The Extinction Event (15 page)

“You surprised?” Kipp asked.

Jack shook his head
no
.

“This ain't a sympathy call, right,” Kipp said.

“Tell me more about the ghost,” Jack said.

Kipp sat in a rusty pool chair. The green webbing was frayed. Jack sat in another rusty chair, next to him. Kipp stared into the empty, cracked pool.

“What's to tell?” Kipp said. “She skates through. Singing. They say you found Hussein?”

Jack nodded.

“I helped you out,” Kipp said. “Told you where.”

Jack leaned to the left side and fished in his right pocket for some folded twenties.

“Don't insult me, man,” Kipp said.

“Like you said, you told me where.”

“Not the favor I want.” Kipp leaned down and pulled up a sock. “You tell the cops how you knew?”

“No.”

Kipp sat up, gave Jack a smile.

“That's the favor.”

“Who needs the trouble is what I figured,” Jack said.

“We got enough trouble,” Kipp said. “Kids drive by. Shout things. Throw things. Someday they shoot things, huh?”

“You ever see the ghost?” Jack asked.

“I look like someone sees ghosts?” Kipp asked. “I see the ghost I kick the little pest in the ass, tell her to sing something else for a change.”

“How many people have seen the ghost?” he asked.

“People talk,” Kipp said. “Say they know somebody who knows somebody who saw something.”

Jack looked past Kipp at the pylons.

“You ever get headaches?” Jack asked.

“Everyone gets headaches,” Kipp said. “What's your interest in the ghost?”

“Muscle aches?” Jack asked. “Dizziness, ringing in the ears, irregular heartbeat…?”

“What's your point?” Kipp asked.

“You moved in last June?” Jack asked.

“Ringing in the ears,” Kipp said, “I guess everyone gets that one time or another.”

“Did you have that, ringing in the ears, before you moved in?” Jack asked.

“Who can remember?” Kipp said.

“The electric wires up there,” Jack nodded toward the pylons. “Were they here when you moved in?”

Kipp nodded.

“Did Jean complain of headaches, ringing in her ears, muscle aches, dizziness?”

“Like I said, who remembers?”

“It's important,” Jack repeated.

“I didn't see her much, you know.”

Jack waited.

“What you saying? I get ringing in my ears, headaches, because of the wires?”

“Maybe.”

“Maybe means what? Yes?”

“I don't know.”

“But you're asking, which means—”

“I don't know.”

Slowly, Kipp smiled.

“You think we maybe got a lawsuit?” he asked.

“Jean Gaynor.”

“I become a lawyer, maybe that's my first case, huh?”

“Jean—”

“Okay. Okay. You help me, I help you.”

“If I find something, I'll let you know.”

“Who do we sue?”

“If I find that out, I tell you, too.”

“The Great American Dream, huh?”

Jack grinned.

“A scholarship to Harvard, winning the lottery, getting hit by a big corporation's truck, yeah.”

Kipp called to some girls on the balcony, “You know Hussein's girl? Who was here? She ever complain about being sick?”

The girls looked at each other. Two giggled.

“Hey,” Kipp shouted, “this man wants to know.”

“She was always complaining,” one of the girls called.

“About what?”

“Everything.”

“Smart-ass, I'm asking you.”

“She's right,” another girl said. “She was always complaining.”

“She couldn't sleep,” a third girl said.

“You do that much coke,” the second girl said, “who sleeps?”

“Kept telling us,” the first girl said, “turn down the music.”

“What music?” the third girl said. “We don't play any music.”

“Maybe she meant the ghost?” the first girl said.

The girls laughed.

“Hey,” Kipp called. “You think this is some joke? She's dead. Hussein's dead.”

The first girl glanced at the others.

“I don't know,” she said. “She was worried about her, you know, monthlies.”

“Her period?” Jack asked.

“Always asking if someone has Tampax,” the second girl said. “But what's the point? Between her legs, nothing.”

“Like the pool,” the third girl said. “Dry.”

