The Hangman's Beautiful Daughter (16 page)

"Not much," said Tavy.

Carlsen retreated to his texts. "Now, let's see what we've got here. Chlorine, sodium, potassium, iron—those aren't any big deal. In high concentrations they might affect the water's 242

taste, but they aren't deadly. What you're going to be concerned with is mercury, dioxin, cadmium, and sulphur content."

Taw had put on his reading glasses, and was studying the report. "What's this BOD and COD?"

Carlsen smiled. "The letters are pronounced separately, Mr. McBryde. B-O-D: biological oxygen demand. C-O-D is chemical oxygen demand. These figures have to do with the ability of organisms to live in the water. The lower the number, the more oxygen the water can hold, which of course fish and plants need in order to survive."

"I don't know whether this is good or bad. Parts per million? Is this considered a low number?"

"No. It's pretty high. Bad news for the fish, I'm afraid." He smiled nervously. "Now, let's get to the chemicals. Mercury was formerly used in the manufacture of paper, but it isn't anymore. However, the mercury that was used was frequently dumped into the river during the manufacturing process. It's still there in the sediment, and it's still polluting the river. Mercury is pretty toxic. You know that phrase 'mad as a hatter'? Hatmakers used to use mercury in their craft, and exposure to it would eventually cause brain damage."

"Why don't they get the mercury out of the river, then?" asked Tavy.

"The companies claim that the cleanup would bankrupt them," said Carlsen in a carefully 243

neutral voice. "They also deny that trace elements of mercury constitute a hazard."

"I'll bet they take care not to live downstream from the plant, though," said Tavy.

Taw consulted the report. "What about this line? Dioxin? I've heard of that before. Didn't they have some big evacuation because of that?"

Carlsen shrugged. "Dioxin. That's a touchy subject. It's a by-product of the bleaching process of papermaking. So is sulphur. Some tests have shown that dioxin is a very potent carcinogen, but more recent studies indicate that it is much less of a health hazard."

"What do you think, Mr. Carlsen?"

"Well, I tend to agree with the more recent studies. I think it probably can cause cancer— hell, what doesn't?—but not in the minute concentrations they were claiming originally."

"But do you reckon the dioxin in the Little Dove River is a minute concentration?" said Tavy.

"According to EPA regulations, it's pretty high. So is the sulphur. The problem with sulphur is that it lowers the pH of the water, which decreases the ability of the water to hold oxygen."

"Kills the fish," said Taw.

"Pretty much."

Tavy scooted his chair close to Taw's and peered at the list of substances. "What about cadmium?"

"I'm not sure what its connection is with the paper company, but it is one of the more toxic 244

heavy metals. In fact, its use has been severely restricted in Japan and Europe."

Tavy looked up from the report. "So, now we have a bunch of numbers here in parts per million. Can you tell us what it means health-wise?"

"That's this book," said Carlsen. "We call it Sax, for short, after one of the authors. It explains the health hazards involved with each chemical." He could have told them informally, but that wasn't his job. Better to keep it an impersonal transaction: Quote the book, and let them consider the implications of the printed facts. That way Carlsen would be left out of the human equation.

"Now we're getting somewhere!" said Tavy softly. "Go down the list, Mr. Carlsen. Tell us what the book says."

"Cadmium. There's a lot of technical stuff here. It's toxic. Definitely a carcinogen. Mercury. See page 746 ... It causes liver damage. It's also a teratogen."

"What?" said Taw.

"Tumor causing," Tavy told him. "Now hush."

"According to this, it can cause reproductive effects as well," Carlsen continued. "You know, mutations."

"Birth defects," said Tavy. "And those misshapen fish in the Little Dove. What about di—

oxm

"Dioxin is a class of chemicals, not just one. There's more than seventy. The two most commonly found in paper mills are pentachlorophe-245

nol and trichlorophenol. They're high in your water sample, too, but it's hard to nail the company on that violation because the amount of the chemical allowed in waste water is determined by how much paper the company produces. The more paper they make, the more waste they're allowed. So if they exaggerate their production figures, the government can't touch them."

