Badwater

6

I stood at the edge of the newly-roped hot zone but in truth I’d already crossed over.

There is a line, in working a case, that separates the professional from the personal and in most cases I’ve worked the personal seeps in here and there. A victim who looks like a guy I dated in high school. A microwave in the kitchen at the scene that is the same make as the microwave in my kitchen. And that’s fine, that familiarity, that human link. That’s fine unless the personal balloons to blot out the professional and gets in the way of doing the job. When I’d stepped in what I thought was the shit fifteen minutes ago the personal had swelled nearly to bursting.

I needed to get back on the safe side of the line. I needed to find out what I’d stepped in. Put a name to that white ashy stuff, objectify it, and get it the hell out of my personal space. And so I waited while the hazmat professionals secured the scene so Walter and I could take our turn.

Hap Miller was out there, taking charge of the CTC dump property in the scrub brush. Miller metered the breached cask and called out “not hot,” shaking his head like he did not believe it.

I had a clear view of the cask. Ashy stuff spilled out near the lid. Looked just like the stuff I’d stepped in earlier, uphill in the ravine. The stuff trailed from the ravine down to the cask, where it had come to rest in the brush. I pictured, again, the radwaste truck tumbling down this hill, shooting out casks. This cask must have been breached upon impact, trailing white ash as it tumbled.

This cask was supposed to contain highly radioactive resins. But it did not. So said Hap Miller’s Geiger counter. So said Scotty Hemmings, when he took his first look at the spill: that’s not resin beads.

This cask was an enigma.

Scotty was now examining the lid, which jutted askew. “Looks like the hold-down bolts came loose. Could be the top wasn’t torqued.” He gave Walter and me his considered thumbs-up.

I gave a glance downhill where CTC workers were recovering another cask. So far — so Miller had said — the other casks held precisely what they should.

I returned my attention to the enigma cask. Walter and I approached.

What had I been thinking? It looked nothing like a tin can.

It was a steel cylinder, about four feet long and three feet in diameter. It had flanged collars and lifting lugs. A severed tie-down cable spooled from one of the lugs. I could not help reading the yellow labels on the steel skin: IXResin, Radioactive III. Contents: Cs-137, Co-60, Pu-239, Sr-90, Be-7. Whoa. The labels said this stuff was tripleX hot but, in fact, the contents were not as advertised.

Whatever it was, it was not hot and we were encased in protective clothing and therefore there was no worry.

I squatted at the breached lid assembly.

Scotty was behind me. “What in hell is that stuff?”

Big spotlights washed the scene. The lid opened like a surprised mouth, baring rubbery gasket gums. White ashy stuff spewed from the mouth and dusted the ground. Stuff that had nearly given me heart seizure. Now, as I studied it, I knew what it was. And it made no sense. I fumbled my loupe out of the kit and looked through the high-power lens.

“What is it?” Miller this time.

Trivial to ID but just to be sure I looked again. Pearly, with a nonmetallic luster. Walter was beside me with his own lens, shaking his head like he could not believe it.

“Geologists?” Soliano now.

I said, in wonder, “It’s talc.”

On the way back to the RERT van Walter said, “Characteristics?”

Straight to work, then. Good enough. So, what do the characteristics of talc tell us about this scene?

I began. “Firstly, of course, talc is the softest mineral.” Baby soft; I could vouch for that. “Streak white, luster pearly, cleavage basal, fracture lamellar, particle size…uh, extremely fine…” And what did this tell us so far? “I’ve got nothing,” I admitted. Too much adrenaline. Too little sleep. Thoughts scattering like a puff of talc.

Well then, how about dispersion for a defining characteristic? I knew it well. Me, age nine, choking on a talc cloud, backing away from the changing table. Mom dusting my baby brother Henry’s butt so the diaper won’t rub a sore on his delicate skin. Won’t lead to a bleed.

I shook off the memory. Yeah, talc’s highly dispersible. Tell me something I don’t know.

Walter and I walked on toward the van. Booties scattering gravel.

Memories still rolling, Henry always good for a wallow. Me, age eleven, taking Henry, age three, for a walk. And I’d let him wear his flip-flops and his toes met a rock. Blood. Screams. A crowd gathering. I pocket the rock, hide it. Phone home. Mom and Dad speeding up in the Ford, scooping up my brother. Walter’s there; crowd’s just outside his lab. Walter’s just some adult I’ve seen around town but my parents know him and they pass me off. The Ford squeals away toward the hospital. Walter shepherds me into his lab. I’m awkward with this old guy — he was middle-aged back then but to me at age eleven, he was old. And the old guy listens when I do a core dump — guilt, resentment, worry. I bring out the rock. Call it a shitkicking rock. In actuality, Walter says, that’s basalt. He washes off the blood. He puts it under the microscope. By the time Mom calls from the hospital — Henry’s bleeding stopped, send Cassie home — I don’t want to leave. I want to find out how that rock came from a volcano. And in the weeks and months that follow I want to find out how a rock is evidence that helps solve a crime.

