“You didn’t. We’re behind the restaurant. Just circle around to the back and you’ll see a sign.”
Inside, she’s done everything she can to smooth the cheap edges into something elegant and professional. She’s almost succeeded.
Lilian comes to greet me herself. The secretary, if there is one, has abandoned her post. There is no other word for Lilian than manicured. She is practically uniformed in an earth-tone pencil skirt, blazer, and kitten heels. Her makeup is flawless, albeit a little heavy on the eyeshadow, her nails are done, and her hair is sleek despite the heavy must of the office, which is chasing the heat by means of a whimpering window A/C unit.
Her office is small but very orderly. She takes a seat across from me and I look for something to compliment—a kid, a husband, a dog—but find nothing personal at all. It’s bare.
“Thank you for seeing me,” I say. “I know you must be busy.” This is so obviously untrue, to both of us, I feel immediately embarrassed.
“You’re looking at Optimal?” she says, with careful politeness. And with those simple words, I understand she has given me permission to short circuit at least a half hour of painstaking bullshit.
I could kiss her feet.
“I’m with the Center for Environmental Advocacy Work, based in Illinois,” I tell her, and explain what brought us into town in the first place. “Before Optimal moved to Indiana, the company had to settle a case that involved chemical leaching. It seems to us like they’ve bought their way out of trouble several times—and not just to skirt environmental regulations, either.” She doesn’t blink. “The county prosecutor’s office dropped an investigation they were planning—for labor violations—after Optimal cut a check. I don’t like the pattern.”
Still, she says nothing. She doesn’t act surprised, either. I can’t tell how much of this she already knew.
I clear my throat. “You were the compliance branch chief at IDEM, is that right?”
“Co-chief,” she corrects me immediately. Then she smiles. Even her smile is deliberate. “There were two of us. Colin Danner was my partner.”
I can tell she has more to say. But again she just sits there. I try a different tack. “What brings you to the private sector?” I ask. “That’s quite a shift—going from public policy to contracting for the private sector.”
“You mean quite a downgrade,” she says calmly—and though that is exactly what I meant, I feel another rush of embarrassment. “It’s all right,” she says. “I’m happy enough.” She uncrosses her legs and leans forward, practically pouring her words in my direction. “Look, I didn’t choose to leave. I was forced out. I’ll say it, and they would say it, too, though not for the same reasons. One day I was co-head, and the next day I couldn’t take a step that wasn’t crossing some kind of line or violating public policy or abusing my position. They buried me under an internal audit—I had to dig up duplicate receipts for all my expenses for the tenure of my time with IDEM. Random monitoring, they said. Bad luck.” She shakes her head and allows a look of rage to surface before she harnesses it. “I got shut out of all the big projects. Then, when I missed deadlines—deadlines I didn’t know existed—I was threatened with termination. I left instead.”
“What happened?” I say.
“Colin sold me out,” she says matter-of-factly. “I’m not sure exactly what he said, or what complaints he filed, but I’m sure he was the one who launched the audit.”
“Why would he do that?”
Now she looks at me as if the answer is so obvious she hates to have to point it out. “Optimal,” she says. “Of course.”
A buzz of excitement notches up my pulse.
“We butted heads almost from the start on how and when the environmental review should take place. I thought it was just his usual shit. He didn’t like that they appointed a co-head. He especially didn’t like that they appointed a woman.” She says this with no inflection at all, not even a catch of anger in her voice, as if it had nothing at all to do with her. A true pro.
“So he steamrolled you?”
“That’s what I thought at first—he always challenged my recommendations, questioned my reports. But this was different. It was as if he didn’t want to look at all. But that didn’t make sense. The compliance branch of OWQ had done an inspection, several years earlier, before I arrived. An inspection every two years is standard, unless issues of permitting or expansion make it necessary to test even more. So he wasn’t against it in principle. But when I checked the report, I knew something was wrong. Plastics manufacturing uses some of the most toxic chemicals in the world—and a lot of them. But there wasn’t a single fine. Not a single notice, zero safety concerns. No infractions at all. That never happens.” Her voice hangs there, climbing toward a peak. “There’s always something. I’ve never seen a report that clean, in my whole career. It isn’t possible.”
My pulse has turned into a joyful shout. Yes, yes, yes. “You think Colin was ignoring whatever he’d found in the inspections? Only one inspection was submitted into ICIS from your office,” I say. I’ve read through the same stack of briefs so many times I could probably tell her exact dates. “The other two inspections were subcontracted.”
She shakes her head. “Sure. But we depend on a third party to input reports into the system. A liaison who flows state information back to the federal level.”
“You’re saying even if the inspections were originally legit, they might have been changed afterward?”
“Maybe. Maybe not. Both reports were actually entered by the same person. An agency coordinator named Michael Phillips. Lives in Indianapolis now.” Her eyes flare with a warning. “But he’s from just outside Barrens originally. I looked him up. He and Colin were together at the University of Indiana.”
Click. Another piece comes together. But it’s not enough—not nearly enough. Everything I learn makes the picture clearer, but also bigger—like climbing out of a ditch only to find myself at the bottom of the Grand Canyon. “I don’t understand why you didn’t report him.”
“The fact that they went to school at the same place at the same time doesn’t necessarily mean anything,” she says. “IU is a big school. And a popular one. Besides, their education wasn’t a secret. It obviously hadn’t raised flags before.”
“Sure. But in combination with the inspections, it looks suspicious. It is suspicious. If regulations are as strict as you say, you had more than enough, at least to launch an audit.”
She looks away again. She’s silent for so long I start to get uncomfortable. And then, finally, just as I’m about to thank her for her time, a shock rolls through her and she begins to laugh. Little bursts of sound, like hiccups—like she’s choking on the laughter.