One Mile Under (24 page)

“Well, remember, he found you, even with the insurance we had in Aspen. So make sure there are no trails.”

“I understand,” Robertson said, heading to the door.

“Oh, and John …” Robertson turned. Moss shrugged before he picked up the phone again. “It’s your call, of course, however you see fit. Him, or the girl.”

Back in the car, Hauck didn’t see any sign that the black SUV was following them. He stopped in an alley, took out his phone, and asked Dani to excuse him for a couple of minutes.

Naomi picked up on the third ring. “Hey, stranger …!” She was clearly happy to hear his voice. “Are you still on the boat?’

“No. I left it in St. Kitts. I’m actually in Colorado.”

“
Colorado?
” There was a pause. “I might have thought you could’ve given me a heads-up if you were coming back?”

“It was a quick thing, Naomi. And I don’t know if I’m even really back. I had to do something for a friend. It was kind of an emergency …”

“Hang on a sec …” Hauck heard her speaking on her end, telling a colleague to give her a minute. “Okay I’m back, sorry.”

“Sounds like you’re pretty busy back there.”

“You might say. The new health-care bill has brought with it about a hundred new ways to screw people that we’re looking into. So what’s in Colorado?”

He gave her the quick version of the call he’d gotten from Ted, and having to pull Dani out of jail.

She said, “You never told me you were a godfather. I actually think that sounds kind of sexy.”

“I guess there’s still one or two things I haven’t fully revealed about myself.”

“Well, if I weren’t at my desk with about a hundred briefs around me and six in staff who can pretty much hear everything I say, I would let you know what I really think about that. Maybe I should find something to do out there and requisition a government jet. The mountains sound heavenly about now.”

“And if I wasn’t in the plains with nothing around but oil wells and a two-year drought, I’d tell you to do just that. In the meantime, though, I think I’ll save you from having to appear in front of the House Oversight Committee about the plane and let you know why I called. I need some help with something.”

“Buzz killer.”

He brought her up to speed. Everything he had just told Jen Keeler: Trey, Rooster, Robertson. Alpha and RMM.

“I know RMM,” Naomi said. “It’s a big oil firm that’s been in front of the Justice Department on some antitrust issues.”

“Yes, but that’s not what this is about. Oil. Or, at least not directly. I’m actually calling about something else. Water.”

“
Water?
You mean like run-of-the-mill H2O?”

“Kind of like that. Except I’m really talking water rights here.” He took her through what Jen had explained, from the drought that was afflicting the region to the huge amounts of water that were required for the fracking process. To the scarcity that had driven those prices through the roof. “There’s a bidding war going on out here, Naomi. The oil and gas companies are buying everything they can and locking in long-term supplies that are killing the farmers.”

“This isn’t exactly something I know a whole lot about, Ty. A town selling off its water rights is legal?”

“Excess water rights, apparently. And in a drought, that’s precisely what farmers need to irrigate their crops.”

“It all sounds bad,” Naomi said, “but so far it also all sounds entirely legal. And this all connects to your niece and what happened in Aspen
how …?
”

“The kid who was killed on the river, Naomi … his father is a local farmer here who was leading a suit against the town to restrict them from selling off their excess water to the oil companies. Which puts him in the cross fire between RMM and the town.”

“Why the town?” Naomi asked. “Someone was being paid off?”

“The whole community is, in a way. You should see what the exploration companies are putting up to gain their support. High school football stadium scoreboards that look like MetLife Stadium, beautiful parks, senior citizen centers … in the middle of nowhere.”

“And so you’re suggesting what, Ty, just so I understand? That this friend of your goddaughter was murdered
?
”

“I’m starting to think so. To influence his father to drop his suit. Which is precisely what he did. Now that doesn’t sound entirely legal, does it? They’re sitting on some of the richest concentrations of oil and natural gas in the country. The Wattenberg field.”

“So where is this suit now?”

“Where you might expect. Dead. The father backed down.”

“Look, I’m sorry about all this, Ty … I mean, I get it. It’s sad. And it’s got to be really devastating if you’re a farmer out there. But if you think this kid was murdered by some oil company to influence a lawsuit, isn’t this more for the Justice Department or local law enforcement? I’m in financial fraud.”

