Critical Reaction

by Todd M Johnson

  “In 1940, this was the only paved road in Sherman,” Pauline began. “Back then, the place was a little farming community that serviced some of the orchards around here. The population was fifty. By 1948, that number had grown to thirty-five thousand.”

  Emily shook her head. “All workers for Hanford?” she asked.

  “Yep,” Pauline answered.

  They were moving north through light traffic, past storefronts, banks, and the occasional office building. “They had fifty thousand workers build Hanford during the war,” Pauline went on. “Once it was done and they’d started enriching uranium and producing plutonium out on the reservation, they still needed an army of workers to run the plant and someplace to house them—away from the factory buildings for safety and security. That’s when the housing shifted to Sherman, and the homes starting going up. It was an instant boomtown—except still so secret, they even had the workers’ mail delivered to a drop in Seattle and trucked over the mountains.”

  “Who ran Hanford?” Emily asked.

  “Contractors under the Atomic Energy Commission. Later—much later—the AEC was replaced by the Department of Energy. But the day-to-day work was still handled by contractors. Companies like Dupont, General Electric, Fluor Daniels, to name a few. Covington Nuclear just got the contract about six years ago.”

  They were passing through the heart of downtown now. Pauline pointed out a newer library to the right, then a good-sized hospital a few blocks down on the left. There was a community pool on each side of town, she said, and several riverside parks. Both state and federal courthouses.

  “You oughta see the high school,” she said with a hint of pride. “Looks like a college campus. We’ve got a minor league baseball team. All that and elbow room too. It’s like Seattle without all the traffic.”

  “Government built?” Ryan asked.

  “Some. But a lot of it’s been donated by contractors. Every company that’s ever worked at Hanford has known that part of the price for billions of dollars in government contracts out here is pumping money into the community. That’s been true since Hanford opened.”

  Ryan shook his head darkly. This was even more of a company town than he’d suspected when he’d grilled Kieran.

  They passed under the freeway, leaving town and continuing north for several miles until the road came to a T intersection. Pauline directed him to turn left.

  “I’m going to take you parallel to the fence line of the Hanford Reservation. You can’t see it for a long ways: it’s beyond some hills to the east. But after a drive, we’ll get to an overlook within sight of the main production works.”

  The road angled northwest. The terrain here was little different than what Ryan had seen from the highway further south the day before: dry and barren flats overlooked by buttes and rounded hills.

  Forty minutes after they’d turned, the ground rose until they reached an overlook offering a vista across the reservation. They parked and got out of the car.

  From there, the Hanford security fence was fully visible, like an iron stream flowing across the desert. Far away, against the backdrop of the Columbia River, several domes glinted in the late morning sun, like distant mosques. Other structures were visible as well—including the cooling towers of two nuclear reactors and smaller buildings scattered across the landscape.

  “All told, they built over six hundred buildings out there,” Pauline said, leaning against the car. “Production labs, storage facilities, nuclear reactors for power and for production. They’re spread out over the northeast half of the reservation mostly, where we’re looking now. LB5’s a little further east and south. It’s not visible here.”

  “How bad is the contamination out there?” Emily asked.

  Pauline whistled. “Millions of tons of radioactive wastewater and solid waste still out there. A pool of contaminated groundwater two hundred miles or more, seeping toward the Columbia. Estimates are they’ve lost enough plutonium on the grounds to fuel eighty hydrogen bombs. Nobody knows where it’s all at. Give you an example: they used to ship the plutonium from here to Rocky Flats and Los Alamos on special trains that were painted white, usually at night. I’ve had workers tell me the white trains got so contaminated that they just dug caves out on the reservation, laid tracks, drove ’em in, and sealed them—locomotives and all. Same with some trucks they used out there: filled them with irradiated tools and buried the whole thing.”

  Ryan caught Pauline’s eye. “And most of the people you know in Sherman are associated with Hanford,” he said matter-of-factly.

