Oil Change: A Nina Bannister Mystery (The Nina Bannister Mysteries Book 4) (17 page)

“That would almost empty my checking account.”

“Well, they might be satisfied just to take Furl and call it even.”

“No way.”

“I didn’t think you’d want to do it the easy way. Nina, what is it about you, anyway?”

“What do you mean, Jackson?”

“For the last, oh, eighteen months or so, your life…”

“I know what you mean.”

“Why can’t you just be a retired senior citizen, sitting on her deck and watching the ocean?”

“That was my plan. It really was.”

“I know. But, there was the Robinson case, and then the Reddington murder and then the bizarre deal with April van Osdale…”

“I know. I know. I keep thinking, ‘well, this horrible thing is over, but at least now I can settle back and enjoy my golden years.”

“But it doesn’t’ seem to happen, does it?”

“No, it doesn’t. It almost seems like I’m caught up in this series of wild murder mysteries, and the writer keeps churning them out, each one more unbelievable than the last.”

“Yeah. Well, I hope they’re selling.”

“They can’t be. People who read mysteries like a little English village and a quiet, simple murder. I could even stand to be involved in that. Maybe I could even solve the murder. But what do I get? The biggest oil well in the whole world, which is ready to blow up and destroy the entire Gulf Coast of The United States. How would Miss Marple deal with that?”

Jackson shook his head and rose to his feet.

“I don’t know, Nina. But what I imagine is this: Louisiana Petroleum will issue a statement first thing tomorrow morning. They have offices in a number of major cities, but I think their CEO is based in Lafayette—although the majority of their lawyers probably are based in DC. Anyway, they will, of course, deny everything. They will skewer
The New York Times
for daring to run such a damaging and untrue story. All this time, phone calls will be going on behind the scenes. There will be threats of huge law suits.”

“And they will probably want to have a few words with me.”

“Just a few. Which is why….”

He took a deep breath.

She interrupted:

“What, Jackson? Which is why what?”

He exhaled, and then said, quietly:

“Nina, I don’t think you should go back into Bay St Lucy tonight. I have to.
The Bay St. Lucy Gazette
is going to get hold of this story as soon as anybody does. They’re going to want to talk to you. I’ll intercede. In fact, I may go straight to their offices now, and give them a heads up on what’s happening. They’ll contact Louisiana Petroleum, or Louisiana Petroleum will contact them, I don’t know. But at any rate, by early tomorrow morning, LP will know that I’m representing you.”

“You will represent me?”

“Don’t I always represent you? I’m like Perry Mason: every Sunday evening, same time same place…”

“I know, Jackson. This time it seems we’re a little out of our league, doesn’t it?”

He smiled and shook his head:

“Not a bit of it. You beat Hattiesburg and the McNulty girls; you shouldn’t have a problem with some huge, floating filling station. The thing is, though, it just might be better for you to stay here tonight. A lot of people are going to start wanting to talk with Nina Bannister, starting in just a few hours. Nobody knows you’re here. Nobody even knows about this cabin. So just try to get a good night’s sleep. There’s coffee and a coffee maker. When I went into the grocery story I picked up some cereal and milk. I mean, it isn’t Bagatelli’s but…”

“There’s Furl.”

“I’ll go by tonight and change his litter, give him some fresh food.”

“I don’t have a book to read.”

“You don’t need a book. You
are
a book.”

“Yes. I guess that’s true.”

“I’ll also go by and talk to the Ramirez family. Try to tell them what’s coming.”

“Tell them I’m so sorry to have gotten them into this.”

He shook his head:

“You didn’t get them into it, Nina. Edgar got them into it, maybe because he thought it was a good idea not to destroy a major portion of the ocean. And Hector got them into it, maybe because he knew his big brother had been killed, and he thought somebody ought to do something about it.”

“The proverb he used,” she whispered. ‘A boy remains a boy until a man is needed.’”

Jackson walked toward the doorway turned, and said:

“Well. A man may be needed now.”

“Several of them. And maybe a couple of women, too.”

He smiled:

“As far as the women are concerned, one may be enough. It has been in the past. Anyway, I promise you, Nina. No one will bother you out here tonight. Get a good night’s sleep. I’ll send a car out to get you, maybe about nine tomorrow morning. I won’t be able to come myself because I’m sure to be in one meeting after another; also, I don’t want anybody to follow me. But there’s a young man I trust. He’ll bring the car out, and we’ll sneak you back into Bay St. Lucy. After that, we’ll just go by instinct.”

