Blind Eye (23 page)

Rancho Bernardo, California

“B
astard.” Helen shredded the pages of the will into hundreds of pieces. “You dirty, conniving, thieving bastard.”

Helen hadn't intended to go through Cynthia's mail. But the blue packet containing the will was sitting on the cabinet where her daughter kept the liquor. Seeing Fred's name on the folder and the recent date, she had to open it and see what vindictive little surprise her husband had planned for her after his death.

She poured another glass of vodka and drank it straight down. Three pieces of the will were stuck to the heel of her hand. She shook them off onto the floor and put her glass onto the table.

He was leaving her a beggar. The concept of community property clearly meant nothing when a vicious, two-faced scum of a husband tied up money in blind trusts and overseas investments and God knows what else…with lawyers, accountants and trust managers overseeing and running every investment. Helen was being given living expenses that put her practically on the poverty line.

She barely got past reading the names and numbers. That was enough. She wanted to destroy the document that, actually, was the perfect representation of her wasted time, staying married for nearly thirty-five years.

It didn't matter. She knew this was hardly the only copy. Knowing Fred, there'd be dozens floating around, backups of backups. But it made her feel good to destroy at least one.

She didn't fault Cynthia for having a copy. Helen knew how hard her daughter worked trying to avoid taking sides. Being the only offspring of a horrible marriage wasn't a choice her daughter had made.

Fred and Helen had been wrong for each other from the very start. She wanted a friend, a life partner. He wanted an ornament to run his house and look good in public and raise his children and leave him alone to do his thing, making money. The children ended up being only Cynthia. And being domestic wasn't exactly Helen's forte. Besides, having a marriage where one partner was never around was a sure road to depression. God, he'd driven her right to it.

Fred didn't understand. He didn't want to. Helen never did well with antidepressants. She reacted badly to them. That was when she'd started drinking. Casually at first, here and there, to mask how unhappy she felt. But at some point it had gotten out of control. She'd become dependent on it. To exist she needed alcohol as much as she needed water and air. And the handful of times she'd checked herself into hospitals and rehabs for detox, nothing had helped. She'd be good for days, perhaps a couple of months. But the unhappiness was always there. The roots ran too deep. And the bastard had just kept watering those roots.

Helen looked at the nearly empty bottle of vodka on the kitchen table. She tipped the last of it into the glass and polished it off.

Ladies don't drink out of the bottle.

Staring at it with that crystal clear, yet mildly skewed vision that came with practiced drinking, she couldn't remember how full it had been when she took it out of the cabinet.

This was what it meant to be an alcoholic. She knew that. She blanked out occasionally. So what? So what that she forgot things? Sometimes, she totally forgot what a miserable marriage she had. And that she had no friends. And no life to speak of. Days ran into each other and it didn't matter if it was Monday or Sunday. Christmas was just another day. Worst of all, men barely looked at her anymore.

The glass sitting on the table was empty. Helen pushed herself up out of the chair and stepped carefully over the scraps of papers scattered across the tiled floor. She pulled open the cabinet door.

“Wine. Wine. More wine…” she complained, taking out the bottles that blocked the good stuff in the back. She couldn't see what was back there. Cynthia had to have more vodka hiding in the back. “No civilized person has just one bottle of vodka.”

Helen looked around for something to stand on and then moved unsteadily back to the table to pull a chair over. As she put her hand on one, the front doorbell rang.

“No company,” she yelled.

The doorbell rang again.

“I'm not answering the door. Go away!”

Another ring.

“Christ,” she muttered, going around the table and
looking out the second-floor kitchen window. There was a woman standing at the front door. She looked up and waved at Helen.

“Neighbor…neighbor. What's her name?” She couldn't remember.

She considered not going down. But she recalled this neighbor was the one who took care of the cat whenever Cynthia was away.

“Where
is
the cat?” Helen looked around the kitchen, remembering that she hadn't seen the animal since arriving. She'd never liked cats. She couldn't understand why Cynthia kept one.

A thought occurred to her. Maybe the neighbors were watching the sulky animal. Helen started down the stairs, holding tight to the railing. She should tell them to continue to watch the animal until Cynthia was released from the hospital. Her daughter cared for the nasty creature too much, and Helen didn't want the responsibility of anything happening to it.

Helen cast a cursory glance at her reflection in the mirror downstairs. Her hair was flat. She should have taken a shower when she first came in. There were mascara blotches under her eyes. She grabbed a tissue out of a box, wet it with the tip of her tongue, and used it to wipe away the black marks.

The narrow windows running up and down either side of the front door showed her that the neighbor was still there waiting.

Helen opened the door.

“Hi. I'm Karen Newman, a friend of Cynthia. I live two doors down.”

“Yes…yes…I think we've met before. I'm Helen Adrian, Cynthia's mother.” She leaned against the open doorway, needing something solid to support her. At the
same time, Helen had no intention of inviting the other woman in.

“Yes, I know. My condolences about your husband, Mrs. Adrian.”

Helen waved a hand. She was tired of lying about how hard it was. She didn't want to talk about Fred at all. “That's behind us. I have other problems on my plate right now.”

“I heard the news. How's Cynthia doing?”

Helen shook her head. “Not too well. The doctors are hopeful, though.”

“Do they allow her to have any visitors?” Karen wanted to know.

