Killer Dust (9 page)
Authors: Sarah Andrews
By the time I had pulled myself together and returned to the pool deck, Tom had disappeared. Faye’s eyes were round with alertness. Nancy was just stabbing the OFF button on a cordless phone. “That was Miles Guffey,” she caroled, overriding the deadly mood that had settled on her pool deck in the time-honored manner of the efficient hostess. “Sweet man; he apologized for not coming in when he dropped you off, but he said he wanted to check with his lovely wife, and she said yes, so he has invited us all over to dinner. He gives terrific parties. My, but I knew it would be fun to have you two down here, but I hadn’t counted on this!” Giving me a good looking-over, she added, “We have about two hours to relax first, so maybe you’d like to take a nap.”
“Tom go back into the guesthouse?” I inquired.
Faye nodded. She had shifted into another position, and the roundness of her pregnancy bulged over her blue bikini bottom like the full moon rising over a lake. She had gained very little weight with the pregnancy, and her long, smooth legs caught the filtered sun like spun sugar. At that moment, I envied her position—her marriage, the commitment and stability that a coming family represented—like I cannot describe.
I returned to the guesthouse and knocked on the door. “Tom, it’s me.”
“If you must,” he growled.
Inside, I found him pacing back and forth in the small living room.
I said, “I suppose this is one of those times when you’re going to keep things from me.”
“That is correct.”
“That is stupid.”
Tom balled his hands into fists. “Shit!”
“That sums things up nicely,” I hissed.
Tom’s pacing accelerated. He made two more tight passes and then charged straight at me, catching me by the shoulders. “Listen,” he said. “Listen good. If I thought it would do any good, I’d tell you everything. Right now, it will just do harm. A
lot
of harm.” Anxiety shone from his eyes.
lot
of harm.” Anxiety shone from his eyes.
I realized that Tom was scared. My mind went numb. I must have been hanging there between his hands like a wooden doll, because he shook me slightly. “Jack loves you,” he said. “Remember that. And he’s going to be okay.” His tone suggested that he needed to convince me of this so that he could believe it himself.
I began to tremble. The mixture of fatigue from having gotten up so early to fly down there, the long hours in the airplane, the long days of worrying when I might see Jack again, and the shock of finally seeing him, but finding him smack in the middle of some kind of hornet’s nest, was taking its toll. I hung my head. I began to whimper.
That got Tom mad again. For an instant, he squeezed my arms a little too hard, but then he abruptly pulled me to him and hugged me. That was another shock. It was the first time he had ever touched me beyond a handshake. As I was busy trying to deal with this new closeness, he put his lips to my ear and whispered, “Okay, I’ll admit it. I’m worried about him, too. Given his background, I have to wonder.”
I managed to say, “Wonder what? And what background ?”
Tom seemed not to have heard my questions. “But we’re
just going to have to get through the next two days and give him a chance.”
just going to have to get through the next two days and give him a chance.”
“What
background,
Tom?”
background,
Tom?”
Tom hurried right along. “Then we’ll go beat the crap out of him, okay? You and me. I’ll throw the first punch and then hold him for you while you throw the second.”
“Give him a chance to
what
?” I whispered back. I had the eerie sensation that I had jumped back thirty years in time, and was hiding behind the hay bales in the barn with my brother, hatching plans.
what
?” I whispered back. I had the eerie sensation that I had jumped back thirty years in time, and was hiding behind the hay bales in the barn with my brother, hatching plans.
Tom stroked my back. He held my head to his chest and patted my hair like I was a little girl. He said nothing.
“Tom, you lied to me again,” I whispered. “You knew how to reach Jack the whole time.”
“No. Well, yes, I had a phone number to reach him, but he didn’t answer for days. I caught him this morning, just as we were getting ready to take off from Salt Lake.”
“And he drove over? What’s that mean, he was six, eight hours away by road?”
Tom squeezed me again. “Don’t do the math, Em. It won’t help you.”
“So where is he
now,
Tom? Where’s he going? What’s he doing that’s so scary?”
now,
Tom? Where’s he going? What’s he doing that’s so scary?”
Tom nuzzled his face against the top of my head. “I’ll tell you just as soon as I can. That’s a promise.”
“But what’s all this about his background?” I was fighting back tears now.
“I’m sorry. Forget what I said. It doesn’t matter anyway. He’s a great guy, always remember that. And he’s got two days.”
So there it was. Tom had made a promise, and while he’s a man who knows how to lie, he’s also a man who keeps his commitments. “Okay,” I said. “Two days. But I’m going to hold you to it.”
“Done.”
