by Mark Gimenez
‘Hate’s a hard thing to hold onto.’
He knew. He had held onto his hate for a decade.
‘It’s all I have left to hold.’
‘You used me, Carla.’
‘No, I didn’t. I helped you. You were wrong, Professor. Nathan’s death wasn’t an accident. It wasn’t a coincidence. If you had left town, you would never have learned the truth. And his killer would have gone free. You wouldn’t have had your justice. You should thank me, for keeping you in town.’
‘For shooting out our window? You could’ve hurt someone.’
‘With number-eight birdshot? Please. Nobody likes a whiner, Professor.’
‘You lied to me.’
‘Not guilty. I didn’t lie. I just didn’t tell you the whole truth. That doesn’t constitute perjury, they said so on Law and Order.’
Book sighed. ‘Everyone’s a lawyer.’
He stared at Cathedral Rock to the east. That was Carla’s connection: she blamed Billy Bob Barnett for her father’s death, and she wanted revenge. Book felt no anger toward her; he had had his revenge. The man who had killed his father had been sentenced to death; Book rode the Harley to Huntsville to witness his execution in the death chamber at the state penitentiary. He had looked into the man’s eyes from the other side of the glass partition and had seen nothing. Only emptiness. Watching that man die, the man who had stuck a gun to his father’s head and pulled the trigger, all desire for revenge had drained from his body. All his hate had dissipated. He found no satisfaction in another human’s death. An eye for an eye could not bring his father back. But he felt for Carla; she did not yet know that revenge would not fill the void.
‘You mad?’
‘I should be.’
‘That means you’re not. Good.’
‘Why?’
She pointed at the teepees on the adjacent El Cosmico tract.
‘Because I’ve never fucked in a teepee.’
Chapter 33
Book woke in a teepee to a ringing phone. He reached down and grabbed his jeans then dug the cell phone out of a pocket.
‘Professor.’
Nadine.
‘Why aren’t you out running?’
She giggled.
‘I was up late.’
‘I bet. Well, wake up Carla and come over.’
‘Why?’
‘I figured it out.’
‘I did the math. The numbers don’t add up.’
An hour later, they all sat in Nadine’s hospital room in Alpine. Stacks of paper surrounded her in the bed.
‘I talked to Professor Lawson. He said the fastest way to cut expenses is on disposal costs, said they’ve skyrocketed to about nine dollars per barrel of flow-back. So, if five million barrels of frack fluid go down the hole and fifty percent comes back up, that’s two and a half million gallons of flow-back that’s got to be injected down disposal wells. A barrel—that’s how they measure everything in the business—is forty-two gallons, so two and a half million gallons is roughly sixty thousand barrels. Times nine dollars per barrel, that’s half a million dollars in disposal costs per well. That’s a lot of money, so I started looking at the disposal numbers.’
She held up a piece of paper from her left side.
‘Well number three-twenty-four. Fracked last November seventeenth. The well log says they injected right at three million gallons of frack fluid down the hole.’
She held up another paper, this one from her right side.
‘But the expense worksheets—these are the work papers the accountants generate from the actual receipts, bank statements, that sort of thing—for last year’s tax return shows Barnett paid for six hundred twenty-five tanker trucks to deliver frack fluid to well number three-twenty-four on November seventeenth.’
‘And?’
‘And each tanker carries eight thousand gallons. Do the math, that comes to five million gallons.’
‘So he’s either cheating on his taxes or he’s cheating on the amount of fluid used to frack that well. I understand the taxes, but why the frack fluid?’
‘I’m getting there.’
She held up another piece of paper.
‘After fracking, fifteen to fifty percent of the fluid comes back up the hole—remember, Billy Bob told us that?’
Book nodded.
‘That’s the flow-back. It’s collected in an open pit then pumped into the tanker trucks to haul off to the disposal wells.’
‘Okay.’
Back to the second piece of paper.
‘The expense worksheet says Barnett paid for three hundred tanker loads to the disposal wells. Do the math, that’s two-point-four million gallons. Which is eighty percent of three million—that’s too much flow-back—but only forty-eight percent of five million. Which fits.’
