Bleeding Heart (33 page)

I
felt too restless and unsettled when I got home to think about going to bed, so I went out to the office and turned on my computer. Tom’s outburst over dinner made me think about the town hall meeting he’d mentioned, the one when he’d lost it with Mackenzie. I decided to view the video for myself. It didn’t take me long to find a link to it on the town Web site. The video lasted nearly an hour and, by the end, I could see why it had prompted Erlander to circle back to Tom with more questions.

After Tom’s lengthy presentation, Mackenzie had very forcefully—and in front of the town officials and a packed room—dismissed the proposal. The video camera was focused on Tom in the front of the room, but Mackenzie’s voice off-camera had registered loud and clear.

“This thing is full of holes, full of bluster, and quite frankly irresponsible.”

“How can you accuse
me
of being irresponsible?” Tom had demanded, glaring toward the back of the room. “I’ve been
looking into a certain lab that your company used to conduct so-called water testing in—”

“Better watch what you say, Tom,” Mackenzie told him. “Think before you start making accusations about something you know nothing about. You keep this up, and I’ll make absolutely sure that not only your wind proposal here but every half-baked project your little consulting firm takes on bites the dust.”

“Are you threatening me?” Tom replied.

“Don’t be ridiculous, Tom,” Mackenzie said. “I’m just swatting you away.”

“You goddamned son of a—!” Tom shouted as he started down the aisle. But then the video screen froze and I sat there staring at Tom’s flushed face, his gaze fixed on Mackenzie with undisguised hatred.

I jumped when I heard the knock on the office door. I hadn’t turned on the outside light when I came in, so I couldn’t see who was out there. The inside of the office, however, was lit up like a stage set—and I was clearly visible in front of my computer. It was nearly midnight.

“It’s only me,” Tom called out, knocking a second time.

“I was just closing up,” I called back. “Give me a minute to—” But Tom turned the knob and pushed the door open.

“You should be more careful, Alice,” he said, closing the door behind him as he stepped into the room. “You really should lock up when you’re out here alone working this late.”

“I’m closing up now,” I told him again as I turned back to my computer and started to shut it down.

“I saw what you were looking at,” he said as he came up to stand behind me. “I watched you watching it from outside.” I didn’t like that he’d been watching me. And I didn’t like him standing so close. I swiveled away from him as I got out of the chair.

“Why are you here?” I asked.

“I came to apologize,” he said. “I feel awful about how things went before. I’m not sure what happened. But I was drinking before you came, and I guess it all just caught up with me.”

“Apology accepted,” I said. “Now I think you better go. It’s time for us both to get some sleep.”

“Did you see the way he tried to sabotage me?” he asked, staring at the darkened computer screen, as though he hadn’t heard what I’d just said. “Did you see how he tried to turn everything against me? It was incredible, don’t you think? That’s what people like him do, you know. Tell whatever lies it takes. Cheat if necessary. Use slander to undercut anyone who tries to stand in their way. Exploit everyone’s worst fears. It’s all about profits and power for them, but they’re able to make it seem like they’re the good guys somehow.
Clean gas energy!
It’s all such bullshit! But it works! People buy into it. How can you fight something like that? It’s just not possible!”

“Let’s talk about this tomorrow,” I said, taking a step toward the door. “Let’s get some sleep and talk in—”

“No,” Tom said, grabbing my arm. “I need to talk about it now. I need you to hear me out.”

“You’re hurting me, Tom,” I said, but his grip only tightened.

“I want you to sit down,” he said, pulling me back to the chair. “Just sit down and listen.”

“He thought he was so powerful!” Tom said, his voice raw with emotion. “He thought he could just go on destroying land and lives for as long as he wanted. He treated my proposal like it was a joke! Did you hear what he said about ‘swatting me away’? I was just a nuisance to him—like a fly. A little speck of nothing.”

Tom paced back and forth in front of me.

“Do you have any idea what it feels like? Having your life’s
work dismissed like that? Brushed away as if everything you’d done was totally worthless? And then to realize that he’d pulled the wool over
your
eyes, too! That you were actually working for him. That was the final straw, I think. I knew I had to get to him. I had to stop him. I had to do something with what I knew about him.”

“And what was it that you knew, Tom?” I asked him, hoping the question might slow him down a little. He seemed to be working himself up into another tirade. But this time it wasn’t because he’d been drinking, which made his behavior that much more alarming. I wanted to get away from him. I began to calculate whether I’d be able to get around him to the door. Whether I’d be able to outrun him.

