eric was glad he had talked Sabrina into going up to the apartment and trying to get some sleep. Of course, that was after he convinced her that there was only one way into his second-floor apartment and they were all sitting in front of it. He knew she’d hate this—them batting around her options, trusting strangers to have a hand in her future, her well-being.

  “This is serious stuff,” Howard was saying. “This company’s dumping waste into a major waterway. A company that’s getting government funding.”

  “Not to mention tax incentives,” the Mayor added. “Probably some government subsidies, too.”

  Eric waited for someone to suggest they contact the State Attorney’s Office, the EPA, maybe even the Justice Department. Of course, he wasn’t surprised when none of them did.

  If Sabrina needed to disappear and become someone new, this was the group that could make it happen better than any witness protection program.

  81

  Tallahassee, Florida

  “So what the hell’s going on?” Leon tried to remain calm, his head pivoting around, looking for others, maybe the cops. But she was alone.

  “You’re not going to feed me some line about going door to door checking air conditioners, are you?”

  “There’s been a lot of outages,” he attempted, though he’d already noticed the baseball bat leaning against her chair. How could she possibly have known?

  She pointed to a chair across from her and then to an extra glass on the table already filled with ice. A bottle of whiskey sat beside the glass, open and waiting. She had to be kidding. Who the hell did she think he was? Even with a baseball bat she was no match for him. He sat down anyway and pulled the bottle over. He poured a full glass and took a sip. Not the expensive stuff, but not bad. Hell, in this heat he would have drunk gasoline had she served it to him on ice. He chugged the first glass and poured another.

  “How did you know?” he finally asked. It was silly to pretend different.

  “I noticed your van sitting out there when I drove up. But no one in the neighborhood seemed to be up. No lights. No commotion.”

  “Coulda been waiting on a part.”

  “So I called the company,” she said as if she hadn’t heard his explanation. “Their dispatcher told me they didn’t have a van out in this neighborhood.”

  “Son of a bitch!” He was fucked now.

  It was too bad he’d have to wring her neck after all. He thought maybe he could just stumble over something in the condo that would have been enough to find her neighbor. It was a stretch, but he figured he was due some luck. Guess he figured wrong, way wrong.

  That was when the cat rubbed up against his legs. A huge white thing that almost glowed in the dark. The purr sounded like a distant engine rumbling. An old woman and her cat, Leon thought. Jesus! He couldn’t get a break. He’d have to do the cat, too. Just out of courtesy.

  Then he noticed a plastic container on her side of the table. The lid had been removed and left in the middle. In the moonlight he could see the white label with large black lettering that read, PORK CHOPS. His stomach actually growled as if on cue.

  “I know who you are,” the old woman said.

  Leon caught himself licking his lips. Should he eat the pork chops before or after he offed her and the cat? Stupid impulses, he remembered. He probably should eat before.

  “I want to hire you,” she said and Leon was sure he heard her wrong.

  “Hire me? Whadya mean hire me?”

  “What’s your price to turn the tables?” Her tone was surprisingly professional, not a ting
e of fear or apprehension. And she did seem to know exactly who he was.

  “Lady, I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Whoever hired you to murder Sabrina Galloway,” she continued, all matter-of-fact-like. “I want to hire you to make sure that person never, ever hurts her.”

  “Murder? Old woman, you’re talking nonsense.”

  But Leon started sweating again. Did she know who had hired him? Nah, that was impossible. It didn’t matter, anyway. The guy had pretty much told Leon he’d leave it to the State Patrol to take care of Galloway. Leon was on his own to take her out, so technically he was no longer hired. He no longer had a client. There would be no payout. He’d screwed that up royally. Other than the measly ten thousand dollars he got up front for expenses, this was a total fucking waste of a trip.

  “I can pay you cash up front,” the old woman calmly said like she could read his mind. She lifted a foil-wrapped package from the pork chop container.

  He started to tell her to save her breath since it’d probably be her last one. But then she pulled open the foil. Forget about keeping a poker face, Leon felt his jaw drop and his eyes widen.

  The old woman was serious and she had a serious wad of cash. She peeled off a chunk about an inch tall, a relatively small chunk considering what was left. Hell, the thing was as tall as a loaf of bread. She slid the small chunk to the middle of the table. On top was a crisp Ben Franklin. If those underneath were also hundred-dollar bills there had to be at least twenty-five to thirty-five thousand in just that one stack.