His cell number rang seven times. Then, a sleepy, female voice answered.
My heart skipped a beat. And then I realized I knew that voice.
“Oh hi, Jen, can you call Peter to the phone?”
Jennifer, who worked for the same environmental organization as Peter, lived with her girlfriend in the master bedroom of the house Peter shared with four others. Jen and I had met first. We had swapped sandwiches, shared flasks of coffee, and huddled under umbrellas on many an environmental protest rally; and we grew even closer when Peter and I began dating.
“My gosh! Stella? Haven’t heard from you in ages. Peter’s not here, by the way. He’s somewhere in the wilds of Oregon with his cougar. His calls are forwarding to the house while he’s traveling. How are you doing, girl?”
“I’m fine.”
We played catch-up for a little while, until my curiosity got the better of me. “What’s this about a cougar?”
“Oh, that’s Lillian, the rich divorcee who joined our board earlier this year. She and Peter hooked up in March, when you guys split up.“
My heart thumped as if it wanted to burst out of my rib cage. Silence was the only response I could manage.
“Hey, Stella, you still there? Did you want me to take a message for Peter?”
“No, no message. It was nothing, really. Thanks, Jen. It was good speaking with you.”
I replaced the handset and flung myself onto the bed.
So that’s how it was, was it?
It wasn’t until April that we’d had our last date. And it was the first week of May that he’d spoken about needing space. But he had begun a new relationship and had been telling everyone we’d broken up way back in March?
I slammed my fists into the pillows. “Why? Why? Why?”
My head was spinning as the possibilities taunted me. Maybe I had not been exciting enough. Was it my “friendship first” approach for the first ten months of our relationship that did me in? Was it because he found her more beautiful? It couldn’t have been about the money. Jen said the woman was a rich divorcee, but the Peter I knew didn’t care about wealth or status. Maybe I had teased him too often and didn’t let him win our arguments often enough. Was it because he ended up thinking that I, with all my Trinidadian ways, was too different to choose to be with forever?
I spent too many minutes curled up on the bed, assaulting the pillows. Eventually, I gathered myself together and slouched off to the shower.
The warm water lashed my skin, but I hardly felt it as my mind became crowded with memories of the laughter and intimacies Peter and I had shared. I also thought, with regret, about the many, many times I’d lashed into him in order to get him to keep promises he’d made. I wondered what this new woman in his life looked like, and I felt anger rising in me as I imagined the fun the two of them were having together.
I’d spent months in limbo, waiting, waiting…waiting for the renewed attentions of that man to restore the shattered person I’d become, and to make me feel whole again.
And all that time, the relationship had been well and truly over, dead, with no hope of revival.
The dreams I’d harbored of our lives together in Syron Lake had never stood a snowball’s chance in Hell.
I pounded clenched fists against the wet tiles.A scream forced its way out of me. It pierced my ears and made my throat raw. I let myself slide down against the wall and into the tub.
So that’s how it was, was it?
Well, fine.
Who needed a two-timing rat like Peter Redmill anyway?
It turned out that I was a fool to think that relocating here would result in a reunion between Peter and me. But Syron Lake was my home now. What I’d witnessed could potentially put the entire town of twelve thousand souls at risk, if it hadn’t already exposed us to all kinds of danger. There was an important task at hand, and I could very well handle it without Peter Redmill.
I drove the rental car to town and pulled up to the two-story, redbrick building that served as the town hall.
It was minutes past eight and the doors had just been opened. At the front desk, the generously proportioned receptionist focused her attention on the tiny mirror which she held in one hand, and the lipstick that she applied with the other.
“Excuse me,” I said, “I need to urgently report a toxic spill.”
“Just a second.” The woman didn’t shift her gaze from the mirror.
She topped the lipstick with a layer of lip gloss, and smacked both into apparently satisfactory coverage. She dropped the two tubes and the mirror into a small case, which she then shoved into a bulging handbag. Having tucked everything into a drawer, the receptionist adjusted herself in her chair, clasped her hands, and looked directly at me.
“Now, what can I do for you?”
“Who do I see to report a tailings pond breach?”
“A what?”
“A tailings spill, up near Syron Lake — the lake itself. It happened last night, during the storm. Who do I report it to?”
“Wait, you’re going to have to explain this to me. First of all, what’s a tailing pond?”
“You’re kidding, right?”
“Listen, I’ve been in this job going on six years now and this is the first I’ve ever heard of this…this tailing pond. So either you explain what you’re on about or I can’t help you.”
The woman pursed her thin, red lips.
I shook my head at the irony that I, a newcomer, a resident for not even a full two months, was the one doing the explaining.
“A tailings pond is a dam with radioactive gravel and sand left over from the old uranium mines.”
The woman’s eyes glazed over. My words hadn’t registered.