“Let’s just say the local law enforcement here is about as helpful as talking directly to the oil companies themselves. And where it happened, back in Carbondale, isn’t exactly cooperating, either. And if this was simply just about the murders, I’d agree. The problem is, I just don’t have the proof.

“But what I do have is someone trained by the U.S. Army in black ops over in Iraq and Afghanistan who was there at the very same time that kid was killed. And I have a witness who claimed they saw something suspicious out there who’s now dead as well along with four others. And with RMM spreading money around here like they were printing the stuff, you can only imagine what the enthusiasm is for getting any kind of investigation off the ground.”

Naomi sighed. “I see what you’re up against. I admit is sounds shitty, but we’re not exactly the Better Business Bureau here. We’re Treasury. Financial terrorism.”

“Murder. The intimidation of potential plaintiffs in a lawsuit. The manipulation of public resources …”

“I’m just being honest here, Ty.” Naomi exhaled. “Anyway, what is it you’d like me to do?”

“I was hoping you might pressure someone in Justice to take a look. Just the threat of that could get these companies to back off. Or maybe use your own resources to look into it as unfair practices or something, on the water issue.”

“We’re not exactly a business fairness panel here. That’s what the courts are for.”

“I’ve already told you what kinds of things take place when they do try to address it that way. Besides, these energy firms have given all the local lawyers either jobs or retainers. So they have to recuse themselves.”

“You’re starting to sound like you’re out there staring at black helicopters, Ty.”

“SUVs, maybe,” Hauck added darkly.

“What does that mean …?”

“I already had a run-in with a couple of them. That’s what they’re driving here.”

“Ty, the Justice Department isn’t going to stick its nose into a local murder case, even if I did have some sway over them, which I assure you I don’t. I’m the head of one, poorly funded investigative unit here at Treasury. And if you’re looking for me to send out my own people, I barely have the resources to look into the things we’ve been charged to do. Not to mention I would need to see a lot more proof and specifics about how hundreds of people have been harmed by their actions.”

“I have a copy of the lawsuit I mentioned.”

“Okay. How many plaintiffs were signed on?”

Hauck exhaled, knowing his answer wouldn’t exactly bowl her over. “Seven.”

“
Seven?
Now there’s a good ol’ prime number for you, huh …? Look, I have to go. Seems to me you got your goddaughter out of jail, which is really what you went out there for. All you can do now by digging around into this is put her and you at risk. I know how you look at this and how you want to help. But you should just come home. You could come here. You could sail your boat right up the Potomac. We could jog on the mall in the morning and—”

“I’m not sure they let private boats sail up the Potomac, Naomi. For obvious reasons.”

“Then sail it up Long Island Sound; that’s fine with me, too. It’s just not your fight, Ty. Come on back and see what you can do from here.”

“I’m not sure I can, Naomi. At least not just yet.”

“And why is that?”

“Because it’s gotten personal.”

She paused. “It always seems to get personal, Ty. For you.”

Hauck overheard voices interrupting her again. This time, she came back. “Sorry, I’ve got a staff meeting, Ty … Look, I’ll make some inquiries, that’s all I can say. Not just because it’s
you,
and because you have this cool goddaughter you’ve never told me about. But because I know that anything you get involved in this deeply probably should be looked into. Even if I’m not the right one. How’s that …?”

“You’re a doll. Have I ever told you that?”

“Now there’s far too many people in here now to tell you that yes, I think you have. I’ll check into it. That’s all I can promise. But I wish you’d come home, Ty. You can still fight the good fight from here.”

“You’re breaking up,” Hauck said. “I can’t hear you.”

“Good Lord,” Naomi chortled, “can’t you come up with anything a little more imaginative than that?”

“How about that you’re the best. And I kind of miss you. In my own way.”

“And I kind of miss you, too, Ty. And I might a whole lot more if I knew I could keep you alive.”

“Message received.”

“Did it work?”