‘Which leads us to conclude that—’
‘They used five million gallons to frack that well and recovered two-point-four million gallons of flow-back.’
‘I agree.’
Another paper.
‘But, this expense sheet lists all the disposal costs, but by date, not well. On November nineteenth, Barnett paid one hundred seventy thousand dollars to dispose of nineteen thousand barrels of flow-back in the Pecos County disposal well.’
‘Which means?’
‘He’s short.’
‘How?’
‘Like I said, one barrel equals forty-two gallons. So they disposed of only eight hundred thousand gallons of flow-back from that well.’
‘So two-point-four million gallons came back up the hole, but only eight hundred thousand gallons were trucked to the disposal wells?’
‘Looks that way.’
‘What happened to the other one-point-six million gallons?’
‘Never made it to the disposal wells.’
‘Where’d it go?’
‘He dumped it,’ Carla said.
‘Why?’
‘To save money.’
‘About three hundred and forty thousand dollars,’ Nadine said.
‘On one well,’ Carla said. ‘Times a hundred wells a year, that’s—’
‘Thirty-four million dollars,’ Nadine said.
‘That’s real money,’ Carla said, ‘even in Texas.’
‘And especially if you’ve got three ex-wives to support,’ Book said.
‘And five children,’ Nadine said.
‘And a cocaine habit,’ Carla said.
‘So Nathan was wrong. Billy Bob isn’t contaminating the groundwater; he’s contaminating the land and surface water.’
‘I’ve gone through the numbers on twenty wells so far,’ Nadine said. ‘Same deal.’
‘But for him to dump that much frack fluid,’ Book said, ‘the trucking company would have to be a co-conspirator in a criminal enterprise.’
‘Wouldn’t be the first time,’ Carla said. ‘The trade treaty with Mexico allowed cross-border trucking, so the cartels bought up a bunch of Mexican trucking companies. They know a little something about criminal enterprises.’
‘That’s another piece of the puzzle, Professor,’ Nadine said.
‘What?’
‘Apparently someone at the trucking company had a conscience. Wade Chandler, shipping supervisor. Nathan had several manifests signed by Chandler.’
‘How?’
She shrugged. ‘Who knows? Maybe Nathan figured it out, asked Chandler for the records.’
‘Where’s this Wade Chandler?’
‘Dead. Died in a car accident, two days before Nathan.’
‘Why didn’t the sheriff mention that?’
‘Probably didn’t know. Happened in Pecos County. That’s two counties north of Marfa.’
‘Looks like Billy Bob partnered up with some bad guys, Professor, maybe a cartel,’ Carla said.
‘Where would he meet cartel people?’
‘Cokehead needs a supplier. Maybe he’s killing two birds with one stone—buying his cocaine and dumping his flow-back.’
‘W
e need proof.’
‘These papers,’ Nadine said.
‘Too complicated. We need a smoking gun.’
‘Don’t guns smoke after they’ve been fired?’
‘So where would he dump the fluid?’
Carla spread her arms.
‘It’s a big desert.’
Chapter 34
At three the next morning, Book and Carla sat in her pickup truck parked out of sight off Highway 67 northeast of Alpine, just outside Barnett Oil and Gas Company Well Site 356. They had the high ground; down below, more flow-back fluid in the open pit was being pumped into a long line of tanker trucks. Book was in the driver’s seat; Carla was in the passenger’s. They ate beef jerky. The evening air had now turned cool, and the breeze brought the smell of distant rain. That night Book would learn Nathan Jones’s truth.
‘Boo!’
Carla screamed; Book jumped then recovered and saw a face behind night-vision goggles peering in through Carla’s window. A hand yanked the goggles off to reveal a familiar face.
‘Big Rick? What the hell are you doing out here?’
‘Scaring the shit out of you two.’ He laughed. ‘My reliable source said something big is going down at this well site tonight. Thought I’d check it out myself. You know what it is?’
‘We think they’re dumping frack fluid out in the desert.’