  Emily glanced at him. Pauline smiled knowingly. “In some way or another.”

  “Dad,” Emily said, the first she’d spoken to him since dinner the night before, “Kieran’s case is in federal court, not state district court. The jury could be drawn from anywhere in eastern Washington—not just the town of Sherman.”

  Pauline held up a hand. “Yeah, honey, but your dad’s right—the final jury pool will be heavily weighted with folks with a Hanford connection.”

  The lawyer crossed her arms and examined Ryan. “Before you draw too many conclusions, though, let me tell you: the Hanford workers that make up Sherman and this area worked for decades producing plutonium for the government and its contractors—and now on the cleanup. So it’s true these people are very loyal to the reservation and its contractors. But that loyalty’s always come with a big asterisk. Working with plutonium and all of the poisons involved in that process, a fat paycheck wasn’t ever enough to convince them to risk their lives out in this desert. The government and its contractors told these folks that they were keeping America safe, building the bombs that kept Russia at bay through the Cold War—working for a higher calling. And they believed in the mission; some still do. Some think that one day America will wake up and need plutonium or some other bomb again to protect America—and Hanford will answer that call.”

  Ryan could see that Emily looked angry and crestfallen, like she was hearing the last nail being pounded into the coffin of Kieran’s case.

  “But even the mission couldn’t seal the deal, if it weren’t for the promise,” Pauline went on. “These folks aren’t robots. A condition of their loyalty has always been an unspoken agreement that the government and its contractors wouldn’t lie to them. Not with all the hazards they put up with. They’d always be honest about the risks. You prove that promise has been broken by Covington at LB5, I believe you can beat ’em with a Sherman jury.”

  They’d been in the sun long enough that Ryan felt the heat building under his shirt, adding to his fatigue at this game. He wanted to go back to the B&B, gather his bags, and head for home. If Emily didn’t get it by now, then he’d never convince her.

  “If Kieran’s case is so tough,” Emily asked Pauline in a strained voice, “then why’d you take it?”

  A light breeze blew wisps of gray hair across the lawyer’s face. “Because nobody else would,” she said, reaching up and nestling the strands behind her ear. “And I believed in him. I knew I was out of my league, but I believed in him.”

  “Then why’d you quit,” Ryan snapped.

  She looked at him and smiled. “Because of my sure-as-the-sun-comes-up certainty that I was going to lose. I don’t have enough of the right courtroom experience; I don’t have enough money. And I don’t know what Covington’s got up its sleeve, but something’s coming. When it hits, Kieran deserves a lawyer like you.”

  “Two months until trial?” Emily asked after another interval of silence.

  “Two months to trial,” Pauline repeated. “Unless you can get an extension. But final expert reports are due in a few weeks.”

  The thin lawyer turned away from Emily toward Ryan. “Now I’ve got a question for you. Kieran’s mostly focused on knowing what he might’ve been exposed to. But if you could prove serious radiation exposure, how much do you think his case is worth?”

  “Two million,” Ryan said, the words out of his mouth automatically. “Give or take
half a million. That’s with a decent, unbiased jury. It also assumes serious evidence to support exposure and likely long-term health effects.”

  Their drive back to town was as quiet as the preceding night. When they reached Pauline’s small office building, she stepped out of the sidewalk with her computer and case, then leaned back into the open passenger-side window.

  “There’s something else you ought to know,” she said, staring across Emily to Ryan. “The day I withdrew from the case, as I was leaving the courtroom, Covington’s lawyer made an offer to settle.”

  Startled, Ryan matched her gaze. “After you withdrew?”

  “Yep,” she nodded. “Fifty thousand dollars. Kieran turned them down, by the way. Since you hadn’t asked about it, I assumed Kieran didn’t mention it. That’s why I hesitated to tell you.”

  This made no sense. “Why would they offer a settlement when he’s on the ropes?”

  The lawyer smiled. “I thought you’d find that interesting.”