“All right, Jackson. Whatever you think.”

“That’s it then. Ok, good night, Nina.”

He walked through the door, down the stairs, and out the pathway toward his car.

She could hear it driving away.

And she was alone.

What to do?

Something told her that she should be uneasy. The evidence had come in, and Edgar had indeed been murdered. Chilling thought. Whoever had killed him was going to know about her.

Somehow, though, as she walked to the window and peered out into the forest, she felt comforted. The pines and birches seemed to wrap her in a blanket of security, and the night sounds had a restful quality. She looked around her, in the kitchen. There was the plastic-wrapped packet of ground beef that Jackson had bought at the grocery story. A can of mushroom soup. A small sack of noodles.

And two bottles of red wine.

She didn’t need two bottles, but…

…where was a corkscrew?

There, before her, in the drawer.

All right, then…

…stroganoff for dinner.

So she boiled the water, dumped in the noodles, and cooked her meal.

Half an hour later she was finishing her second glass of red wine.

She had moved outside to the small pier that extended out into the lake, and was sitting on a plastic folding chair. The Mississippi sky sparkled above her, stars glittering like tiny jewels on an ink-black gown. They were reflected in the calm lake, which moved not at all except when a heron chanced to land on it, or a fish jumped out of it, plopping on re-entry.

What would tomorrow bring?

Lawyers, lawyers, lawyers, all yelling at her, all accusing her of something.

She could have left well enough alone, couldn’t she?

And then she was conversing again, as she did so often at times like these.

“But it’s true, I could have. When Hector came to the house and I found him there, sitting on the front porch—I could have just told him to go on home.”

“Yes, you could have.”

“Then none of this would have happened.”

“Well, not to you, anyway.”

“Of course not. And when you think of it, why am I involved in this anyway? Aquatica indeed! I’m an old retired English teacher. What do I know about oil rigs?”

“More than you used to.”

“Maybe. But not much more. And
The New York Times
.
 
Me in
The New York Times
! The only thing I know about
The New York Times
is their crossword puzzle. And even that’s too hard.”

“Except for Monday.”

“Yes, except for Monday. So what do I do now? What if they sue me?”

“They can’t sue you.”

“Why can’t they?”

“You don’t have anything.”

“Oh. Well, there is that to consider.”

“Of course, there is.”

“Still, I feel like I’ve made a horrible mess out of things.”

“Look at the lake.”

“What?”

“Look at the lake.”

“Why?”

“Because, one way or another, it feeds into the ocean.”

She did look at the lake. Bullfrogs ringing it had begun croaking in chorus, not far from where she was sitting. More fish were jumping now, one out there, to the right, another closer to the center. And there, on the far side perhaps two hundred yards from her, a deer stepped out of the undergrowth and began to drink. She could see his button eyes gleaming, even in the distance.

“And the ocean, Nina, feeds into it.”

She nodded.

“The oil would be here, too, wouldn’t it?”

“Yes, it would, Nina. It might take time. But the oil would be here, too.”

“Okay.”

Silence for a time.

“Okay. So I’ll just do the best I can.”

“Of course, you will. You always do.”

“Whatever’s out there waiting. Bring it on.”

“They will and you’ll handle it. You always do.”

“You have a lot of confidence in me.”

“I always have.”

“I know that.”

“And I always will. Now go to bed, Nina Bannister. Get some sleep. You’re going to need it.”

“All right. Good night, Frank.”

And so thinking, she rose and went in to bed.

CHAPTER TEN: WOMAN OF THE YEAR!

She awoke with first light and glanced at the small alarm clock someone had left on the bed stand. Five forty five.

She got up, dressed, and walked outside. The air was deliciously cool. The world was still gray on its way to blue and green, and mist hung over the lake.

She found a walking trail and began to encircle the lake.

By seven-thirty she had completed her walk, made coffee, and completed half of the bagel Jackson had bought the day before.

She was wondering how she might spend the next two hours when a car pulled up to the cabin.

“Ms. Bannister?”

A fresh-faced young man emerged from the innocuous black sedan, which seemed to have been built for no other purpose but to avoid detection.

She thought she remembered him from Bay St. Lucy High School.

“Ms. Bannister?”

“Yes?”

“I’m Terry Anthony. I was a senior last year.”

“Oh yes, Terry, I remember you. You were on the A Honor Roll for the last two six week periods.”

He beamed.

“Yes, ma’am.”