"Okay, what do those chemicals do to people?"

Carlsen shrugged. "The usual. They are carcinogens, teratogens, and mutagens."

Tavy leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes. "Cancer, tumors, and birth defects." He sighed. "Okay. We've got the bastards, right?"

"Got them?" said the lab manager.

"According to this water sample report of yours, Titan Paper is putting cancer-causing chemicals into the Little Dove River, exceeding the amount allowed by law. I want to know what we can do to them."

Jerry Carlsen hesitated for a moment, frowning more deeply than ever. Finally, he said, "Oh, hell! Look, that's a legal question, not a chemical one, so technically I don't have to give you an answer, and I'm certainly not an expert, but offhand I'd say . . . not much."

Tavy's weary expression did not change, but Taw reddened and burst out, "What do you mean, not much? They're guilty, aren't they?"

"It would be the job of the North Carolina EPA to crack down on the paper company. I 246

doubt if there is anything in this report that they don't already know about."

"So why haven't they stopped it?"

"Truthfully?" said Carlsen, looking nervously at the white face of Tavy Annis. "The paper company provides a lot of jobs to local residents, and it pays quite a bit of state and local taxes."

"It figures," said Taw, spitting out his contempt for all government with the words. "But they don't pay taxes in Tennessee, do they? Why doesn't our EPA nail them?"

"The pollution is not occurring in Tennessee. Bureaucratically speaking, it's none of our business."

Tavy sat up straight again, breathing anger. "None of our business? I got cancer. Can I sue the bastards?"

Carlsen picked up his cup of cold coffee, sipped it, and set it down again with a grimace. "Sir, anybody can sue anybody. But if you want my opinion, the paper company keeps squadrons of lawyers on retainer, and they will fight every motion, appeal every decision, and drag the case out for ten years easily. The legal fees would be staggering, and a decade from now, you wouldn't be much farther along than you are this minute."

"I haven't got that long," whispered Tavy. "I'm out of time, thanks to them."

Oakdale was a small village cemetery, with no iron gates to close against the darkness. Its frosted grass glistened at the flash of headlights

from an approaching car. Beyond that circle of light, the old tombstones stretched away into the darkness, like a range of tiny mountains, dwarfed by the spreading oaks above them. Dry leaves skittered silently in the wind.

As he swung the car between the two stone pillars at the entrance, Mark Underhill switched off the headlights so that no one would see their shine from some distant hill and wonder why there were lights in the graveyard so close to midnight. In the dead of night, he thought, and the image made him smile. He drove around the paved entrance encircling the fountain, and steered the car up a dirt track that led to the newer graves. There was a grove of trees at a fork in the road. He would leave the car there. Beside him, Maggie shivered in the stillness, and tried to think about being somewhere else.

He stopped the car and turned to face her. "Are you ready?" No one was within half a mile of the car, but still he whispered. His breath hung in the air between them, as if his soul had leaked out of his body.

Maggie looked down at her hands. "I could wait here, Mark."

"No. We don't have much time. You have to help me dig."

He hauled himself out of the car, slamming the door behind him. The shovels and hand tools were in the trunk. Maggie huddled in the passenger seat until he tapped on her window with the handle of the shovel, and motioned for her to come out. She crept from the car, cinching her coat more tightly about her, and fol-248

lowed him down the hill toward the family graves. The wind whipped at her legs and made her face tingle with numbness.

Mark walked ahead, with both shovels slung over his shoulder and his overcoat pockets bulging with heavy hand tools. He was treading on the bronze markers in his path as if he were unaware of their significance. He was alone. Regally alone. Oblivious to the dead beneath his feet, or to the stumbling footfalls of his little sister, treading behind him.