  The slender lawyer turned up the sidewalk carrying her computer and files. As they drove away, Ryan was left with the impression that each hand was full of a burden big enough to overwhelm her.

  Poppy opened his eyes as he felt the bed creak and heard Suzy’s footsteps padding into the bathroom. He glanced at the clock: eleven a.m.

  Working the late shift, it wasn’t often he and Suzy shared the bed for so many hours together. He hoped his rough sleeping these past months hadn’t kept her awake again last night.

  He hadn’t had this much trouble sleeping since his first extended operation in the Navy aboard the USS New Jersey. He hadn’t expected discomfort on the ship—it wasn’t like he was in a submarine. But after growing up in the open country of eastern Washington, even a battleship seemed confining.

  He’d brought back three things from his tour with the navy: satisfaction at his service, complete disinterest in ever sailing the ocean’s surface again, and his nickname—a shortening of “Popeye” that a midshipman slapped on him after he’d gone up three weight classes to win a boxing competition for the ship. The name followed him home when another local boy returned from the New Jersey to Hanford a year after Poppy.

  No one but Poppy recalled the name’s origins, but Poppy didn’t mind. He remembered its source with pride. Besides, he’d never been that crazy about “Pat” anyway.

  Poppy rolled to his feet and headed toward the living room. The headache was mercifully absent this morning. Even his chest felt clearer than it usually did when he awoke.

  He picked up the paper from the front stoop and ambled back to the dining room table. His computer was there and Poppy opened it to check his emails.

  Amidst the junk mail was an email from Covington headquarters. Poppy opened it.

  He had sent a total of five emails to Covington HQ the past eight months. The first had been a respectful note about more testing to see if he’d picked up radiation in the LB5 explosion. That one had gone completely unanswered. Poppy’s second went further, also asking whether he was going to be interviewed about what he’d seen and heard that night. When that one and a couple others were ignored, he’d dropped the courtesy a month before, reminding “to whom it might concern” of the gunshot his partner had fired that appeared nowhere in the newspaper reports about Covington’s investigation report.

  This was the first reply. Oddly, it appeared to have come from the Covington Personnel Office.

  Dear Mr. Martin—

  Thank you for the information you have shared in your emails these past months. Please be assured that your perspectives and experiences that night have been fully considered. . . .

  He skipped to the bottom.

  Regarding further radiation testing, the study completed by top nuclear experts has confirmed the absence of a radiation release at LB5 . . .

  Nothing about interviewing him about that night. No mention of his repeated questions about Lew’s gunshot. No offer of examinations. Just more bureau-blather.

  He looked at the bottom of the email. There was no name assigned the message—just “Covington Nuclear Human Resources.”

  So who was even dealing with this mess?

  Poppy spent the next fifteen minutes preparing a reply. If they thought he was going to stop bugging them based on an email like that, they’d know better soon. He finished the note, read it quickly, then pushed Send.

  “Hon, get dressed,” Suzy said as she came into the dining room. He looked up at her from the computer.

  Prettier than ever, he thought—even with worrying about him. “And wipe that scowl from your face,” she finished, smiling. “You’re taking me to lunch.”

  With an effort, Poppy smiled back. She deserved it, he thought.She needed a respite from this as much as he did.

  For a moment, he wondered if he should’ve sent the email so quickly, whether he should have thought about it for awhile. But no. He’d been pussyfooting with these guys long enough. Now they’d know for sure he wasn’t going away. Not without some answers. Besides, the email was gone; he couldn’t bring it back.

  “I’m fine with that, long as you’re buying,” he said, standing and walking toward the bedroom to change—and swatting her gently as he passed by.

  Chapter 9

  Ryan sat in his room for half an hour after they returned from the drive around Hanford, leaving Emily alone. At last, he rose, grabbed his bags, and headed downstairs to load them into the Avalon—before returning to her door and knocking.

  “Come in,” her voice called through the door.

