Broken Bonds (14 page)

“I didn’t know that. And?”

“And, no offense, but I turned him down. Conflict of interest, even if he got me a retired or off-duty cop. Royce’s money talks. A lot of the new problems around here stem from the fracking teams or tensions between the locals who’ve had the windfall of fracking money and those who haven’t. There’s a lot more being shattered around here besides shale. And now we’re going to have more upheaval with the Green Tree people protesting to rile everyone up. I feel like I couldn’t protect Woody McKitrick and now I’ll have to keep an eye on Lacey Fencer and her crew—but I’ll find the extra help I need.”

“But you do think Woody was killed?” Matt asked. He’d come to that conclusion, and it both angered and scared him.

“In my gut, especially since you two found his cap and the drag marks, even as far as they were from where he fell. But I can’t prove it—yet—not with his catastrophic injuries from the fall.”

Matt nodded and watched Gabe walk around the structure in a tight circle, then farther out, staring at the ground, just as he had in his backyard after the fire last night. Char took Matt’s arm and stood close; he clamped her elbow tight to his ribs. He wasn’t sure if it was a good or a bad sign that he could read her thoughts.
Catastrophic injuries from the fall. Matt, that could have been you going off the cliff near Coyote Rock.

They both jumped when Gabe cried out from behind the shack. “Oh, no!”

“What?” Matt yelled and started around the corner toward him.

“Stay back! Don’t come closer in case this area is another crime scene!” Gabe shouted. “Get me a tree branch or something to clear away the snow, will you? Just throw it to me.”

Matt searched under nearby trees and found a broken limb. Char stood nearby, squinting in the brightness to see what Gabe was standing over as Matt yanked the branch free. It was long enough he could almost hand it to him, but he heaved it at his feet. “What is it?” Matt demanded.

“Just a sec.” Gabe retrieved the branch and brushed snow away with it. “Oh, damn. Under the snow, leaves and some soil—a shallow grave with a brown-haired person buried in it!”

Char gave a little scream. “Lee has brown hair!” she cried. “Could Bright Star have found out about the note he wrote me and had him tortured until he confessed—then had him killed?”

16

M
att threw an arm around Char’s shoulders to prop her up. Eager to see what Gabe had uncovered but scared to move, she leaned against him. “No, wait!” Gabe shouted. “I— Sorry. It’s a dead beaver buried here. More than one. Shot, I think, five of them. Covered like that, the head on this first one, it looked like human hair.”

Char nearly collapsed in Matt’s arms. Gabe was not the only one who had jumped to conclusions. Thank God, it wasn’t a human—not Lee or anyone else. But why so many beavers shot and buried when their fur was valuable?

“Just some lunatic taking potshots?” Matt asked, still hugging her. “Can we come closer?”

“No, don’t. It’s still a crime scene. It’s not trapping season and there’s a big fine for off-season kills. Maybe someone was just drunk or gun happy. Or upset with how the beaver dams are changing the pond here, messing with the way things were.”

“Or,” Matt said quietly to Char, “shooting animals to protest the fracking above.”

“That’s a terrible thought,” she whispered. “But it’s nothing next to someone trying to hurt or kill you to warn Royce. How militant is that Green Tree group that’s supposed to be coming here?”

Gabe overheard that as he headed toward them. “They’ve been around here before protesting Grant’s lumber mill cutting trees but they weren’t violent. Still, when I researched them, I learned they’ve been known to follow some of the more aggressive tactics like the better-known Greenpeace uses. I hope we don’t have to deal with protests like stopping supply trucks or sabotaging equipment. Look, guys, I need to order a necropsy for at least one of these carcasses—an animal autopsy. It may take a while, but I’ve got to know if it was the gunshot that killed them or something else.”

“Like something in the water?” Matt asked.

“Fracking’s still in its infancy here in Ohio,” Gabe said. “There have been problems. That’s a guess right now, but could be. It will take a while for me to get the necropsy results back, so keep me updated on possible water contamination from your sample. Okay? You can probably get results faster than I can.”

Char’s head snapped up just as if someone had slapped her out of a daze. “You two are actually thinking contaminated water killed these beavers? I mean, Matt said he saw one dead on the creek bank the other day, but why would someone shoot them then—and bury them?”

Gabe shrugged. “I hope not to hide that they died of contamination—or were suffering from it so they were put out of their misery. We’ll have to keep an eye out here for sick or newly dead animals. Lots of game would drink from the water here, but since the beavers live in it, maybe they’d be hit harder first. It’s all a guess. But with the usual noise from up above, no one would hear a shot—or five.”

“Sorry to say this,” Matt said, “but I’m hoping it’s just some sadistic nutcase. Besides, if the water was tainted from fracking runoff above this site, we’d see dead fish and frogs, turtles, too.”

“This time of year they hang out on the bottom and barely move,” Gabe said. “They might not float, or being lower means they’ve got purer water. But would a poacher or someone out just for the fun of picking off beavers bother to bury them?”