“Sorry, I’m getting that interference again …”

“Didn’t think it would.” She blew out a resigned breath. “Take it easy out there, my charming white knight.”

“I want you to stay here,” Hauck said, dropping Dani off back at the café on the main street in Templeton.

“Where are you going?” she asked.

“Back out to Watkins’s one more time.”

“So what do you want me to do in the meantime?”

“I don’t know … Make some calls. Keep your ears open. Hopefully, I’ll be back in an hour.”

“An hour? Please don’t leave me hanging like you have lately.”

“I won’t. I promise.”

“Okay. And watch your back. Don’t let any trucks creep up on you this time.”

“I’ll see what I can do.”

Hauck made the drive out, along the river and brown, fenced-in fields. He thought about what Naomi had said to him:
Come on home. It’s not your fight. You’ve done what you came out to do.

Even Jen Keeler had questioned what his stake was here. Truth was, he hadn’t met a single person, other than Watkins’s daughter, Kelli, who even wanted him to stay. It wasn’t just the people who’d been killed. Like Jen said, they were only names. People he had never met. But what was clear as the sky was the look on Watkins’s face two days before. At first, it just told him to go, to let them get on with their grieving. And then it told him something more, something painful and familiar and close enough that even after all these years it still shook him.

Maybe it never went away, he thought, turning onto the gravelly road along the fence of Watkins’s farm. Hard as you tried to cover it up or paint over it. Maybe when he got up every morning and looked in the mirror even now, that was what he still saw. Stared at. The guilt he still felt.

No, it doesn’t go away,
Hauck should have told him. It never does.

It just hides.

He spotted the farmer in the fields on a tractor with a couple of workers, the portable sprinklers drizzling a thin sheet of water on a row of crops. They were digging a makeshift irrigation ditch. The man was tough and Hauck knew exactly what he must be carrying inside him. What he was burying.

Hauck left the car along the road and climbed through a gap in the wire. Watkins was backing up his tractor, pulling away a large rock from the earth. Two or three farmhands were helping. When he spotted Hauck in the field, the farmer’s face turned sour. “Lupe, Diego, take a few minutes,” he said to the hands. “I’ll be back in a second.” He put on the brake and jumped down from the open cab. He said to Hauck, “Guess working with these guys, my English must be out of practice. I thought we made it clear—”

“I know why they killed Trey,” Hauck said.

“—not to come around here anymore …” The farmer’s voice trailed off. “Do I have to call the police on you, mister, or what?”

“They did it to get you to back down. From the lawsuit you were filing against the town. I spoke with Jen Keeler. She showed it all to me, the suit, the other names on it. And it worked. You did back down, right? And there’s not a person in this world who would blame you for having done it. Not one.”

“So you’ve been here for all of two days and you think you’ve got it all sized up, huh …?” Watkins’s eyes shone with intensity and he took off his cap and crumpled it against his side.

“I know one thing I’ve got sized up,” Hauck said.

“What’s that?” The farmer glared.

“What was on your face the other day. I told you, I lost a child as well.”

“And I’m real sorry for that, Mr. Hauck. I am. But you and I are different people, and there’s nothing that’s happened here that’s even about you.”

“My little girl”—Hauck stepped up to him—“she was playing in our driveway and I backed over her after an argument with my wife. I was impatient and my mind was elsewhere. She was five. It cost me my job and my marriage, and about three years of my life, until I realized, it was all just an accident. A stupid, tragic accident that should never have happened and that I didn’t cause, no matter how many times I told myself that I did.”

“Why are you going through this with me, mister?”

“Because I know what it’s like to look in that mirror. I know what it’s like to feel responsible.”

“You want absolution, Mr. Hauck …?” Watkins took out a rag from his pocket and wiped his hands. “I’ll see you in church on Sunday. Trey was a grown man and we’re all different here. So don’t come around and tell me you know what I’m feeling or what you think you saw …”

“There was a contractor RMM uses with military black ops training who was on that river the same time as your son. I know about the intimidation and the paying off, and the whole town being in the oil company’s pocket. I know about how they’re sucking the whole region dry of water. And I know what you were trying to do.”