“Only immediate family. She's still in intensive care and unconscious.” Helen straightened up. “I need to get some sleep right now and then get back to the hospital, so if you don't mind…”

“I won't keep you.” Karen immediately put a hand out. “Just a couple of things. We have Shadow. She showed up at our door last night.”

“The cat was outside?” Helen asked, surprised. “I thought Cynthia always keeps her in the house.”

“She does. I don't know how she got out. We'd already heard about Cynthia's accident last night. Anyway, when she showed up, I sent my husband over to check the condo and make sure no doors were left open. He couldn't find any. I don't know how the cat got out.”

Helen remembered when the animal had been declawed. Such trauma. She didn't think there was any chance Cynthia would let the cat out.

“Well, however it happened, would you mind holding on to her for now?” she asked. “I know my daughter would appreciate it.”

“Sure. No problem.” Karen Newman reached inside a canvas bag she had over one shoulder and took out a thick folder. “Also, this morning I went to put our outgoing mail in our mailbox and this was there. I believe it belongs to Cynthia.”

Helen took the folder without even looking at it.

A car went slowly by on the street. Helen's gaze was drawn to the dark gray sedan. The dark windows hid the occupants.

“Thank you, Mrs….”

“Newman. But call me Karen. And if there's anything I can do—”

“Thanks, I'll let you know.” Helen was tired. She knew she should take a nap. But she wanted a drink first. She waved to the younger woman and stepped back, closing the door.

At the last minute, Helen turned around and slid the security chain into the slotted track. Cynthia always bragged about the safety of this neighborhood. Still, Helen felt exposed. With the exception of this neighbor, she didn't know anyone else here.

The folder slipped from under her arm and fell with a thud to the floor. Pages scattered everywhere on the tiled entry.

“I don't need this,” Helen grumbled under her breath, crouching down to pick up the pages. She quickly put a hand out against the wall to steady herself.

More of Fred's things, she could tell. The New Mexico Power Company heading was on all the pages. Some of the pages were stamped at the bottom “Company Classified.” Naturally, those were the pages that Helen's attention was drawn to.

Fred had always considered her stupid. Maybe Helen didn't have an IQ of 165 and maybe she hadn't gone to
graduate school and maybe she didn't have some advanced egghead degree. Still, Helen always thought she could hold her own when it counted…or when he gave her the chance.

Picking the pages up off the floor and trying to put them back in order, she found herself reading some of the text. The scientific gibberish didn't discourage her. She'd lived with technical journals and publications lying around the house for too long.

Page ten of the report had a listing of names. Helen's gaze was drawn down the page as she realized she knew some of these names.

She slid down onto her knees and looked back up to the top of the page. She wasn't brain-dead, after all. And the phone calls she'd received from the newspaper people was another reminder. The names belonged to the scientists who'd recently died in the explosion on the platform on the Gulf of Mexico.

She understood why this information would be classified, considering the project was experimental. Or at least that's how the media kept describing it. Below the names were the transportation arrangements. The destination was another curiosity. Fred or someone else had underlined in red the acronym WIPP a couple of times.

Helen searched on the floor until she found the next page in the document.

The facility they were taken to…Helen stopped and checked page ten of the document again. The group was being transported to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plan in the Chihuahuan Desert outside of Roswell, New Mexico.

“New Mexico?” she asked aloud. “Not Texas?”

This didn't make sense. The fire was still burning on
the platform in the Gulf. That was where the news said the scientists were.

Suddenly, it was essential for her to know what it was
exactly
that she had in her hands.

Helen reached for the pages that were still scattered on the floor. She hurriedly tried to put them in order, trying to find the first couple of pages. Finding a note from Fred to Cynthia, she scanned it quickly.

You're smart. You know what to do with what's inside if you need to.

She pushed past the note and glanced at the first page of document.

…testing a small, sealed, transportable, autonomous reactor…

Helen pushed past that page, too. There were scientific explanations about the project duration and costs on the next couple of sheets. Certain words on page seven were marked in red. Helen focused on those words.

Dual facility…use of live radioactive material…

The next page had Fred's handwriting on the margin. Helen tilted the page to make out what he'd written down.

Board approved project without knowledge of end run around NRC. Except Martin Durr, Dir came up with WIPP.

Helen knew NRC stood for Nuclear Regulatory Commission. She didn't know who Durr was. But she guessed he or she had to be someone on the board of directors.

A movement through the glass windows adjacent to the door caught her attention. A car had pulled into the driveway.

She leaned forward for a better view and saw the dark
gray sedan. It was the one that she'd seen drive by before.

Events shifted, prioritized, focused in her mind, and suddenly Helen was sober beyond what she'd thought possible.

The news had been packed with lies for days. They were reporting people dead in a place that they hadn't been. Fred's death. And the plane crash of the company R & D directors. Cynthia's accident. And this file being stuffed in a neighbor's mailbox.

It was all related.

Someone was standing at the door. Helen's gaze moved to the glass. They weren't ringing the bell.

The taste of bile rose in her throat. Her legs wouldn't move. She looked around frantically for the phone. She couldn't see one.

She tried to stand up, but lost her balance and fell forward. Still on her knees, she grabbed up the loose pages left. Struggling to her feet, she staggered toward the stairs.

Helen was on the second step when she heard the lock click in the front door. They had keys. The chain stopped the door from opening.