by Gina Cresse
“Mike,” he said, smiling proudly.
I looked down the street at the rows of mailboxes. “Mike? That’s a nice name. Do you live here?” I asked, pointing toward the house next to the Lawrence’s.
“No. I live over there,” he said, pointing toward a two-story, three houses down.
I squinted at the name on the mailbox. Campbell. “Is your name Mike Campbell?” I asked.
“Yep.”
“That’s a really neat name. Is your dad’s name Mike Campbell, too?”
He shot me a look as if I’d just suggested something as stupid as naming a cat Rover. “No. His name’s Ralph Campbell.”
“Oh. That’s a nice name, too,” I told him.
A woman’s voice called Mike from the Campbell house, though she never stepped out the door to see what the little boy was up to.
“I gotta go,” Mike said as he did a u-turn and peddled his trike down the sidewalk toward his house.
Craig and I exchanged glances.
“It’s a long shot,” he said.
“I know, but I’ve got a feeling,” I said as I quickly got back into the car and pulled the phone out of my purse. Craig slid into the driver’s seat.
I dialed information and asked for San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station. The operator put my call through and a receptionist answered.
“Would it be possible to speak with Ralph Campbell?” I requested.
“One moment, please,” she replied.
A minute later, a man’s voice came on the line. “This is Ralph Campbell.”
I hung up. “Pay dirt,” I said to Craig.
My next call was to Sam Wright.
“I found him,” I blurted into the phone.
Sam was confused. “Found who?” he asked.
“Mike,” I answered, excited.
“How?”
“He lives three houses down from the Lawrence’s. He’s a five-year-old kid,” I explained.
“Five? Just because the kid’s name is Mike doesn’t mean it’s the Mike we’re looking for. You know how many Mikes there are in the world?” he argued.
“Yeah. But how many live three houses down from the Lawrence boys and have a father who works at San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station?”
Sam was silent. I wondered if I lost the connection. “Did you hear me? I said—“
“I heard you,” he interrupted. “Are you sure about this?”
“Yes. His name’s Ralph Campbell. I just called SONGS and asked to talk to him. He’s for real,” I assured Sam.
“You’d better be, because I’m going to use the special circumstances and your statement to convince a judge to give me a search warrant. If you’re wrong, I’ll personally—“
“I know. I know. You’ll lock me up and feed the key to your neighbor’s Rottweiler.”
“No. I’ll feed you my neighbor’s Rottweiler. Got that?” he threatened.
I replayed the last ten minutes over in my mind. Yes, the boy’s name was Mike. Yes, his father’s name was Ralph Campbell. Yes, he confirmed his name when I called him at the SONGS plant. How much trouble could I be in if I were wrong? How much trouble could Sam be in if I were wrong? “I got it. How soon can you get here?” I asked.
Sam must have a friend at the courthouse. He had a search warrant in less than an hour. When he arrived, he insisted Craig and I stay in our car. We agreed to cooperate in order to avoid another trip to the lockup, although I did ask Craig to turn the car around and get a little closer so I could watch.
Mrs. Campbell read the papers Sam handed her, gathered Mike up, and shooed him into the house. She spoke into a portable phone as she watched the proceedings from the front porch. I could see her face was troubled.
When Sam rolled up the garage door, Craig let out a low whistle. “That’s a forty-six,” he said, admiring the shiny car sitting on the concrete. “Convertible. Completely restored. Must be worth about eighty grand,” Craig speculated.
I gawked at Craig. I had no idea he knew about such things. “Eighty grand? You sure?” I asked.
“Pretty sure. I’ve seen a few sold on that roadster auction show. Always amazes me how much people will pay for some of those old restored cars.”
I shook my head and turned my attention back to the activity in front of the Campbell house.
The Hazmat team suited up and marched into the garage.
From my vantage, I could see two Harley-Davidson motorcycles and a pair of Wave Runners on a trailer. I gazed at the brand new motor home sitting in the RV parking space next to the house.