“And cracked,” the second girl said.

“And growing moss,” the first girl said.

Again, they laughed.

“Headaches,” Jack said, “muscle aches, fatigue, dizziness, ringing in the ears, irregular heartbeat, hallucinations—”

“You talking about the ghost?” Kipp said.

“—difficulty in concentration,” Jack continued, “and irregular menstruation…”

“We get that from the wires?” Kipp said.

“You do, you get your lawsuit,” Jack said.

“How do we prove it?” Kipp asked.

“Like I said,” Jack got up. “I'll let you know.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

1

“
Jury Awards Damages For Wisconsin Family
,” Caroline read the printout from
Agri-view
, a Wisconsin publication, which billed itself as
Your premier agricultural newspaper to provide up-to-date Capitol news, compelling livestock topics, current dairy coverage, timely crop reports and …

“Eight hundred fifty thousand dollars,” Jack said. “They sued the local power company for electrical pollution, stray voltage.”

“Two brain cells from a rat exposed to a low-level electromagnetic field show significant amounts of damaged DNA,” Caroline read from the next printout.

“And that's just from blow-dryers and electric blankets,” Jack said.

Caroline flipped to the next printout and read, “Nighttime exposure to electromagnetic fields and childhood leukemia…”

And the next: “The Urban Decline of the House Sparrow (
Passer domesticus
): A Possible Link with Electromagnetic Radiation.”

And the next: “A Possible Association Between Fetal/Neonatal Exposure to Radiofrequency Electromagnetic Radiation and the Increased Incidence of Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD).”

And the next and the next and the next …

—During 1977 another U.S. Navy-funded researcher reported that his experiments of exposing primates to radiofrequency radiation resulted in “gross morphological damage to the brains” of the test subjects … Soon thereafter, this researcher's funding was canceled …

—Cluster of testicular cancer in police officers exposed to handheld radar.

—Children whose birth address was within 200 meters of an overhead power line had a 70% increased risk of leukemia.

—Scientists at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory have identified a chemical reaction that may explain higher rates of illness observed among some people exposed to strong electromagnetic fields such as those produced by high-voltage power lines.

—A dose-responsive relationship between magnetic fields from power lines and asthma and combined chronic illness is identified in an August 2001 Australian study …

—There is solid evidence that secondhand smoke is less dangerous than magnetic fields.

—Area legislators are working together to safeguard neighborhoods that have been targeted for the expansion of a high-voltage electrical transmission line.

2

Caroline read the “The California EMF Program” report's chapter headings:
Leukemias, Adult Brain Cancer, Childhood Brain Cancer, Breast Cancer, Miscarriage, Alzheimer's Disease, Heart Disease, Suicide …

“Did you see the report on electrical power lines and hallucinations?” Jack asked.

“Ghosts, fairies, UFOs,” Caroline glanced over the printout. “Remember, twenty years ago the big UFO flap in the Hudson Valley?”

“You must have been a baby,” Jack said.

“Every night I had a dilemma,” Caroline said. “Keep the window open so Peter Pan could come get me or keep it closed so the aliens couldn't.”

“How long did it take you to grow out of that?” Jack asked.

“When I hit puberty,” Caroline said, “I traded aliens for vampires.”

“Sexier,” Jack said.

“I don't know,” Caroline said. “All those alien anal probes…”

“See the report on how many people getting the electric chair see angels or devils before they fry?” Jack asked.

“Who says they're hallucinations?” Caroline said.

She turned to another printout and read:
“One of the issues confronting policymakers is the value of a human life. Does it make sense to spend $4 million to bury a line if the reduction in EMF will save [only] one life?”

“Money,” Jack said. “That's what it's all about.”

“Says here
Slate
estimated a human life is worth between four and eight million,” Caroline said.

“If someone grabs you,” Jack said, “I wouldn't pay a penny over five mil.”

As Jack said it, he felt a constriction of his heart, a physical reaction to fear.

“What if—?” Jack started.