“What are your plans, Terry?”

“I got accepted to The University of Mississippi.”

“Excellent.”

“I’m planning to go to law school. But for right now, this summer, I’m interning with Mr. Bennett. Just doing errands, and seeing a little bit about what a lawyer does.”

“You couldn’t do better.”

“No, ma’am. Anyway, that’s kind of why I’m here. To pick you up and bring you back into town.”

“I thought Jackson said it would be about nine.”

“Yes, Ma’am. But apparently a lot is going on. He thinks you need to come on in now.”

“I see. All right, then. I’ll get a few things together, and we can go.”

She went inside, packed her travel bag quickly with the change of clothes she had brought out and her toiletries, then returned to the car.

Terry was standing beside it, holding open the back door.

“Are you going to be my chauffeur, Terry?”

“Yes, Ma’am. Just get in and make yourself comfortable.”

“Thank you.”

She slid in, putting her things on the vacant seat beside her.

He started the car, then leaned back and said:

“Ms. Bannister?”

“Yes?”

“Mr. Bennett said I should give you something.”

“All right.”

“He said not to let it upset you.”

This upset her, but she still found the presence of mind to reply:

“I’ll try not to. What is it?”

“This newspaper. It hit the streets about an hour ago.”

He handed her a copy of what she immediately knew to be
The New York Times
, even before she saw the paper’s masthead or read the headline, which screamed:

DISASTER IMMINENT! MAJOR OIL INSTALLATION ON BRINK OF EXPLOSION!

By…Daruka Narang.

“Ok,” she whispered to herself, unfolding the paper in her lap while Terry eased the car out of the driveway. “Ok, let’s see what you wrote, Professor.”

She read as follows:

“According to unimpeachable data recently obtained from the main computer bank of Louisiana Petroleum’s flagship offshore drilling rig Aquatica, the installation stands on the brink of a major catastrophe, perhaps unparalleled in the history of environmental disasters. Due primarily to greed and mismanagement, at least eight crucial subsystems stand on the brink of near-simultaneous failures, the combination of which stand to unleash a devastating explosion of almost nuclear destructive potential, which will in turn unleash more than a billion gallons of pure crude oil into The Gulf of Mexico.”

“Wow,” she found herself muttering as the car wound its way toward the major highway back to Bay St. Lucy. “The man can write.”

The article continued:

“Eight Steps to Doomsday”:

1. Dodgy cement. The cement at the bottom of the main borehole has failed to create a permanent seal, so that gas and oil have already begun to leak through it into a pipe leading to the surface The cement formulation chosen––a less expensive and more easily applied brand––has clearly proven itself incapable of performing its crucial task.

2. Valve failure. The bottom of the pipe to the surface contains two valves designed to stop the flow of gas to the surface. Both have failed completely, although no one on Aquatica at this moment seems aware of the failure, or of the imminent danger arising from it.

3. Pressure tests misinterpreted. Six pressure tests have been carried out in the last three weeks, all of which should have served as warnings. All of these tests have, inexplicably, been either ignored or misinterpreted.

4. Leaks not spotted soon enough. Unexpected increases in the pressure in the well should have been spotted at least ten days ago by the crew at the surface. These increases have been occurring with ever heightening frequency during the last days, and have not been interpreted as leaks.

5. Third valve failure. A mixture of mud and gas has already begun seeping onto the floor of the ocean. This seepage should have been prevented by the blowout preventer which sits on the ocean floor at the top of the borehole. The blowout preventer––again, a less expensive model than should have been installed given the size of the gas field being dealt with––has completely malfunctioned.

6. Some moments before an actual explosion takes place, the crew of Aquatica will have the option of diverting mud and gas away from the rig, venting them safely through pipes over the side. Instead, as the system is now designed, the flow will be diverted to a device on board the rig designed to separate small amounts of gas from a flow of mud. This device is called a mud gas separator. The problem is that the mud gas separator currently in place is no more than one third the size necessary, given the volume of gas and oil involved. It will fail, and be overwhelmed immediately by escaping gasses.

7. Questionable gas alarm. The rig has an onboard gas detection system that should sound the alarm and trigger the closure of ventilation fans to prevent the gas reaching potential causes of ignition, such as the rig’s engines. This system HAS NEVER BEEN TESTED.

