“Still, it’s a pretty big coincidence, don’t you think?” I say, casually, as if the idea never occurred to me before.
“But it wasn’t a coincidence,” chimes perky Flora again. “Before Optimal moved to Barrens they were headquartered in Tennessee for a decade. At the time, they were called Associated Polymer. I guess that’s still the parent company. In the early 2000s a group of plaintiffs brought a case accusing Associated Polymer of illegal dumping. They paid out rather than fight the case, though they always denied wrongdoing.” This girl is really working for her A. You gotta love overachievers.
“If they didn’t do anything wrong, why would they settle?” Portland asks.
“Optimal’s come close to skirting the line a few different times over the past decade,” Joe says, riffling through a stack of papers as if checking his notes. It’s all for show. He has a photographic memory, or close to it. “Labor violations, tax audits, even a discrimination case. But nothing sticks. No one wants to press them too hard, not when they’re bringing in so much cash.”
“That’s small-town politics for you,” I say.
Flora picks up where she left off. “Well, that’s how the girls got the idea to shake them down in the first place. One of the girls—Misha Dole—said so.”
“Misha Dale,” I correct her.
“That wouldn’t help us now unless we can prove continuity,” Joe puts in. “If we want to do a deep dive on Optimal, we’ll need to convince someone there’s a reason we’re even looking. That means sworn testimonies and affidavits from people who are experiencing symptoms now. It also means ruling out other causes. I do not want to put my ass on the line only to find out we got some bedbugs and a crazy old man with a vendetta.”
“You have to understand.” My voice echoes to the old rafters, and something startles. A bird. I can’t see what kind, though. “We’re not the heroes here. We’re the enemy.”
“Oh, good.” Joe smirks. “The villains always get better outfits. Let’s get to work.” When he claps, the bird alights and swoops down over our heads, beating its way out the open door. Flora screeches.
“It’s just a crow,” I say. And then, because I can’t help it, “Crows have amazing memories. They can distinguish between human faces, too. They’re like elephants. They never forget.”
“No wonder they always look so angry,” Joe adds, and when I look up at him he’s lifting an eyebrow at Raj. Yeah, they’re fucking.
—
I claim the empty desk and busy myself sorting through the notes that Gallagher left us: detailed notations, almost hieroglyphic, of changes to the soil pH, unfamiliar bacterial blight, unexplained crop failure.
One thing leaps out at me right away: Gallagher provided a statement from a woman named Dawes who claims that her kid has been getting rashes. But if they’ve been using a private well, as most families do in Barrens, it’s bad news for us. If the contamination is in the groundwater it will be much harder to tie to a single source. And there’s always the possibility the whole case is fluff to begin with, that some locals might be sniffing around for a payout like Kaycee and her friends tried to ten years ago.
For the rest of the team, this is just another case. For me, it’s a chance to finally take on the demons. To root out the ugly secrets. I wish I could say I was here to get justice for the voiceless, for those who have no power, just like I once had no power. I wish I could even say I want the bad guys to suffer.
But I just want to know—for sure, for good, forever. For a decade the same questions have been knocking around, over and over, in my head. Only the truth can shut them up.
Chapter Three
At six o’clock I call it: type on the page has begun to collapse before my eyes. Joe packs up when I do, and watching him shove papers into a leather carryall, I wonder what he thinks of this place. I’ve tried to explain to him where I’m from before, in minor detail and broad generalities. Rural, sticks, wide-open spaces, twenty minutes to get a loaf of bread…I wonder if he sees me differently now amid the faint smell of manure and hay and the acres and acres of unpopulated land.
Gallagher’s dogs are working overtime, and start up again as soon as Joe and I step outside to lock the place up. Several hundred yards away, the furnace behind the farmhouse feeds the smell of charcoal into the evening air. Gallagher must be home.
“I could use a drink. Any bad sing-along karaoke around here?” Joe gives me a nudge, and I know he’s trying to make up for forcing my little confession that I’m from here earlier. That’s one of the things you have to love about Joe—off the clock, he always feels guilty for being great at his job. “You can give me the tour of the ol’ stomping grounds.”
“I’m too wiped,” I say, which is half true, and I’ve gotta see my dad, which I don’t even want to get into with Joe. “Besides, don’t you have to drive back to Indianapolis?”
“You’re. No. Fun.” Even his voice changes once he leaves the office, and he told me, when I once pointed that out, that mine does, too.
“Trust me, Carrigan’s isn’t really your scene.”
Joe gives me a wave and gets into his car. I turn away from the dust kicked up by his rental.
I have a headache from puzzling over records old and new. Patterns are like truth. They’ll set you free, but first they’ll give you a bitch of a migraine.
—
The sky is in that in-between phase, day and night throwing up a confused riot of blues and pinks and oranges to a soundtrack of crickets. At this hour, Barrens looks beautiful: the fields are wrapped in haze. That’s how beauty works in Barrens, by sidling up to you when you least expect it.
Muscle memory takes me straight out to the Barrens Dam. I spent a lot of time here when I was growing up, especially in summer, when the water was low and the current would wrap around my ankles. It was always freezing, but that never seemed to matter. If the weather was nice, it could be pretty lively. Kids catching crayfish, swinging on ropes, floating on tire tubes, fishermen in thighwaders trying their luck with the newly stocked trout.
Today there’s not a soul in sight. The water is high and rough and would surely knock me over. I close my eyes and imagine wading in anyway. I imagine the shock of the cold, the sudden weight of all that water. The pressure of the current like a long line of clutching hands trying to pull me under. I stumble backward, hardly managing to keep my balance.
Then: a distant sound of laugher makes me turn. Two girls, one dark-haired, one corn-silk blond, dart hand in hand into the trees, scattering dust and pebbles with every footstep.
Time wrenches away from the present, and instead it’s me and Kaycee I see, scabby kneed and wild.