And now, eighteen years later, I’ve got a double masters in geology and criminalistics but at heart I’m still the eager beaver Walter created in his lab. I want to repair the rip in the safety net that allows us to go about our daily lives.

I want to find out if this talc evidence will help solve this crime.

In the RERT van we began to strip down to our street clothes.

“We have a puzzle,” Soliano said, easing off his gloves. “And we have here a collection of people with unique expertise. Shall we put our heads together?”

Was that a request? Soliano didn’t strike me as the type to request. More like the type to require.

“Our puzzle,” Soliano continued, “begins with a truck leaving the nuclear plant, carrying a shipment of radioactive resin beads. The truck is bound for the CTC waste repository. En route, there is a crash. I am called to the scene. I make my initial evaluation — attempted hijacking. Mr. Hemmings and his RERT colleagues arrive to monitor the area for radiation hazards. CTC sends its people to recover their property, and its health physicist Mr. Miller to protect its people. My geologists arrive. We investigate. We find, by accident, that one of the casks does not contain resin beads. It contains talc.” He regarded us, one by one, with the same exacting focus. “How is this possible?”

“Alchemy?” Miller said.

“Thank you for the levity,” Soliano said, without a smile. “Let us consider, instead, that we have a ‘dummy cask’—to cover the theft of a resin cask.”

“Jesus,” Scotty said, “you mean a swap?”

“This is possible?”

“Swapped where?”

Soliano considered. “Perhaps at the nuclear plant. Perhaps somewhere along the driver’s route. With the driver, possibly, an accomplice. How would this be done?”

“To start with,” Scotty said, “they’d need a crane to handle the casks.”

“Very well. What else would be needed?”

Walter said, “Talc, evidently. It’s chemically inert, easy to handle…” He glanced at me.

Yeah, I’m on it. Talc’s characteristics. What else do they tell us?

“And where does the perp acquire this talc?” Soliano asked.

I said, “You don’t get that much talc just anywhere. You’d need a source like a mine.” I pictured it. The perp shoveling up talc to fill a radwaste cask — which is a damn misuse of the geology. What kind of scumbag thinks that up?

“And how does the perp acquire the empty cask, to fill with the talc?” Soliano eyed Miller. “This is your cask, I am told.”

Miller raised his palms. “Comes from the dump where I work. We supply the casks to the nuke plant. They fill em, ship em back to us. Cask ain’t mine in the sense of bought and paid for.”

“You quibble. I mean yours in the sense of responsibility.”

“Yowza, I quibble. Responsibility-wise, it’s Milt Ballinger’s cask. He’s dump manager.”

“Christ,” Scotty said, “who cares who’s in charge? If it’s a swap then we got a cask of hot resins running around out there.”

Miller grinned. “On little cat feet?”

“You could try taking this damn serious, Miller.”

Soliano snapped, “Gentlemen.”

Miller bowed and unzipped his suit, rolling it down. I was able to smile and Walter chuckled and Scotty scowled. Soliano studied Miller’s street clothes with distaste. Soliano himself was FBI informal in khakis and a short-sleeve linen shirt. Walter and I wore our lightweight summer gear. Scotty’s street clothes were snug black jeans and a green polo shirt. Miller was in a league of his own. He wore baggy shorts in screaming yellow-orange plaid and his T-shirt had a drawing of Bart Simpson with the caption There’s No Way You Can Prove Anything. Miller didn’t look anything like bug-eyed buzz-cut Bart. Miller had wild red hair, a pale heart-shaped face, and blue eyes set deep as cave pools. But Miller and Bart did share that same no-shit look.

“To complete the scenario.” Soliano waited until he’d regained our attention. “Had the crash not occurred, the driver would have made his delivery of the dummy talc cask — along with the rest of the shipment — to the dump. And the swap would have gone undetected.” He regarded Miller. “This is possible?”

“Perp’d need some serious mojo.”

Walter said, “There might be a way to test the theory.”

“Yes?” Soliano said.

“If the perp does have the necessary mojo,” Walter said, “perhaps he tried the swap before. On a previous shipment. And that time things went as planned and the talc cask did arrive at the dump. In which case, it could be located?”

Miller shook his head. “Too late now. Casks get buried right away, way down deep where the sun don’t shine.”

My gut constricted, down deep. I hated Walter’s idea. Because if the perp tried the swap only once, tonight, and screwed it up — as he clearly screwed up tonight — then there was some hope he’d fail at whatever plans he had for that cask of hot resins.

I got a crazy vision of the cask on little cat feet chasing the stick figure. The stick’s not laughing. Stick’s scared shitless.

I wasn’t laughing either. I dearly hoped the perp was a one-shot screwup with deeply flawed mojo. Because if he’d tried this before, and succeeded, that level of competence did not bode well for our side. I hated Walter’s theory but it was a good one, and testable. I had to give due credit to my mother and brother. I said, “Ever put talcum powder on a baby?”

Silence. Nobody had, it seemed.

Come on, I thought, it’s a defining characteristic. “Talc’s highly dispersible. It gets on the changing table too.” I pictured white talc on steel cask skin. “And then you track it all over the place.”