“Expensive toys for a working man,” I said. I wondered what Ralph Campbell did at SONGS that allowed him to afford these luxuries.
A red Corvette pulled into the driveway just as the leader of the Hazmat team emerged from the garage carrying what I assumed was a Geiger counter. Sam conversed with the heavily-suited man, but I couldn’t make out the words.
The man in the Corvette jumped out of his car and rushed up the driveway. “What are you doing?” he yelled. Sam grabbed him by the arm and stopped him from entering the garage. The Hazmat man pointed to some gauges on the contraption he held, and I could tell by the expression on Sam’s face that it wasn’t good news.
Sam handcuffed the Corvette man and loaded him into the back of a police car. Mrs. Campbell cried as she spoke frantically into her portable phone.
Craig drove us to the police station. I asked him to stop and let me out before he parked when I saw Sam escorting Ralph Campbell toward the door. He let me out and agreed to meet me inside. I trotted across the street after Sam. “Would you wait up?” I demanded.
He motioned for the other two officers with him to take the prisoner inside, then waited for me to catch up to him.
“Go home,” he ordered.
“No!” I replied. “You wouldn’t have that guy if it weren’t for me. That is Ralph Campbell, isn’t it?”
“Yes it is. Thank you for your assistance. Now, go home,” he insisted.
“I absolutely will not. You owe me, Sam. I know you’re going to question him. I want to hear what he has to say.” I crossed my arms over my chest and glared at him through eyes that delivered my message. I was not going to take no for an answer.
I waited for Craig at the front desk, but he must have had trouble finding a parking spot. I left a message for him and followed Sam down a long corridor.
Ralph Campbell could not see me on the other side of the two-way mirror. He was informed of his rights and knew his lawyer was on the way, yet he opted not to remain silent.
Sam sat across from him at a table and took notes with his stubby pencil as he interrogated him.
“Where did you get the plutonium?” Sam asked.
“Work—but I didn’t really steal it,” Ralph answered.
“Whether you stole it or not isn’t the issue, Mr. Campbell. It’s illegal to possess plutonium. San Onofre never reported any thefts,” Sam reminded him.
“Of course they never reported it. They never knew it was missing,” Ralph pointed out.
“You want to expand on that?” Sam asked.
“I tried to tell them when they put that new computer system in three years ago, but no one would listen,” Ralph said. The level of frustration in his voice rose with each word.
Sam continued taking notes. “Go on,” he said.
“I told my boss there was something wrong with the numbers the new program was reporting. They were sometimes off by as much as a quarter pound. He told me to take care of it, so I called the people who wrote it,” Ralph explained.
“Wait a minute. Slow down. What numbers?” Sam asked.
“The inventory output numbers. It kept saying we had produced less by-product material than we’d actually measured,” Ralph continued.
“By-product material?” Sam questioned.
“Yeah. Plutonium. It’s a by-product of the fission chain reaction,” Ralph said.
“So you reported this as a problem?” Sam asked.
“I did. I called the vendor. They told me it looked like a calculation-rounding problem and that I should post an adjusting entry to correct the discrepancies. I told them there was no way the company would go for that.”
“And what did they say?” Sam asked.
“They said they’d look into it and maybe correct it in a future release of the software, if it proved to be a serious enough problem.”
Sam wrote furiously in his notepad. I sat on the edge of my seat and waited for him to ask the right question. Surely he would ask.
“So what did you do then?” Sam asked.
“I told my boss. He told me to take care of it. He didn’t care how, but I was not to bother him with any more computer problems again. I tried to do what the vendor told me to do—post an adjusting entry to correct the errors. That just made it worse. The adjustment ended up being stuck in a phantom inventory location, and when I tried to get it out, it understated the original inventory even more. It was a nightmare.” Ralph wiped his sweaty brow with his shirtsleeve. “Since I couldn’t make the computer number match the inventory, I decided to make the inventory agree with the computer. It was easier to smuggle plutonium out in my lunch pail every day than it was to get that computer to come up with the right number,” he admitted.