The rain started half an hour before we went to dinner, and was coming down so hard as we drove that the wipers could
not keep the windshield clear. It came down with a passionate vengeance, in drops that seemed the size of dinner plates, splashing on a pavement overwhelmed with runoff, pouring off awnings and palm fronds like cascading fountains. Then, as we approached our destination at the shore, it moderated, quickly tapered off, and then stopped entirely, leaving behind a shameless wetness and the fresh perfumes of lawn, unseen jasmine, and concrete.
not keep the windshield clear. It came down with a passionate vengeance, in drops that seemed the size of dinner plates, splashing on a pavement overwhelmed with runoff, pouring off awnings and palm fronds like cascading fountains. Then, as we approached our destination at the shore, it moderated, quickly tapered off, and then stopped entirely, leaving behind a shameless wetness and the fresh perfumes of lawn, unseen jasmine, and concrete.
Miles Guffey and his wife, Pamela, also had a fancy place, though only half the size of Nancy Wallace’s. Like Nancy’s, it had a screened enclosure—I was beginning to get the idea that biting insects might be a bit of a problem in Florida—but beyond it lay a dock with a big cruising boat instead of a guesthouse. There were boats and yachts all over the place, in fact; they lived on an inlet lined with dripping foliage and stuccoed party homes.
“Welcome, y’all!” Miles called, as Pamela showed us onto the pool deck. “I got the coals going real good, but first we gots to prime the pumps! So whatcha drinkin’?”
“A beer would do nicely,” I replied. “A dark ale. Something I can sort of chew on.”
“Not none of your Coors you cowgirls drink?”
“My tastes have evolved,” I informed him.
“We got. Next?” Guffey pointed at Nancy.
“I hear you mix a noble Salty Dog,” Nancy crooned. “I’d like you to meet my niece, Faye.”
“Nancy, you’re my kind of gal,” Guffey chortled. “Faye, what can I get you?”
Faye patted her belly. “Mineral water for me. So nice of you to have us over, Miles. This is my husband, Tom Latimer.”
Guffey pumped Tom’s hand. “Tom Latimer. The great Tom Latimer. I am truly pleased to meet you. My, my, my. Yes. Well, surely you aren’t holding off on the little lady’s account?”
Tom smiled as a wolf might when it smells prey. “I’m a single-malt man, if you’ve got anything in that category.”
Guffey’s eyes went as wide as his smile, making him look kind of loopy. “Do I? Why, Mr. Latimer, sir, what’ll it be, Talisker, Tamdhu, or some of dis?” He whipped a small, globular bottle out from behind the wet bar that stood by the pool. The label appeared to have been handwritten. “Special stock. They only bottle a couple casks a year.”
Tom smacked his lips. “Cracked ice, and not too much of it, if you please.”
Guffey pulled a drawer out of the bar and fished around in it. When he couldn’t find what he was looking for, he hollered, “Pammy, where’d my ice pick get to?”
“You took it out to the boat, hon.”
Guffey blinked. “Excuse me a mo,” he said, and dashed out to the dock and onto the boat. He was back in a flash with an ice pick big enough to do some real damage. He kicked open the refrigerator below the bar and went at his craft with gusto, lining up glasses and chipping at a block of ice like a mad sculptor. When he was done, and, through some miracle of subtle communication or prescripted agreement, Pamela had taken Faye and Nancy into the house to see some new acquisition in home deécor, and Tom and he and I were settled into wicker chairs with hors d’oeuvres within easy reach, he jumped right into what was on his mind.
“Em here’s got a nice reputation for figgerin’ out geological riddles,” he began. “And you, Tom, are legendary in the trade. So I got me a puzzle for you.”
Tom shot a sideways look at me, then took a miserly sip of his Scotch and watched his host carefully. “Mm?”
I settled in with my beer, hunkering down so the two men would speak freely and I could listen. I thought,
What a flatterer this man is. Tom is in fact legendary, but only within the FBI; he’s worked hard to maintain a low profile in the outside world. Now Tom’s going to think I talked him up to Guffey and blew his cover!
I said, “Tell Tom about the problem with the reefs, Miles.”
What a flatterer this man is. Tom is in fact legendary, but only within the FBI; he’s worked hard to maintain a low profile in the outside world. Now Tom’s going to think I talked him up to Guffey and blew his cover!
I said, “Tell Tom about the problem with the reefs, Miles.”
