“I’m confident you will,” Moss said, and hung up.
McKay turned back to the person he’d been speaking to before the call, sitting across his desk. “We have to arrange something for our nosy new friend in town. Moss thinks maybe he’s ripe for a swim. But remember, this guy’s no lightweight.”
John Robertson nodded. He stood up. “Neither am I.”
“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.”
CHAPTER FORTY-NINE
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.”