Linwood Barclay - The Twenty-Three

I was betting she’d taken her cell with her. I tried that number, and she answered on the third ring.

“Did you get Trevor?” I asked.

“Yes,” she said, sounding out of breath. “I woke him up. And then he called me back a few minutes ago to tell me he’s being asked to come into work.”

“What? Finley called him in?”

“I don’t know if it was him specifically, but he’s going in, on his day off-he had to come in.”

It didn’t take long for me to put it together. If the water wasn’t drinkable, there’d be an increased demand for the bottled stuff from Finley’s uncontaminated spring. The son of a bitch was going to use this crisis to make himself a small fortune. I wondered how much he’d hike the price. The opportunistic bastard could probably charge whatever he wanted once the shelves of all local grocery stores were cleared of every other brand of bottled water.

As much as Randy’s exploitation of what was shaping up to be the biggest tragedy in the history of this town infuriated me, it wasn’t my problem. I had no doubt that trying to rip off the citizens of Promise Falls would backfire on him and very likely deep-six his hopes of getting the mayor’s job back.

Maureen said, “You there?”

“Yeah. Just thinking. How’s it going on the street?”

“I feel like I’m doing collections on a paper route, banging on all these doors. I think I interrupted Stan and Gloria in the middle of you-know-what, and poor old Estelle probably thinks her nightie is long enough to hide her business, but she’s mistaken.” She paused, then said worriedly, “There’re a couple houses where I didn’t get any response at all.”

I knew what she was thinking. “Maybe they’re away.”

“I hope so. You know that old man who lives alone down on the corner?”

“Which end?”

“Going south. The house with the red shutters. He’s got that old Porsche in the garage. I think he used to be a dentist-his wife died years ago?”

I knew the house. “Yes.”

“I couldn’t raise anyone there.”

“Just hit all the houses you can, and then maybe go back,” I said. “And I need another favor.”

“Shoot.”

“Find Amanda Croydon. She’s apparently out of town. She needs to be here. Maybe someone else is trying to track her down, but there’s so much going on I just don’t know. If you can find her, tell her to call me.”

“On it. Anything else?”

“All for now. If you hear anything, call.”

The phone rang again before I could put it away. “Yes?”

“Ottman’s already there,” Randall Finley said. “At the plant. He’s waiting for us.”

“I don’t need you to be there,” I told him.

“I’m trying to help you out here, Barry.”

“I know exactly who you’re helping out.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

I put the phone back into my pocket.

Coming into view ahead of me, hovering over the horizon like some massive unidentified flying object on stilts, was the Promise Falls water tower. That meant I was close to the water plant, a sprawling two-story cinder-block structure. It sat in the shadow of the tower, and was hidden by enough trees that the town’s administrators felt they didn’t need to spend an extra dime on making the building even remotely attractive.

Beyond the water plant was a reservoir fed by various tributaries. The water was treated in the plant to make sure it was free of E. coli and other contaminants, then pumped high up into the tower. From there gravity did the rest, channeling water through a vast network of mains across Promise Falls.

I sped down the driveway, parked near the main entrance, where three other cars were parked. There was a white Ford pickup, a blue Chevy Blazer, and a rusting, yellow Pinto that was a piece of crap even when it was brand-new back in the 1970s. I hadn’t thought there were still any of those on the road.

As I got out from behind the wheel, I heard another car roaring into the lot. Finley’s Lincoln.

I headed straight into the plant without waiting for him. There was no one in the reception area, so I kept on going, through a door that read AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY, and standing by a large panel of dials and readouts was an unshaven man in a red-and-black flannel shirt. I put him at around forty, and when he saw me, he said, “Who are you?”

I showed him my ID. “You Ottman?”

He nodded.

“What the hell is happening?”

“That’s what I’m trying to figure out now.” He pointed farther into the plant, a cavernous space filled with oversized pipes and tanks and conduits whose purposes were a mystery to me. There was a young woman in jeans, a dark sweater, and a hard hat, with some kind of device that reminded me of Spock’s tricorder in her hand.

“I’ve got Trish trying to sort it out now. She came on shift a couple of hours ago.”

“Is it the water that’s making everyone sick?”

Ottman grimaced. “Best guess, yes.”

“Garvey!”

We both turned. Randy stuck out a meaty hand and shook Ottman’s. “Mr. Finley, good to see you.”

“Always Randy to you,” he told the man, and clapped a hand on his shoulder like they were old buddies from way back. “What in the fuck has happened?”

“I was just telling the detective here we don’t exactly know yet. We’ve got to run tests on the water, check the records, see that everything that’s supposed to be done was done. We test the water every twelve hours. Last time would have been noon yesterday. So that would have meant another test last night, at midnight.”

Before I could say anything, Randy jumped in. “Was that done?”

Ottman looked as though he didn’t want to have to answer that one. “I don’t know,” he said.

“What do you mean?” I asked. “You keep records, right?”

“That’s right. But the overnight guy didn’t do that.”

“Who’s that?”

“Tate.”

“Tate Whitehead?” Finley asked.

Ottman nodded.

“Jesus,” Finley said. “That guy’s got the IQ of a lug nut. You’ve got him in charge of our drinking water?”

Ottman frowned. “I put him on nights because the responsibilities are minimal. He does a couple of tests, checks that things are running the way they should, and if there’s a problem, he lets me or someone else know and we send in the troops to deal with it.”

I asked, “Why didn’t Whitehead do the midnight check?”

“I don’t know,” Ottman said.

“Did you ask him?”

He shook his head. “I don’t know where he is. The dumb bastard knocked off early. He’s supposed to be relieved by Trish, but she says when she got here at six, he was gone.”

“He do that a lot?” Randy asked. “Fuck off early?”

Ottman was looking increasingly pained. “He’s done it before. But he punched in last night at nine. He was here.”

“So for all you know,” I said, “he left right after that. He might never have done the midnight check, let alone made a record of it. So if the water was contaminated, it wouldn’t get caught in time.”

“In theory,” Garvey Ottman said.

Finley was slowly shaking his head. “Garv, tell me Tate’s not still drinking.”

“I thought he had it under control,” the water plant manager said. He rubbed a hand over his mouth. “Oh my God, this is horrible. If that dumb bastard did this, I swear, I’ll kill him with my bare hands.”

“You might have to take a number,” I said. I was astounded the lives of thousands of people could depend on the judgment of an incompetent drunk. “Let’s say something got past Tate. What could it be?”

“First thing I’d look at is contamination in the reservoir,” he said. “Maybe a fuel spill, or runoff, upstream, from a farming operation, like effluent from a pig farm or something like that. But I’ve done a quick test on the water in the reservoir and it checks out. I mean, it’s not perfect. The reservoir water never is, because that’s what gets treated before it gets pumped up into the tower.”