Big Rick opened Carla’s door. ‘Scoot over.’
She did, and he climbed in with a backpack and an AR-15 assault rifle.
‘Is that loaded?’ Book asked.
‘Why would I carry an unloaded weapon?’
‘Point it out the window.’
He did.
‘So what’s the plan, Professor?’
‘We wait. See where those trucks go.’
Carla held up her camcorder. ‘We’re going to follow them and videotape the dumping. A smoking gun.’
‘Well, I’ve got my gun and I’ve got my smokes.’
Big Rick pulled out a joint and lit it. He inhaled deeply then offered the joint to Book and Carla; they declined.
‘Don’t exhale in here,’ Book said.
Big Rick stuck his head out the window and exhaled smoke.
‘Aah.’
He pulled his head back inside and a big bag of Cheetos from his backpack. He stuffed Cheetos into his mouth then held the bag out; Book declined, but Carla shrugged and took a handful.
‘I do like Cheetos.’
Book shook his head. ‘Heck of a team. A law professor, an environmentalist with a grudge, and a stoned artist with a loaded weapon and a bag of Cheetos.’
‘And ready to kick some ass,’ Big Rick said.
Carla pointed. ‘Look.’
The tanker trucks carrying the flow-back fluid began exiting the site. They counted fifty trucks that turned north on 67, the road to the disposal wells in Pecos County. But fifty turned south on 67, the road to—
‘Mexico,’ Big Rick said.
After the final truck had passed, Book started the engine and shifted into gear but did not turn on the lights. He turned south and followed the red taillights. Carla videotaped and narrated. Big Rick smoked pot. Highway 67 turned east and led them through Alpine and toward Marfa. In the distant sky to the south lightning strikes flashed above the mountains. The faint sound of thunder broke the silence of the night.
‘Desert storm over Mexico,’ Carla said. ‘It’ll lightning and thunder, but it never rains.’
They passed through Alpine; the streets sat vacant.
‘Can we stop and get some potato chips?’ Big Rick asked.
‘No.’
They cleared the town and wound through the Chisos Mountains then descended onto the Marfa Plateau. Eight miles further, just before the Marfa Mystery Lights Viewing Center, the trucks abruptly turned south on an unmarked dirt road that cut through the desert.
Deputy Shirley liked to come out to the viewing center late at night when she worked the midnight shift. The center was an open rock structure with a cement floor and a low rock wall; people gathered at night in hopes of seeing the mystery lights. But not at three-thirty in the morning. That’s when she liked to come out; not to watch the mystery lights, but to screw on the low rock wall under the stars. And tonight the distant lightning made the moment even more romantic. She wore her uniform shirt with the Presidio County Sheriff’s Department badge and her leather holster, but her uniform trousers lay on the cement floor. She sat bare-bottomed on the wall with her legs up high and spread for the cowboy named Cody; he was working hard and doing a very good job. The night was cool, but her thick white boot socks and Cowboy Cody’s body heat kept her toasty. Shirley felt the heat building down below, and her body began rumbling—
—but not with the throes of an orgasm. The rumbling came from the line of tanker trucks barreling past not a hundred feet away down the Old Army Air Field Road. Cowboy Cody continued his hard work as she watched the tankers—ten, twenty, thirty … must be fifty trucks—heading deep into the dark desert. Odd. But then, sculptures made out of crushed cars were pretty odd, too. She turned back to Cody and tried to get her mind and body refocused on the moment before he ran out of gas when another vehicle turned off Highway 67 and headed down the dirt road into the desert. It was a pickup truck, a familiar-looking one, with a driver she recognized in the flash of the next lightning strike: the professor. He was driving with no headlights.
‘What the hell?’
Cowboy Cody panted hard.
‘Sorry. I held it as long as I could.’
‘Not you. The trucks.’
Cowboy Cody backed away to police himself—Shirley insisted her beaus practice safe sex—and she drew the cell phone from her holster.