“A couple of weeks before the special meeting I started working on another article for EcoCrisis, focusing on Mackenzie and his various companies. I was reading through lab reports on water testing that had been ordered at one particular EnergyCorp site in Ohio that was tied up in litigation. And I discovered some discrepancies in the numbers. Things that just didn’t add up. But it wasn’t until after the hearing that I decided I owed it to myself to dig deeper. So I drove out to Ohio and spent a day or two poking around. I was able to track down some of the people involved. And do you know what I found? Someone at EnergyCorp had suborned the lab technician responsible for the reports that were submitted as evidence at the trial. He fucking paid this guy off to alter his findings!”

“Mackenzie paid him off?”

“Who knows?” Tom said. “It was one of his people, though. One of his henchmen. But we both know who told him to do it. Mackenzie pulled all the strings at his companies. He was behind it for sure. And do you have any idea what that means? Do you realize what he might have caused? Hundreds of people could have been sickened! Animals killed! The countryside ruined! All so that
he could keep on rolling in his profits. I was able to locate the initial report the lab ran. The real one. The idiots! They didn’t even try to cover their tracks. They were so sure no one would bother to question their work. So I knew I had him then.”

“You had evidence that Mackenzie was corrupt?”

“Yes, exactly! That’s what I’m telling you. I had the son of a bitch—
finally
! So I called him. I told him I had something that I was sure he’d be interested in. That we should meet. He kept brushing me off—
swatting
me away. But I persisted, calling every day or so until I wore him down. I called again the night before the garden opening, and he finally agreed that I could come by early the next day and we’d talk. He said I’d find him in the garden. I walked up from my place. The sun was just rising. As I came up through the woods, I saw Mackenzie standing on that verge, looking out over the valley—over his precious view. I told him what I knew. He didn’t bat an eye. He didn’t even try to deny it. He just asked me what I intended to do about it. I said that I’d be willing to destroy the evidence and keep my mouth shut, but in exchange I wanted his support for my wind power project.”

“But, Tom, that’s—” I started to say, but then I shut up. Some part of Tom must have realized he’d resorted to blackmail, but I was beginning to understand that by then he believed that anything he did to bring Mackenzie down was justifiable.

“And do you know how he reacted? The bastard started to laugh! He
laughed
at me! He poked me in the chest with his index finger and said: ‘Oh, how the righteous have fallen!’ He said what a shame he thought it was that even someone as supposedly holy and pure as me had a price. He kept on laughing until I pushed him off that fucking ridge.”

“The fall would have killed him,” I said. “
You
killed him. Not Mara. It was you.”

“Yes,” Tom said, stopping his nervous pacing for a moment and smiling down at me.

Oh, my God,
I thought.
He’s proud of himself!

“I checked on him on my way back down the mountain,” Tom said. “By then the whole area was fogged in. He was dead. I went through his pockets to see if he had anything on him that would incriminate me—but all I found was a letter of agreement that your friend Gwen had written to him. I mailed it back to her later, just to keep her out of any trouble. You see? I was looking after you even then, Alice. I always take care of the people I love.”

“So later that morning at the Open Day when somebody spotted him . . . ?” I started to ask the question but found myself too shaken to continue.

“Yes, I went right down to him,” Tom said. “I made it seem like he was still breathing. Like he still had a chance. It was such chaos, nobody seemed to realize I was faking it. People get so frightened around the dead and dying, but there’s really no reason to.”

“Tom, listen—,” I began, but then I hesitated, trying to think of the best way to convince him that he would have to turn himself over to the police. He’d acted impulsively—out of extreme anger—after being ridiculed and humiliated. Surely a case could be made that he’d committed a crime of passion.

“I can see you’re a little shocked, Alice,” Tom said. “I hadn’t actually planned on telling you any of this, at least not so soon. But after you left tonight, I thought about it again. Mara’s role in what happened changes things. You can see what an opportunity this is for us, can’t you?”

“What do you mean?”

“Erlander obviously suspects that she killed Mackenzie—and the police must have evidence that he was poisoned. Even she
believes that’s what happened—she confessed as much to you, right? It seems perfect, really, when you think about it. You arranged it so that Mara could get a good head start and a chance at a new beginning. So we don’t have to feel guilty about telling Erlander about her. She gets away. And we’ll be able to put this thing with Mackenzie behind us and start life together with a clean slate.”