Max Collins - Midnight Haul

“What did he say?”

“Like I said, it was like talking to you. He was interested in what I had to say, polite, but skeptical. He said he’d heard rumors about Kemco, but that the company had never been caught in a major violation. He questioned what we’d really seen last night. Yes, it’s suspicious for trucks to haul waste to a landfill at night; but it isn’t necessarily illegal.”

“What about the manifest system? What if Kemco didn’t report the dumping?”

“Then it’s just our word against Kemco’s that any dumping took place at all. We didn’t even write down the license number of the fucking truck, ’cause we thought we had it on film.”

“It was New Jersey plates.”

“But you don’t remember the number, do you? Me either. So all we’ve got is our story, and who’s going to take us seriously? Who are you, but the fiancé of a woman you think Kemco killed? And who am I, but the disgruntled ex-wife of a Kemco executive, out for blood, right? What kind of credibility does that give us?”

“That’s what Patrick said.”

“Patrick?”

“Yeah. I talked to him this afternoon.”

“You talked to Patrick?”

Crane told her about the Kemco car stopping for him, about going out there and spending half an hour with her ex-husband.

“I can’t say he struck me as... a monster or anything.” Crane said.

She moved away from him on the couch, just a little. “How did he strike you?”

“I didn’t exactly like him. And I can understand why you couldn’t put up with his attitudes. But I find it difficult to believe he’s in any way involved with Mary Beth’s death.”

“He must be.”

“You really think your ex-husband is a murderer? Your son’s father?”

“Patrick is... it’s possible.”

“You can’t say it, can you? The guy’s selfish and self-centered and I think he’d do a lot of shady things if his bosses asked him to... like maybe pay off some midnight haulers in cash... but not murder. I just don’t buy it. And I don’t think you do either, if you’d be honest with yourself.”

“It’s a criminal conspiracy, Crane. It’s Watergate. It’s something that got out of control, that people got caught up in. And Patrick was one of them.”

“It’s not Watergate, Boone, and even if it was, I don’t remember anybody getting killed over Watergate.”

“Who really knows?”

“Oh Christ. Let’s not sing the Paranoid Conspiracy Nut Blues again.”

“What do you think happened to Mary Beth, then? You think she killed herself?”

Crane put down the wineglass. He looked at Boone. Their eyes locked.

“Yes,” he said.

“Crane...”

“I don’t like it. I don’t want to believe it. But yes. I think she killed herself.”

“No...”

“Yes.”

“What about all the other ‘suicides’?”

“They were suicides. I talked with Mrs. Meyer today. She’s fiercely loyal to Kemco; feels they’ve done right by her. I found something out from her that you didn’t, when you interviewed her for your book: her husband had a long history of mental illness. He had very deep emotional problems that didn’t have a goddamn thing to do with Kemco.”

“Ten times the national suicide rate, Crane!”

“That’s just a fluke. I talked with Mrs. Price, too, and her husband was an emotionally disturbed person, headed for a breakdown. Headed for suicide.”

“Crane, Mary Beth knew something. It’s Karen Silkwood all over again. She was killed because she had something on Kemco.”

“What did she know? About the midnight dumping? We know about it. We’re still alive.”

“What did you say to Patrick about last night?”

“Nothing.”

“Does he know about it?”

“If he does, he didn’t indicate it.”

“Maybe they don’t know about us. Maybe we weren’t seen last night.”

“Fine, but that shoots your theory about the truckers stealing your camera, doesn’t it? You can’t have it both ways. To steal it, they’d have to know about us. And if they know about us, our lives are in danger.”

“Well maybe our lives are in danger.”

“I don’t think so. If a decision had been made to add us to the suicide rate, why would Patrick bother having me out for a talk this afternoon? No, Boone, it doesn’t make sense. It’s all very confusing, but there’s nothing sinister going on here at all.”

“Dumping hazardous waste in an ordinary household dump, in the middle of the night, isn’t sinister?”

“It’s criminal, Boone. You’re right about that. I don’t doubt for a moment that Kemco is a criminally irresponsible company, but...”

“A baby girl with a cleft palate, Crane. That sinister enough for you? Liver disorders? Nervous conditions? High miscarriage rates? High cancer rates? Any of that strike you as sinister?”

“It strikes me as depressing, and since you exposed Mary Beth to your crusade, as you have me, it’s no wonder she was depressed, living in the house where her father died of cancer, living in a house where across the hall little Brucie in his crib paws the air with no hands, and you come along and fill her with your bleak vision of a chemically contaminated America, it’s no wonder she slashed her wrists.”

Boone sat quietly for a moment, staring into the redness in her wineglass. Without looking at Crane, she said, “So. Finally it comes around to this.”

“To what?”

“To it being my fault. Mary Beth’s suicide.”

“No. You’re wrong. I don’t blame you.”

“You’re just too fucking generous, Crane.”

“You’re right about one thing: it was suicide. I believe that now. I don’t like it. But I believe it.”

“Then maybe you better go back to Iowa.”

“Maybe I better.”

She rose, slamming her glass down on the coffee table, splashing wine. She looked down at him, giving him a cold, sarcastic look, the likes of which he hadn’t seen from her since their early, off-on-the-wrong-foot moments together.

“Go back to school, Crane. Learn something.”

“All right.”

She walked toward the stairs.

“Boone...”

She stopped; her back was to him.

“Is this the way it has to be?”

“I don’t know,” she said. There was no sarcasm in her voice, now. It sounded very small.

“Your book, Boone. It’s good. It’s more than good: it’s important. What you say about Agent Orange and its effect on the Vietnam vets. Your study into the effects of Kemco on its workers and their families, their town. The midnight hauling story. That can go into the book. Our staking out the Kemco plant; your camera maybe being stolen, that can be a nice ambiguous touch... all of it. You’ve got enough, Boone. You don’t have your smoking gun, exactly, but what you’ve got is good. But Mary Beth killed herself, and so did the others. Accept it. Leave it behind. And go ahead and finish your book and publish it and tell your story on Donahue. Wake America up. But be a journalist. Don’t be a conspiracy nut.”

Without turning, she said, “I’m going to bed.”

“I still believe in what you’re doing.”

“That’s nice.”

“Boone.”

“What?”

“What about this morning?”

“What about it?”

“Why don’t you come over here and sit down with me.”

“And what?”

“And we won’t talk anymore.”

“And it’ll be just like this morning? At the motel?”

“I hope it will.”

“Your timing sucks, Crane.”

She went upstairs.

He sat on the couch all night, without sleeping.

In the morning she drove him to where he could catch the bus that would take him to the airport. She didn’t say anything the whole way, but just as he got out, she leaned over and kissed him, and then drove away and left him.