Presidio County Sheriff Brady Munn slept peacefully in his bed next to his wife of twenty-seven years. With the kids grown and gone, there were no more sleeps interrupted for bottle duty or diaper duty or chaperone duty; and Presidio County was not exactly a hotbed of criminal activity. Consequently, he was startled awake by the ringing phone. He reached out, found the phone, and put the receiver to his ear.
‘This better be good.’
‘It is.’
Shirley.
‘What time is it?’
‘Three-thirty.’
His niece told him what she had just witnessed out by the viewing center.
‘Goddamn amateurs. They’re gonna get themselves killed playing detective. He can’t kung fu the cartels. What the hell are you doing out there, anyway?’
‘Keeping Presidio County safe.’
‘Well, put your pants on and get the hell back to town.’
She giggled and disconnected. He replaced the receiver and rubbed his face. Relatives. If it was just the tankers, he’d call Border Patrol and let them handle the situation. But Carla and the professor made him sit up and say to his wife, ‘Honey, I’m gonna run down to the border,’ like many a husband might say he was running to the neighborhood convenience store. She grunted and rolled over.
They drove over old runways.
‘They’re taking a shortcut through the old Marfa Army Air Field,’ Carla said. ‘Skirting town, to avoid a curious Border Patrol agent wondering what all these trucks are doing heading toward Mexico in the middle of the night. They’ll pick up the highway again south of town.’
Rumbles of thunder rolled over the Marfa Plateau. Book’s cell phone rang. He answered.
‘Hi. I couldn’t sleep. Alone.’
Carmen Castro.
‘Uh, Carmen, I’m going to have to call you back. I’m right in the middle of something.’
‘Does it involve a woman?’
‘It’s not quite that dangerous.’
Carmen sighed. ‘You said you were coming back.’
‘I’ve been delayed.’
‘I’ve gone to the gun range every night, to get over my sexual frustrations.’
‘Well, uh, whatever works.’
‘It’s getting expensive. I’ve gone through two thousand r
ounds of ammo. You want to have phone sex?’
‘Uh, not a good time.’
A groan from Carmen. ‘Call me.’
Book disconnected.
‘Carmen?’ Carla said.
‘How old is she?’ Big Rick said.
‘Can we focus here?’
Big Rick took a long drag on his joint then hung his head out the window.
Border Patrol Agent Wesley Crum chased the wets into the desert just off Highway 67 about forty miles south of Marfa and twenty miles north of the border. Through the night-vision goggles, he counted five males and five females. No doubt a family reunion. An odd sound broke the silence of the night and caused him to stop and turn back to the highway. He observed an equally odd sight: a long line of tanker trucks heading south like ducks migrating for the winter. Only it was late spring, so they should be migrating north. The ducks, not the tanker trucks.
‘Where the hell are they going?’
‘Come on,’ Angel said, ‘let’s get these folks.’
‘You’re always wanting to let them go. Tonight you want to chase them? Look.’
Wesley pointed, and Angel turned and looked. A ways behind the last tanker truck, a pickup truck followed with its lights off. But with the goggles, Wesley recognized the big potato embedded on the antenna.
‘I know that potato. That’s Carla’s truck. And the professor. Maybe he ain’t a good guy after all. Let’s find out.’
‘Come on, Wesley, let’s take care of these people.’
Just then another pickup truck with its lights off passed. It was following Carla’s truck.
‘Who the hell is that? Come on, Angel, they’re up to something, and at four in the morning, it ain’t no good.’
‘They’re just tanker trucks, Wesley. Going south, not north. They’re not smuggling dope into Mexico. Let’s do our job.’
‘I am.’
Wesley took off running toward the highway and their Border Patrol SUV parked off the road. Angel shook his head then dropped the jug of water he was carrying and yelled to the Mexicans in the desert.
‘¡Agua! ¡Agua!’
Angel Acosta ran after Wesley Crum.
Twenty minutes later, just outside the town of Presidio, the tankers turned west on Farm-to-Market 170, the river road. Book steered the pickup after them. The Rio Grande was visible to their left in the illumination of the lightning strikes, which came more often now.