  Emily was seated on the window seat. Her face looked drawn. Her bag, he saw, was still unpacked at the end of the bed.

  Ryan worried at the sight of it. “Why isn’t your bag in your car, Emily? We’ve got to check out.”

  “Go ahead,” she returned.

  “You’re coming, right?”

  “No.”

  His stomach lurched. “Come on, Emily. You can’t be serious. This is a killer of a case. We’d just be prolonging this kid’s agony by taking it on.”

  He saw now that his daughter’s eyes wore the placidity of a decision. “His name’s Kieran, Dad. And I already extended my stay at the B&B. I’m calling Frank tomorrow to take my vacation, plus a leave of absence. I understand what you’re saying about Kieran’s case. You don’t have to represent him. But I will.”

  “Don’t be idiotic,” he shot back. “You can’t represent him in this, of all cases.”

  “Take a look at my diploma,” she said. “And I’ve been in a courtroom before.”

  “For two years. In criminal cases.”

  She sat silent.

  “Why? Why do you have to do this?”

  The defiance in Emily’s eyes became something harder. “Because he was there for me when Mom was sick,” she said softly. “When nobody else was. Nobody. And by the way, Mom thought a lot of Kieran.”

  “Carolyn met Kieran?” Ryan asked, startled.

  Emily shook her head. “No. But we talked about him a lot. When she was in the hospital.”

  The room emptied of oxygen. Ryan felt an agony of anger and sadness flowing into his chest and face; he knew that Emily could see it too.

  What did she know about that time?

  “Good luck,” he said.

  He slammed the door shut behind him and took the stairs to the first floor in a haze. Pavia was there, behind the counter. The proprietor looked disturbed; he’d heard the door slam, Ryan thought distantly.

  Ryan sat for half an hour in his Avalon, the engine running, while the hot sun’s reflection glinted in the chrome rimming the dusty hood. His mood tilted back and forth on a sharp edge between anger and guilt. Emily didn’t understand what those last two years had been like. He’d barely had enough emotional strength for Carolyn. He’d used every drop on the woman he loved. There was none left over for Emily. Now he wouldn’t be shamed into taking this miserable case to appease her—or to honor what Emily claimed Carolyn thought of Kieran.

 
When he finally looked at the car clock it was after two. He reached to put the car into gear.

  Instead, he turned off the engine. Grabbing his bags, he climbed the front stairs to the B&B, returning to Pavia, who looked up at Ryan with anxious eyes.

  “I want to keep my room for another day. That okay?”

  The hotel owner nodded.

  Ryan headed back upstairs to his room. He was going for a run.

  He weaved through the hot air and the busy foot traffic on the path through River Park. Blurred flashes of color from joggers and runners passed by as he pushed his pace faster and faster, the sweat burning his eyes, each breath coming more quickly after the last.

  A side path approached on his right, heading up a steep hill. Ryan took it, ignoring the resistance of his burning thighs. He pumped his arms, driving up the slope, gasping out a cadence, until just as his legs were wavering, the path flattened onto an open hilltop with a thick copse of trees visible on the far side.

  His hands dropped to his knees as he staggered to a halt, gasping deep breaths until his shoulders eased back and he could stand up again.

  The hilltop was empty except for two people near the ridgeline to his left. On a bench, a woman sat with a stroller at her side, looking away from Ryan. The other was a red-haired man with a runner’s build in white running shorts and a T-shirt gazing off at the vista of the southern horizon.

  It was the woman who kept his attention. Her sundress was crimson. Blond hair fell to just beneath the line of her jaw, ending in a light curl—like Carolyn used to wear it. From behind, she might have been a young Carolyn, arriving at their Seattle law office on a warm summer day.

  The sight of it jolted Ryan so soon after his argument with Emily. His thoughts went to the years right after graduating from law school. He’d never really planned to have a law partner, he recalled, unable to imagine tying himself to someone with a say on how he practiced. He’d get a job with a good firm, learn the ropes, start his own solo practice.