I tried again. “When the mines were working, the miners wanted to extract uranium from the rocks, so they crushed the rocks until the rocks turned into gravel and sand. Then they used acid to wash the uranium that they were after out of the gravel and sand. But the process couldn’t remove all of the radioactive material. So when the mines were finished with the gravel and sand, that waste material — called ‘tailings’ — was still dangerously radioactive.
“The tailings now have to be kept underwater in ponds. That’s to prevent harmful gases, like radon, from escaping and polluting the environment. That toxic waste can cause people to develop lung cancer or leukemia, or can cause children to be born with birth defects.”
The receptionist raised her eyebrows.
“That’s why I need to speak with someone urgently,” I said. “I think I saw toxic sludge flooding out of the tailings pond up at Syron Lake, last night.”
“I see,” the woman said, slowly nodding.
She flipped through a binder on her desk, then pointed to a corridor.
“Go straight down to the end. The door to your left. Talk with Mr Drakes.”
I was somewhat doubtful when I read the words “By-Law Enforcement” on the door. I was relieved, though, that I didn’t have to give an overview of uranium mining waste management to the short, heavyset man who appeared when I knocked.
“Well,” Drakes said, “if a neighbor doesn’t cut his lawn for months and it looks like a jungle or if someone puts up a fence higher than six feet, I’m your guy. But this tailings breach business, it’s got nothing to do with me.”
He sent me down a different corridor to the Infrastructure Department.
“I doubt my boss could help you even if he was here,” said the young man who was taking apart some piece of machinery. “We do roads, sewers, the landfill…town property only. Check upstairs, maybe the Chief Administrative Offi
cer can help you.”
The second floor was all plush burgundy carpeting, marble walls, and low-lighting; the marble was probably fake, but it was all quite fancy for such a small town. A gray-haired woman with round glasses on the tip of her nose sat behind a desk and talked on the phone. The door to her left was closed. A second door, behind her right shoulder, was open; the man in the room rested a briefcase on a chair and shook his arms out of his jacket.
I waited for the woman to put down the receiver. “I’d like to see the CAO, please.”
“Sorry, that’s not possible today. He’s got a full schedule.”
“But this is urgent! I think I saw the tailings dam up at Syron Lake burst last night. Somebody in this town must care about environmental pollution!”
“Calm yourself, young lady.” The secretary slid her glasses higher on her nose. “And slow down. You said you saw what, where?”
Oh no, not again! I rolled my eyes toward the ceiling.
Footsteps sounded. The man from the room to the right walked out to the foyer. He stood bolt upright and looked me directly in the eyes.“Come into my office a minute.”
He tapped on the secretary’s desk.
“Margot hold all calls.”
“Yes, Mr Demetriou.”
Demetriou. The name seemed familiar.
He shut the door and motioned me to sit. He leaned against his desk and folded his arms. He was of average height and average build, but because of our relative positions, he towered over me.
“Now, what’s this about a tailings pond breach?”
In the midst of explaining who I was and what I’d seen the night before, the name clicked. I recalled that the majority of plastic signs dotting lawns all across the town read, “Tito Demetriou for Mayor: Safe hands for a fourth term.”
Good, I thought. I was getting word to the very top.
“Was anyone else around when this happened?”
“I didn’t see any other car on the road. And I was driving alone. That’s how I ended up being there. I didn’t have anyone to help me navigate.”
“And who else knows about this?”
“I told just the receptionist downstairs, the secretary up here, and a couple of people, in By-Law Enforcement and Infrastructure.”
“Good.”
The relief in his tone surprised me.
He must have seen the way I had recoiled because, now,the sides of his lips curled upward into what looked like a contrived smile.
“If it was a spill, I’m sure the mining company’s already onto it,” Demetriou said. “They’d have to do the clean-up. Repair whatever damage there might be. They’d have to inform the nuclear authority about it, too. It’s a federal matter, you know.”
“But what about notifying the town?”
“Of course I expect they’ll send some official communication to the clerk, or the CAO, or to me. If something happened last night, we’ll probably hear from them before the end of the day, today. But as it’s Friday, we might not. I’d say, Monday, at the latest.”
“I was referring to the people who live here.”
Demetriou shook his head.
“What are you after, Ms Jacob?”
“Shouldn’t there be some kind of public announcement?”
The mayor tilted his head and stared at me, but said nothing. His reticence irritated me.
“Millions of gallons of radioactive waste have spilled into the environment.” My voice was now at a high pitch. “Doesn’t that call for a public alert?”
“Look, Miss, you don’t know for sure if that’s the case.”
“But I saw the gushing water. I checked the map. It could only have been?”
“I’ll find out what really happened. I’ll call the company, first thing after this meeting.”
“But, by the time—”
“Listen, young lady, we need to get the facts first before we go scaremongering.”