“The Hear Ye people used to hunt down here—maybe they still do,” Char said. “Maybe they shot these, then someone came along—like Matt earlier. They didn’t want to be caught, so they buried them. Matt, you said you heard a shot when you were down here and there is, or was, a tree stand you saw where the shooter could hide. And it’s apparently gone now, so maybe he tried to cover up using that, too, since trapping beaver is off-season.”

“Char, I know you don’t trust the Hear Ye robots,” Gabe said, his voice stern. “Neither do I, but don’t you think, if it was Bright Star’s hunters, they’d actually eat beaver? They’ve obviously even left their pelts here. Now I’m going to call someone to come and collect one of the beavers. These look like fresh kills, and it’s been cold enough they haven’t rotted and don’t stink—yet. Then I’m going to visit someone who is rotten and stinks to high heaven, the illustrious Bright Star Monson.”

“I know what you’re thinking,” Matt told her quietly as the two of them trudged through the snow out of the valley. “But let Gabe do his thing first, and don’t you go near that old lunatic asylum unless I’m with you.”

* * *

When Matt drove his truck back home with Char holding the precious Cold Creek water sample, he saw the Green Tree protestors were out in full force along the highway at the entrance to the Lake Azure community. What really ticked him off was one sign among the usual KILL THE DRILL placards. It read, FLEMMING IS FRACKENSTEIN.

Matt pulled in past the landscaped entry, sorry for the first time he’d talked Royce out of making this a gated community. At the time he’d been worried it sent the wrong, elitist message to the locals, but lately they could use the extra security. He stopped the truck, pulled over onto the berm. “Stay here and hold tight to that sample,” he told Char. “I’m going to tell them to keep off the property and see if I can get them to move to the EEC office in Columbus or the largest fracking site here instead.”

“You mean the old Hear Ye cult grounds? All we need is them hearing about dead beavers.”

“Yeah, well, they don’t belong here. They’re standing on private property. This investment of Royce’s is separate from the fracking. I’ve tried to make certain of that.”

He slammed the truck door louder than he’d meant to and strode back toward the highway. What a hell of a day—a week, except for finding Char.

“Good afternoon,” he called to them, seven protestors to be exact, four women and three men. They got even more animated when they saw him coming. Several vehicles passing on the road honked as if in sympathy—or to protest the protest.

“I’m Matthew Rowan, general manager of the Lake Azure community. Can I ask who’s your spokesperson? The private citizens who live here have nothing to do with fracking.”

“That’s a good one,” a burly man said. “Royce Flemming, CEO of EEC, lives here and is here!”

“He lives in Columbus but is visiting here. You need to take your protest to his corporate offices in Columbus or to a fracking site. This is private property.”

“He needs to know how citizens feel about their environment—especially in a natural, beautiful place like this!” one woman insisted. When she yelled nearly in his face, the strong scent of her clove chewing gum wafted toward him. “And I’m Lacey Fencer, the spokesperson here.”

“Lacey, glad to meet you,” Matt said, thrusting out his hand. She ignored the gesture. “I know and admire your cousin Joe Fencer. I just hired him here as a groundskeeper. You see, we do care about keeping the environment beautiful.”

“He’s my second cousin, but he just sold out to the enemy,” she insisted. Compared to the others here, she was really made up, green eyeshadow and crimson lips. Everyone wore coats of synthetic material, no leather or even faux fur, of course. Their signs were all professionally printed, except for the burly guy’s attacking Royce, which was lettered in block print with some sort of big marker pen. Matt noticed that the burly guy must be chewing tobacco, because he turned away and spit a stream of the brown stuff into the snow. If this bunch wasn’t new to town, he would have asked him if he was chewing Red Man.

Matt fought to keep his temper. “With that huge fracking site across the road from your cousin’s place, I don’t blame him for selling, do you?” Matt asked Lacey. “He was devastated to leave his family farm but he did it for his kids’ future and to keep his family happy. It was a tough, honest choice and should be accepted and honored, not to mention that fracking keeps our country from being so dependent on the evils of foreign oil.”

“Never mind all that smart, smooth talk,” Lacey said, even louder now, her voice strident. That got her some fist pumps and backup noise from her buddies.

And Grant Mason was married to this woman once? She was night and day from Kate Lockwood. He admired Lacey for taking a stand to protect the environment, and this area had once been her home, but he wished he could toss them all out in the street. Instead, exhausted and on edge, he spoke in a controlled voice. “Please be sure you keep off the private property here. We like to keep our grass under this snow and our foliage unharmed by intrusion from outsiders—including the pollution of spit from chewing tobacco. If you break the law, I’ll call the sheriff. And be careful of the big timber semis on the road from the nearby mill.”

He heard Lacey gasp as he turned away and strode back toward his truck. Char, thank heavens, had waited there without getting involved for once. As he turned his back on them, he recalled that Grant had told him just today he had confronted Lacey and her crew when they were picketing his lumber mill last year. And Matt recalled a TV show he’d seen on how some protest groups would go to extremes to draw attention to their causes. He hoped this Green Tree bunch wouldn’t try something crazy like harming animals on their own to draw attention to the evils of drilling. Or could they have done that already?

