“I’m a lawyer,” Jen Keeler said in the cramped, windowless conference room stacked with briefs, after they brought her up-to-date on everything going on. “If you hadn’t figured that out yet. But one with an advanced degree in environmental science from Colorado State. Normally, I don’t take on litigation. Mainly I do watchdog work; try to make the energy companies accountable in the face of the major threats to both the water-table levels and contaminants in the soil. Not to mention how that affects the things we eat—crops, livestock.”
“From fracking?” Hauck volunteered.
“Fracking’s one aspect. The Wattenberg shale deposit is a mile and a half belowground. So that’s the only way the oil and gas are able to be captured up here.”
“You said you don’t normally handle litigation. But you were representing Watkins?”
She reached across and pulled a large stack of papers and folders toward her. “I was. Among others.”
“Why?”
“Why were we suing or why did I choose to represent him?”
“Both.”
“As to the first question,” Jen said, “it’s because there were no other lawyers between here and Denver who would agree to do it. Most of them already have retainers with RMM, and that’s hardly accidental, of course. The one or two that were willing to listen to him eventually had to recuse themselves …” She gave them a cynical smile. “A sudden matter of conflict of interests …”
“Meaning they were bought off.” Hauck picked up what she was saying.
“Call it whatever you want. One day they’re nice and helpful. Next day, they’re recommending someone else. It’s what we deal with here.”
“And then the same thing would happen to those lawyers …?”
“Funny how that kind of things spreads like a virus in these parts.” Jen smiled sagely.
“You said ‘others.’ So there was more than just Watkins in the suit?”
“At first. I can show you. It’s all a matter of public record.” She went through the folders and pushed one across to Hauck.
Hauck leafed through it. There were seven names. Fisher. Loney. Price. Samuelson. Whyte. Vasquez.
Charles Alan Watkins, Junior, at the top.
“So as to the second question,” he said, “what the suit was about, I assume you’re an environmental activist?”
Jen grinned. “I’ve certainly been called a whole lot worse. Pinko. Traitor. Opportunist. Whore. Dyke. We’ve had to replace our windows here a number of times. We’ve had to work in our parkas when our heat was suddenly turned off in the middle of winter. I’ve had my tires slashed; even had my car run off into a snow ditch.”
“Ha, I knew we had something in common.” Hauck grinned.
“Already?” Jen laughed. “Welcome to the neighborhood, Mr. Hauck. You certainly made your presence known here quick. I call myself someone who stands up for individuals who are being railroaded by larger interests. Surely no one else is doing that here. I get that today it’s all about jobs and energy independence, and that’s fine. I want those things, too. Trust me, everybody’s rubber-stamping anything that comes before them today in the name of lower oil prices and job creation. I just want to make sure that once these wells run dry, and one day they will … we haven’t handed over our towns and way of life to people who weren’t operating with the same ideals in mind and without any governance over it.
“So that’s my speech. What’s yours? And you better say it very quietly if you’re peddling the idea that Watkins’s son was, what, murdered. I hope you have someone who can back that up.”
“There was an operative from Alpha who was there at the river at the very same time,” Hauck said. “And then he left, immediately after.” They told her about what Rooster said he saw, and how the balloon he was operating was brought down with traces of what could be gunpowder on it.
Jen shook her head and blew out a blast of air. “I can’t say I didn’t have my doubts … One day Chuck is all full speed ahead. He even got six of his fellow farmers and ranchers to sign on. Then this terrible thing with his son and …”
“And what?” Hauck asked.
“And suddenly there’s a toe tag on it. Dead as a body at the morgue. There were a lot of law clerks in Greeley and Denver who’d put a whole lot of time in pro bono on this stack of files. I thought we had a good chance.”
“Where was it being heard?”
“We were taking it to the state appellate court in Denver after the local judge,” she chortled, “no surprise, ruled we had no standing to bring up the case. By all means check his vacation fund. Chuck was looked up to by the farming community here. Third generation. He backs out, the rest find an excuse to back out as well.”
“So it’s all dead now?”
She put her hand on the stack of files. “Everything’s just sitting here. Decorating the office. All it takes is a nod from the right person and we can have it back on track.”
“That right person being Watkins?”
“Any of them, actually. Anyone who wants to stand up. But Chuck would be first on the list.”
“I was up at Hannah the other day. Someone from RMM, Moss, took me for a tour.”
Jen nodded. “Yeah, they’re good at that kind of thing. He show you all the fancy 3-D imaging?”
“And the levels of safety they stringently maintain. All the concrete and steel reinforcing to prevent the oil or gas or chemicals from leaching into the soil.”