I wanted to shout through the wall to get Sam’s attention. “Ask him what the name of the software is,” I whispered to myself, hoping the subliminal message would make it to Sam’s conscious mind. I knew Ralph Campbell’s attorney would be making an entrance soon and Ralph would be hushed up just as effectively as if he’d been gagged. I tiptoed over to the glass and meekly tapped on it. Sam stopped writing in his notebook and shot an irritated glance at the mirror. He looked at it for a moment, then continued writing. I tapped, again. His jaw clenched.
“Excuse me,” Sam said as he shoved his chair away from the table and stormed out of the interrogation room.
“What!?” he hissed, getting his face within three inches of mine.
“Ask him the name of the software,” I said.
“Why?” he demanded.
“Can you just ask him, before his lawyer shows up and he stops singing like a bird? I’ll explain later,” I pleaded.
I pictured my delicate little neck in the clenches of Sam Wright’s big hands. I think he had the same picture in mind. He took my arm and sat me back down in a chair. “Don’t touch that glass again,” he ordered, pointing his finger in my face.
I watched as Sam returned to his seat across from Ralph Campbell. He put his pencil back to the paper. “What was the name of the computer program?” he asked.
“It’s called Voltage. That’s V-O-L-T-A-G-E,” he said, watching to make sure Sam spelled it correctly in his notes. “I even tried to get the newspaper to write about it, but—“
The door to the interrogation room burst open at that moment. A middle-aged man in tennis attire stormed in. “Don’t say another word, Ralph!” the newcomer exclaimed.
Sam stood up. “I take it your Mr. Campbell’s attorney?”
“That’s right. What the heck do you think you’re doing interrogating him without me here?” he demanded.
Sam smiled. “Mr. Campbell was informed of his rights. He volunteered the information freely.”
Ralph watched the two men spar for a moment, then interrupted. “It’s okay Harv. He’s right. I wanted to tell them.”
Ralph’s attorney was furious. “You’d better not say another word, Ralph. You have no idea what you could be getting yourself into. You have more than yourself to think about, you know. You have a wife and kid. You’d better listen to me before you open your mouth one more time,” Harv instructed.
Ralph seemed shocked. Had he forgotten he had a wife and son? Didn’t he know he could actually go to jail? He must have been concerned about who would take care of them if he went to prison. He looked at Sam. “Where are my wife and son?”
“We’ve evacuated your house until the hazmat team determines it’s safe. Your wife wanted me to tell you they’ll be staying with your next-door neighbor tonight.”
Ralph never said another word.
Chapter Eleven
Sam marched me down the hall to his office and sat me in the chair opposite his desk. He rolled up his sleeves, reached into his drawer and removed a bottle of aspirin.
“Okay. What’s the significance of Voltage?” he demanded, popping two tablets into his mouth.
“Bradley Parker had a connection with Voltage. He was selling it for a while. That’s what all those law suits against him were about,” I explained.
Sam tapped his pencil on the desk. I could see the wheels turning in his head. “Okay. So if we find out Parker sold the program to SONGS, we may have a reason to take a closer look at him, especially if Diane found out about the lost plutonium inventory. Campbell did say he went to the paper. If she threatened to expose the program, Bradley would have been hit with yet another law suit.”
I nodded in agreement. “There’s an even bigger problem here, you do realize.”
Sam waited for me to continue.
I reached across the desk, picked up his pencil and started scribbling calculations on his notepad. “Ralph said they installed Voltage three years ago. Right?”
“Right,” Sam agreed.
“And he said it lost as much as a quarter pound of plutonium with each transaction,” I continued.
“Right,” Sam repeated.
“He also said he removed plutonium every day,” I said, as I did the math. “That’s over two-hundred and seventy three pounds. We know the Lawrence boys took about twenty of it, so that leaves somewhere in the neighborhood of two-hundred and fifty. Your Hazmat team recovered, what, fifty pounds from Campbell’s garage?”
“Fifty-two point five pounds, exactly,” Sam confirmed.