“No one's going to bother me,” Caroline said.

“They went after me,” Jack said.

“I'm not backing off,” Caroline said. “Even if you do.”

3

They were driving past the Volunteer Fire Department sign, which this week said:
Welcome home, PFC Dwayne Prettyman, Iraq—Two Tours.

At the junction of Route 66, Jack hung a sharp right and then turned left into the parking lot of the Jayhawkers Inn. Gravel crunched underneath the car tires.

Inside, the restaurant was dim, each table lit by a small lamp with a red shade. Three metal trays held corn relish, cottage cheese, and spiced crab apples. An ancient Wurlitzer finished playing a Peggy Lee song and started a Frankie Laine number, one after another, songs from the late Fifties, Snooky Lanson's
Your Hit Parade.

“So where are we?” Jack said. “Frank's dead. Stickman's dead. Both were connected to Jean—”

“Who's also dead,” Caroline said. “And who was a junkie hooker.”

“And who was possibly suffering from electrical pollution,” Jack added.

“And related to Robert,” Caroline also added.

Jack smeared some corn relish on a water cracker, cracking it.

Jack was very aware of the flop of the new record on the Wurlitzer—Dinah Washington—the sound of some kind of food grinder in the kitchen, a murmur of voices from across the room—only one word, “bathtub,” stood out—and a faint ammonia smell.

The waitress delivered their meals: Jack's jumbo burger special with extra crisp string fries, Caroline's rack of lamb with garlic mashed potatoes and creamed broccoli.

“You're not supposed to pick up your lamb chop unless it's wearing those little paper panties,” Caroline said, “but I figure I'm wearing panties, so—”

Caroline picked up a chop with both hands and, pulling back her lips, baring her teeth, began ripping off the meat and gnawing on the bone. Jack could hear the bone cracking.

When she smiled at Jack, he saw a string of lamb caught between her top front teeth.

Jack tapped his own top teeth with a fingernail and handed Caroline a napkin, which she used to wipe her mouth.

“Frank had files and files on Robert's family,” Caroline said. “Going back generations.”

Jack shrugged.

“Frank was their lawyer,” he said.

“The files he had seem like overkill,” Caroline said.

“Maybe they just thought family papers would be safer in his office than at home,” Jack said.

“Did you know Frank was so involved with the Flowers family?”

“There's a lot I didn't know about Frank,” Jack said.

“Then, there's this,” Caroline said, putting the lamb bone onto her plate and taking some folded papers from her pocketbook.

Jack recognized the dark blue stripe across the tops of the pages.

“Frank's phone bill?” he asked.

“Jean's cell.” Caroline handed the bill across the table. “Frank was paying her bills. I've got more in the car. Take a look at the second page.”

Jack did. Caroline had left a lamb-grease fingerprint on the paper.

“A lot of calls to a 415 number,” Jack said. “Western Mass.”

“I checked,” Caroline said, picking up the lamb bone. “It's in Great Barrington.”

“Robert's number?” Jack asked. “Keating's?”

Caroline nodded, looking up at Jack over the bone she gnawed, whites showing under her rolled-up eyeballs.

“Three the night Frank died,” Caroline said. “I figured she was calling for help.”

“
Before
she met with Frank?” Jack asked.

“Or to rub Robert's or Keating's nose in the fact she was meeting Frank?” Caroline said.

Jack gestured for the check.

“I'm still eating,” Caroline said. “And dessert comes with the meal.”

“You said the files are in the car?” Jack asked.

Caroline nodded.

“You drive,” Jack said, “while I go through them.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

1

The silhouette of Caroline's head was outlined by oncoming headlights. Her frizzy hair looked electrified.

The intermittent rain spattered the windshield.

Jack sat in the back seat next to two brown-and-white cardboard bankers boxes. When Jack took off the top of the closest, flakes of brittle, browning paper puffed up, making him sneeze. The files seemed to be in chronological order. Jack slipped the front manila folder out, opened it, and in the car's yellow ceiling light read,