The word stung like a slap across my cheeks.
I drew a breath and continued.
“And what if it takes days to get the facts from this company? And what if it turns out that the worst actually did happen? Meanwhile, people’s lives could be put at risk if they drink contaminated water, or go fishing, or swimming in Syron Lake.”
“The tailings pond is nowhere near the town’s water supply, Ms Jacob. And nobody goes fishing or swimming in Syron Lake. The only access road runs through private property belonging to Syron Lake Resources, and they prohibit public entry.”
“But—”
The mayor’s right hand shot up in the air and commanded my silence.
“Listen, if I were you, I’d be careful about talking about this,” Demetriou said.
His tone made me jerk back my head.
“The only way you could have seen what you claim to have witnessed was if you were trespassing.” Demetriou stepped closer to my chair and narrowed his eyes. “Go running your mouth about this and you could get yourself arrested for trespassing.”
He walked to the door and swung it open. The secretary peered into the room, and the mayor bowed with graciousness that was a stark contrast to his tone just seconds before.
“Thank you so much for bringing this to my attention, Ms Jacob,” he said. “I’ll look into this to see that everything that must be done, will be done.”
Chapter 12
I didn’t trust Mayor Demetriou.
He was just the type that Adam Levy, my old boss at the salmon non-profit, would have called “a consummate corporate suck-up.”
“Do you know what are the most dangerous predators on the planet?” Adam had asked during my job interview. He’d shaken his head at all my guesses: white sharks, piranhas, lions, dingoes.
“It’s creatures known as ‘corporations,’” he had said, his brown eyes seeming to burn with a century’s worth of outrage, although he was just three years older than me.
“They’re fictitious beings, but they’re treated in law as if they’re one hundred percent living, breathing humans, separate and distinct from the men and women who run them. And with the way the system is rigged, they have more rights than any real person.”
A corporation was a shield behind which people who had little or no concern for their fellow men or other living creatures could hide and commit dastardly deeds, Adam had said.
“A natural predator seeks food in order to survive, and Nature has programmed it to end the hunt when it’s satiated. But a corporate predator has no ‘off-switch.’ It hunts for wealth and power unrelentingly, even to the point of destroying the very source of that wealth.
“And that’s what makes corporations such dangerous predators — they are not restrained by any natural instinct, or by any notion of morality.”
Whereas any one of us would be behind bars if we did even a tenth of what some corporations were guilty of, corporate predators almost always got away with their immoral and illegal deeds, Adam had said. “Why? Because so many of the officials who are supposed to be policing them are either too incompetent or too cowardly to do their jobs, or they’re only interested in trying to get their snouts in the trough, too.”
But throwing up his hands and saying that corporations were too powerful to take on hadn’t ever been an option for Adam, or for the handful of volunteers who had rallied around the salmon non-profit; he had said that the havoc corporations would wreak if no one stood up to hold them accountable was too horrifying to contemplate.
So, before we got scattered by the global economic crash (itself brought on by rampaging corporate predators), we’d had a good run of
it; I would research and write exposés about overfishing and threats to salmon habitat from logging, mining, and industrial activity, and Adam churned out opinion pieces that nailed company heads, and called out various officials for their inaction or complicity.
Officials just like Mayor Demetriou.
Adam was backpacking somewhere in Australia and unreachable. And apart from Peter, whose image I was trying to scrub from my memory, I could hardly think of who else I could turn to for help. Besides Adam, who was the founder and served as executive director, I had been the only staff at the non-profit. The volunteers, while generous and eager to be helpful, had always looked to us for guidance.
Next door to the town hall was the Syron Lake police station, a solid-looking, one-story, yellow building. The glass door of the front entrance seemed to beacon me.
As I stepped onto the interlocking brick walkway that linked the two buildings, I had a vague sense of being watched. My eyes glided up to the second floor of the town hall and caught a glimpse of a figure in a window, just as it moved away.
The anger I felt at being talked down to by Mayor Demetriou propelled my footsteps. But by the time I pushed past the station’s door, the force of that rage had almost completely dissipated.
Doubts and fears rushed in to fill its place. What could the police even do in this situation? It wasn’t as if I had a crime to report. And what about the mayor’s talk about my being arrested for trespassing? Was I about to throw myself to the wolves?
At the reception counter, a slight, young woman watered a pot of English Ivy. From the corridor to the right came the sound of heavy boots. A hulk of a man in uniform suddenly appeared. He tapped the counter.
“Just had an accident back there, Zoe,” he said. “Got coffee all over my desk. Take care of that for me, will you.”
Without a word, the young woman made haste down the corridor. The man watched her leave, then turned to face me.
“You’re the one who just spoke to the mayor about a spill?”
Run, Girl, Run: A Thriller Page 7