I circled a number on the notepad. “That leaves about two-hundred pounds.”
“Two-hundred pounds of plutonium unaccounted for,” Sam noted.
“Oh, it’s accounted for, all right. It’s in that new motor home, those fancy cars in Campbell’s garage, the Harleys, all his expensive toys that he shouldn’t be able to afford on his salary,” I said.
“He’s selling it,” Sam concluded.
I nodded. “You bet he is.”
Someone other than Ralph Campbell’s attorney arranged bail, and he was released before Craig and I left the police station. Sam assured me every available resource would be digging up whatever there was to find on Campbell, and any connection he may have had with Bradley Parker. He sent me home and made me promise to stop playing Sherlock Holmes. Yeah, right. Like that was going to happen.
Craig and I planned to have dinner at Angelina’s that night. As we drove to the restaurant, I gave him a rundown of Ralph Campbell’s interrogation and my conversation with Sam. He listened intently until I finally had nothing left to report. By that time, we were at the restaurant and ready to be seated.
The waiter put us at a quiet table in the back corner of the dining room. Craig took a sip of wine and shook his head, chuckling. “Missing plutonium. Kids building nuclear bombs in their garage. Women being thrown off cliffs. You think we’ll ever have a conversation about something as mundane as what to plant in the flowerbeds or what color to paint the kitchen?”
I laughed, kissed him on the cheek, and whispered in his ear, “Gladiolas in the flowerbeds and white on the kitchen walls.”
A parade of restored 1930s vintage roadsters cruised down the boulevard past the restaurant. I admired them through the window. The last one had passed, but my gaze remained on the street, watching nothing in particular.
Craig noticed my blank stare. “What are you thinking about?” he asked.
I turned my attention back to him. “That car in Campbell’s garage. If you’re right about how much it’s worth—”
Craig gave me an injured look. How could I doubt him?
I started over. “I know you’re right about the car. And all that other
expensive stuff he had. He’s not the CEO at San Onofre. He can’t be making that much money.”
“I wonder what the going rate for plutonium is these days?” Craig pondered.
“I don’t know, but I bet if his lawyer hadn’t shown up, Ralph would have filled us in on the details.”
“Sounds like Ralph’s not the sharpest knife in the drawer,” Craig commented.
“I don’t think he’s stupid. I think he’s suffering from a guilty conscious. It’s like he wanted to unload the heavy burden he’s been carrying around. You know what they say about the truth.”
“It’ll set you free, except in this case, it’ll probably buy seven years in the pen,” Craig said.
I pushed a ravioli around my plate before I finally stabbed it with my fork. “Ralph wants to talk. I can tell,” I said, then popped the cheese stuffed pasta into my mouth.
Craig set his glass of wine down and gave me the same look my father gave me the day I announced I was considering dropping out of college to pursue a career as a commercial jingle singer. It wouldn’t have been a bad choice for someone who could carry a tune.
When Craig dropped me off at home, I supposed he thought I would be staying there for the rest of the night. I guess I shouldn’t have assumed that. He knows me too well. I couldn’t get Ralph Campbell out of my head. He wanted to tell his story. His attorney shut him up, but I wondered how much convincing it would take to get him to open up again. Maybe he’d talk to me if I passed myself off as a reporter, trying to expose the mismanagement at San Onofre. I was sure he’d go directly to his wife and son when he was released. I remembered they were staying with the neighbor. I jumped into the Ford and headed for Ralph Campbell’s neighborhood.
The house was dark and, like the Lawrence’s house, completely surrounded by yellow crime-scene tape. Lights were on at both neighbor’s houses. I watched the houses for a minute, wondering which was the temporary housing for the Campbell clan. I was about to take a chance on the gray-and-white two-story when I saw the garage door begin to roll up on the other neighbor’s house. I cranked my head around and watched as Ralph Campbell threw a duffel bag into the passenger seat of a blue Volvo, jumped into the driver’s seat and backed slowly out of the driveway.