Maggie Underhill was humming an old hymn, one that she used to sing in choir. "I am weak, but thou art strong; Jesus keep me from all wrong ..." That song reminded her of Josh. He was always strong. When Daddy would yell at them or get out his belt, Maggie would always cry, and Mark would try to slip out of the room. Only Josh would stand his ground, waiting silently for the inevitable beating, not running and not crying. He would endure the beating with a faraway look on his face, showing no emotion at all, which only made the major angrier. It was as if Josh went somewhere else when he was being hurt, so that the welts were inflicted on an empty body. Maggie could never manage his detachment. She would always end up screaming, even though she knew her father savored her pain. Sometimes Josh tried to protect her. Even if he wasn't the one in trouble, he'd stay and say the infraction was his fault, hoping to get Maggie a reprieve. Like as not, it would get him a harder beating, and Maggie would get one anyway. They had long since 249

learned not to appeal to their mother when the major threatened them with punishment. She would shake her head and walk away. Sometimes she would even remind her husband of chores not done or infractions that occurred in his absence. Janet Underhill was no maternal refuge.

Paul Underhill had worn a wooden paddle as thin as a nail file disciplining his children. He made a ritual out of it. "Go and get Sergeant Rod," he would tell the offending child. He kept the homemade paddle on the fireplace mantel. Its handle was a foot long, and wrapped in black electrical tape to afford a better grip to the major when he hit his children with it. Its blade was painted red, but the paint had worn away over the years. It still hung in its accustomed place in the living room. Maggie wanted to throw it away, but she could not bring herself to touch it.

Maggie shivered in the darkness watching the shadowy form of her brother, trying to break frozen ground with his shovel. She wished Josh were here now. Then she would be all right. She didn't know whether Josh would go along with Mark or not—that was the trouble—but whatever he decided would be right, and then she'd know. She thought he might call her tonight before they left, but the telephone was silent. She began to hum louder, as if the sound could summon him here.

"Be quiet, Maggie!" Mark hissed at her in the darkness.

"Why?" she said in her normal tone of voice. 250

"There's nobody here, and according to you, we're just reclaiming our property, aren't we?"

He shrugged. "I guess. It distracts me. I need to concentrate." He looked out at the white shapes of distant stones beyond the trees. "I have a flashlight in my jacket pocket, but I don't want to use it if we can help it."

Maggie shuddered as a gust of wind caught her. "It's too cold."

"You'll be warm enough when you start digging," Mark whispered. "I've loosened the dirt now. We have to hurry. At least we won't be visible from the road."

She knelt in the frosted grass and picked up the other shovel. She pushed its blade into the earth with her foot, but the ground was hard, yielding only a few clods of dirt to her digging. Mark was stronger. He had managed to carve out a small hole below the bronze marker, and he was busy enlarging it, piling the soil in a mound behind him.

They worked in silence, punctuated by the rhythmic chunk and scrabble of the shovels. Maggie tried to keep thinking about Josh—not his body, lying under another of the bronze markers, but of the voice that spoke to her still. She wondered where he was and wished she were there, too.

The thud of shovel point against a flat surface startled her out of her reverie. Mark jumped down into the hole, which was only knee-deep, and began to probe the soil with his gloved fingers.

"Get the light," said Mark. 251

So dark and so cold. Mark and his shovel made a dark shape in the shallow excavation. She could not see what lay at the bottom, but the hole seemed no more than three feet long. Then she remembered that the oak casket lid was cut in two sections, so that the mortuary could open only the top portion for viewing at the funeral. A half perfection couch, the funeral director called it. Mark would only need to uncover the upper half of the casket. The muscles of her face were taut with cold. Maggie picked up the flashlight, switched it on, and stretched it out to her brother.

"No. You hold it. At least until I need you to help me. Shine it down at my feet."

"The hole isn't deep," she said, staring into the small circle of light below her. "I thought they were put in deeper than that."

"Just as well," said Mark. "I still have more to dig, though. I wonder which side the catch is on."

Maggie stood with her back to the wind, teetering on the edge of the opening grave, as he opened a narrow trench along one side of the casket. The light wobbled in her hands as she looked out across the empty field and up at the stars above the shadows of mountains. The stars over Hamelin shone as clear as ice pellets. She had never seen so many. No haze of city lights diluted their brilliance.

Mark tossed the shovel up on the bank, and squatted on top of the casket, feeling along the newly excavated side for the brass latch. "Found it!"

One by one, Maggie began to count the stars. 252

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