8. No battery for BOP. The anticipated explosion will almost certainly destroy the control lines the crew will be using to attempt to close safety valves in the blowout preventer. However, the blowout preventer has its own safety mechanism in which two separate systems should shut the valves automatically when it loses contact with the surface. Presently one of these systems seems to have a flat battery and the other a defective switch. Consequently, the blowout preventer WILL NOT CLOSE.”

Consequently, in light of these appalling observations, I cannot but call upon The Louisiana Petroleum Corporation to shut down its Aquatica operations immediately, and evacuate all personnel on board. The installation should remain isolated for at least forty eight hours, during which time no drilling should be done, and residues of gasses now trapped in precarious locations should be allowed to disperse. Following this cool down period, and only after a complete check of all available data has been undertaken by objective scientific observers, a select and highly trained team of maintenance engineers must be dispatched to Aquatica to begin the process either of repairing the institution, or, as painful as it may be economically to the corporation and its shareholders, of dismantling it entirely.”

“Note: it gives me, as a scientist who has spent a career studying the benefits and pitfalls of offshore oil drilling, no pleasure in reporting these findings. I can, on the other hand, be heartened by the fact that they come as predictions before the fact rather than regrets following it. At the present time, no lives have been lost, no oil has been spilled, and no damage has been done either to the Gulf of Mexico nor the residents of its coastal cities.”

“Time, though, is not on our side.”

Professor Daruka Narang

PhD. Chemical Engineering

The University of Louisiana at Lafayette

This was the lead story in
The New York Times.

A second story, though, ran some inches below it:

“WOULD BE WHISTLE BLOWER MURDERED”

“
The Times
has learned that a young engineer assigned to Louisiana Petroleum’s offshore vessel Aquatica was brutally murdered three nights ago, possibly as retribution for his attempts to report safety violations occurring aboard the installation. Edgar Ramirez, a recent graduate of The University of Louisiana at Lafayette, had returned to his family from a two week stint on the vessel, and was apparently attempting to contact authorities to make clear his findings. He was attacked scant hours before he was able to do so, then drugged and thrown into a drainage canal, where he drowned.”

“The body of young Ramirez,
The Times
has also learned, was then discovered by a resident of Bay St. Lucy, retired teacher and high school principal, Nina Bannister. It was Ms. Bannister who, along with fourteen year old Hector Ramirez, the victim’s younger brother, took it upon herself to go to Aquatica, locate the hidden ‘flash disk’ on which Ramirez had recorded his findings, and transfer it personally to Professor Daruka Narang, who wrote the above article.”

“Final note: when this reporter remarked to Ms. Bannister at the conclusion of their personal interview: “Nina Bannister,
you are one brave woman. And everybody on the Gulf Coast may owe you more than they realize. As well as those folks on Aquatica….”

…Ms. Bannister answered simply: ‘I do what I can.’

‘What you can,’ Ms. Bannister, is quite a bit.

Quite a bit indeed.”

SPECIAL TO
THE NEW YORK TIMES

ELIZABETH COHEN

Okay,
thought Nina.
So I’m famous
.

She let that thought circulate through her mind during the half hour ride back to Bay St. Lucy, and had to be called out of a mental haze by her driver, Terry, who was trying to communicate with her.

“Ms. Bannister?”

“I’m sorry…”

“Ms. Bannister? I think maybe you were napping. I’m sorry to bother you.”

“No, not napping. Just thinking about what it’s like to be splashed over the front page of
The New York Times
.”

“Yeah! I guess that’s got to be pretty exciting.”

“Well, it’s pretty something.”

“It’s just that Mr. Bennett had some kind of instructions for when we get into town. And we’re only a mile or so out right now.”

“What instructions?”

“He asked me to have you wear these.”

“Sunglasses?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Oh, my God. Why do I have to wear sunglasses?”

“I guess he doesn’t want anybody recognizing you.”

“Is it that bad?”

“I don’t know, ma’am. Things have been pretty chaotic this morning. Mr. Bennett can’t seem to get off the phone. People are coming into town from all over.”

“Louisiana Petroleum people?”

“Yes, Ms. Bannister, and lots of others, too. There’s a kind of panic going on. And also Mr. Bennett thought…”

“Yes, go ahead, Terry, out with it.”

“He thought it might be best if you kind of scrunched down in the seat.”

“Scrunched? Is that a word?”

“It’s the word he used. I guess he means for you to…”

“I know what he means. But I’m only five feet four. I’m scrunched when I’m sitting up straight. Besides, the car has tinted glass windows.”

“Yes, ma’am. I’m only telling you what he told me.”