When he got closer to the truck, he saw Ginger Green standing beside it, talking to Char through the passenger-side window. She had a quiver of arrows on her back and a recurve bow in her hand.

“Hey,” he called to her. “You aren’t headed for the protestors, are you?”

“Been there, done that. It really frosts me they have my last name in their title, the rabid greeniacs. I’d like to put an arrow or two through their signs, but I restrained myself. You know what one of them—that Fencer woman in charge—said to me?”

“Tell me,” he said, standing by Char’s open window, too.

Ginger pouted, her free hand on her hip. “She said the chaos around here from the fracking reminded her of reruns of that old TV show,
The Beverly Hillbillies,
where Jed Clampett struck oil on his poor Appalachian property and moved to Hollywood and made a fool of himself. I told her the Green Tree protestors have been polluting the air around here with their chanting. Sorry, boss, but I just came down through the woods from the archery range to tell them to knock it off.”

“They’ve been standing on our property, so I’ll get Sheriff McCabe or his deputy to give them a warning.”

“You know,” Ginger said with a little grin when she’d looked so angry a moment ago, “I must admit I do like to see Royce riled, since he ‘done me wrong.’ You all know what I mean. I swear, I’d like to sic Orlando on those loudmouths—and I just may do that.”

“You keep Orlando and Royce out of this,” Matt told her. “I’ll handle it.”

She hit his shoulder lightly with her fist and strode back into the fringe of pine trees, from which she must have emerged. He’d never noticed it before, but her quiver was covered with sleek fur, and he stared after her, wondering if that could be beaver. And the fletching on her arrows—hell, they looked pretty much like the ones that had whacked into Char’s cabin door and the back of his house. But what annoyed him more than anything was the fact that the bottle of creek water Char held on her lap could prove that those picketers were right.

* * *

After Matt dropped off Char, he headed home and put the jar of creek water on his kitchen counter. He fixed himself a sandwich and a beer and stared at the jar, held it up to the light, trying to decide how to get it safely to his friend in Columbus tomorrow. He’d gone to college with the guy, knew he’d do this for him, keep it quiet until they could get a better sample. The water looked clear to him. Wouldn’t it have the golden highlights of the water in the fracking lagoon if it was deadly?

He jumped when his front doorbell rang. All he needed was Royce or Orlando right now. He put the jar in the cupboard and went to see who it was. Joe Fencer. He’d insisted on working this weekend because of the snow—and, Matt figured—because he just couldn’t stand to be in his old farmhouse he was soon leaving for good.

“Hey, Joe, come on in.”

“Thanks. For a few minutes. Just wanted to apologize about my cousin leading those protestors out there.”

“Not your fault.”

Joe came in, wiping the snow off his feet on Matt’s sisal rug. “I tried to talk to them. For all the good it did, me. You know, I never thought about a groundskeeper job being dangerous before.”

“Before facing the Green Tree zealots out on the road? What did they do?”

“I mean, considering what happened to Woody. Then Ms. Green—I mean, she seemed real friendly, said to call her Ginger—read me the riot act of stats that ground maintenance workers have a high percentage of fatalities, like 160 nationally a couple of years ago, she said. And get this—falls are a common cause of accidental death. Made me think of Woody again.”

“Well, that’s a lousy welcome from our sports director,” Matt said. “Sometimes I wonder whose side she’s on. Here, let me take your coat. Come on into the kitchen. I forgot to turn up the heat when I came in. Want coffee or a beer?”

“Coffee would be great. I’m not quite ready to go home. The family’s packing. Actually, I’m going to drive to the new place with some boxes I’ve got in my truck, spend the night there. Sara Ann and Mandy Lee will probably yak half the night, anyway.”

“Won’t Mandy Lee be going back to her family up on Pinecrest soon? I’m sure her son, Jemmie, needs her, and old Adela could sure use help.”

“Mandy Lee’s husband—you’ve seen Sam, right?—is acting so strange. I think she’s actually scared of him. He’s there for a while then just disappears.”

“Yeah, watching for terrorists.”

“Sometimes I think, in his own way, he’s turned into one.”

Matt started the coffeemaker on his counter. “Your new place is on the road to Chillicothe, right? Listen, I need a big favor. If you’re going to be that far, can you take a package to a friend of mine in Columbus tomorrow morning—just come in here late, however long it takes for you to wait for test results on a sample. Keep a record of your trip and I’ll pay you mileage out of my pocket—not the community money.”

“Yeah, sure. Glad to. Like a medical sample to a doctor’s office?”

“I’m going to level with you, Joe, because I want you to agree to what I’m asking—understand what it is. I think you and I see eye to eye on this, that the country and some people get the benefits of fracking, but we need to keep an eye on its possible excesses. It’s a sample of creek water from near the Hear Ye fracking site—and your heritage farm—that needs to be tested for possible runoff pollution. This has nothing to do with the Green Tree protest and is not to be shared with anyone other than me. No one right now.”