Guffey said, “Yes, well, we got this dust thing. We think
dust is carrying pathogens that are killing the coral reefs here in the Caribbean. But we got to prove our theory. Now, our problem is this: In geology, as in any science, the game doesn’t end with your initial observation of a phenomenon; in fact, that’s just where it begins. Say it’s reefs that’s dying, and you don’t know why. So you get an idea about what might be causing your phenomenon. So you start gathering data, try to figger out what makes your phenomenon tick. Your idea begins to grow into a hypothesis. A hypothesis should explain your data, and if you’re a good, law-abiding scientist, you in fact look for alternate explanations. Multiple working hypotheses, we call it. Then you got to test each one of ’em. Identify all your variables and test ’em one at a time, or as best you can. Or test ’em in concert, if that’s what seems appropriate. Or both. You follow me so far?”
dust is carrying pathogens that are killing the coral reefs here in the Caribbean. But we got to prove our theory. Now, our problem is this: In geology, as in any science, the game doesn’t end with your initial observation of a phenomenon; in fact, that’s just where it begins. Say it’s reefs that’s dying, and you don’t know why. So you get an idea about what might be causing your phenomenon. So you start gathering data, try to figger out what makes your phenomenon tick. Your idea begins to grow into a hypothesis. A hypothesis should explain your data, and if you’re a good, law-abiding scientist, you in fact look for alternate explanations. Multiple working hypotheses, we call it. Then you got to test each one of ’em. Identify all your variables and test ’em one at a time, or as best you can. Or test ’em in concert, if that’s what seems appropriate. Or both. You follow me so far?”
“Smooth sailing.”
“Good. I like that. On the basis of whatever testing and data gathering you can perform, you move from a hypothesis to a theory. A theory should explain all the data and be predictive, meaning it should explain all new data you find later. Otherwise, you have to modify or discard your theory. Okay?”
Tom nodded. He had settled back in his chair and looked quite comfortable. His eyes had closed halfway. He was concentrating on what Guffey was saying, one oddly packaged intellectual communing with another.
Guffey continued. “So here’s the deal. We got us a big project. We need all the fresh ideas and smart thinking we can get. Em here tells me she’d like to look at this dust thing like a crime scene. Now, that’s great. So tell me, how’s the way a detective works similar to what I just described, and how’s it different?”
Tom shifted around in his seat. “It’s mostly the same. You start with a phenomenon. Evidence of a crime. Like a corpse or a theft. Extortion. Someone squealing, or making an accusation of something that falls within the purview of your jurisdiction. Then we go through a loop you haven’t
yet described, and that’s where you look to make certain you’re not getting snookered by some game your informant or your supposed victim is playing.”
yet described, and that’s where you look to make certain you’re not getting snookered by some game your informant or your supposed victim is playing.”
Guffey laughed. “Oh, yeah. We get that in the earth sciences, too. Say the boys and girls upstairs tell me to look at cross-contamination of the aquifers here in Florida, like when the brain trusts that dug the canals to drain the Everglades punched through from one aquifer to the next, mixing good water with bad; well, then first I got to decide whether the crime’s actually happened. What was water quality
A
and
B
like before they got started? Did both aquifers really get tapped? Do we really have a corpse, or are the Everglades alive and well?”
A
and
B
like before they got started? Did both aquifers really get tapped? Do we really have a corpse, or are the Everglades alive and well?”
“Make me a metaphor that involves your African dust,” Tom said.
“Okay, in the case of my dead corals, I got to make sure first this isn’t something Mother Nature does periodically on her own just to clean house. And I can’t always prove things like that. So somewhere in there, I consult my guts. I say, in the case of the corals, it happened way too fast, and too many other creatures are obviously in distress, like the
Diadema
sea urchins. The reefs are dying. So I say, yes, we got a crime here, all right. As in, I think something’s upset the balance, and gone and mucked things up for the corals. And we even have that little jurisdiction thing you mentioned. We’re the USGS, not the CDC; we’re supposed to look at rocks, not disease. But the CDC won’t worry itself about corals, but they might some day get interested in all the asthmatic humans who live hear those reefs. We wind up fighting over something no one else wants to worry about in the first place.”
Diadema
sea urchins. The reefs are dying. So I say, yes, we got a crime here, all right. As in, I think something’s upset the balance, and gone and mucked things up for the corals. And we even have that little jurisdiction thing you mentioned. We’re the USGS, not the CDC; we’re supposed to look at rocks, not disease. But the CDC won’t worry itself about corals, but they might some day get interested in all the asthmatic humans who live hear those reefs. We wind up fighting over something no one else wants to worry about in the first place.”
Tom cleared his throat to indicate that he was listening.
Guffey said, “But then here’s the next bit, and this really crosses lines of jurisdiction: I think there’s a few humans ’at’s gone and gotten personal with what’s riding on the winds.”
Tom tented his fingers. His eyes closed down to dark slits. He purred, “What do you have in mind, Miles?”
“Bioterrorism.”
I almost choked on the cracker I was eating. The first thought that shot through my head was,
There goes my Master’s thesis!
There goes my Master’s thesis!
The muscles along Tom’s jaws tightened. Dryly, he said, “That would be upsetting.”
Guffey’s eyes flared. “Yes. I see you understand.”
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