Dismas Hardy: Nothing But The Truth Part 50

On Friday, 26 March, Governor Damon Kerry signed into law a bill outlawing the use of MTBE in California. The bill - nicknamed 'Bree's law' by the media - was the culmination of the governor's main legislative effort of his first three months in office, and was popularly viewed as a political and moral victory against the powers of big oil and special-interest lobbyists. Kerry was cleaning up the state house, cleaning the state's water supply. There was already talk of a national campaign in his future.

Al Valens saw to it that the results of Bree Beaumont's report blasting ethanol and all other oxygenates never made it to the governor's desk. In fact, the law's preamble praised the EPA for mandating the use of oxygenates in reformulated gasoline. The state's air had improved under the oxygenated formulas, and was now at its cleanest in decades. Oxygenates, such as ethanol and MTBE, had proven effective in reducing air pollutants. Unfortunately, the petroleum additive MTBE had been shown to be carcinogenic. Other oxygenates, notably ethanol, were available in sufficient quant.i.ty to supply the state's needs. MTBE's ever-increasing presence in the ground-water of California const.i.tuted a considerable and ongoing health hazard, and from this date forward, its use would be aggressively phased out.

Two weeks later, at the Spader Krutch Ohio shareholders' meeting, held in Cincinnati, CEO Ellis Jackson proudly read aloud from the annual report, embellis.h.i.+ng for his audience where it seemed appropriate.

'Regarding ethanol production, I am delighted to report that the latest battle in the war between the Middle East and the Midwest has turned for the moment in our favor. The increased demand for ethanol as a gasoline additive in many states, but particularly in the huge California market, has spurred the US government to continue its exemption of the federal fuel tax on ethanol. In addition, the government has guaranteed to buy every barrel of surplus corn-ethanol produced in this country well into the next millenium.'

This brought a huge round of applause.

'... of course has not come without its costs. The corporation's state and federal lobbying and education efforts on behalf of the ethanol subsidies during the fiscal year amounted to eight point six million dollars. Of course, last year was an election year. We supported political campaigns in all twenty-three states that held elections, and it is a great pleasure to report that seventy-two per cent of our candidates succeeded to elective office.

'As our political influence increases, so inevitably will our lobbying costs. But this figure pales in comparison to the forty-five million dollars profit - I repeat, this is a profit figure - generated by sales of ethanol last year in the United States. With its recent banning of MTBE, California's use of ethanol is expected to multiply exponentially in the short term. And we are seeing similar campaigns in many other regions of the country.'

Jackson refrained from reading the next sentences aloud. They read: 'Unfortunately, the markets in California and other states remain undersupplied because of our continued inability to provide ethanol in sufficient quant.i.ty and, without the government subsidy program, at a profitable cost. However, research on this problem is ongoing. Currently, without government a.s.sistance, real costs of producing ethanol - wages, refinery costs, tractor fuel to plant and harvest the corn - average about one dollar per gallon, or roughly twice as much as gasoline. Fortunately, governmental tax credits keep us compet.i.tive, but clearly, this is an area that needs improvement.'

But it was as though these lines had never been written. Jackson continued smoothly, his voice ringing with confidence.

'Ethanol profits next year will be in the range of a hundred million dollars, and if we can increase our production to meet the needs of the market, in the not-too-distant future, we can predict profits that may well reach half a billion dollars per year!'

Ellis Jackson waited as applause rocked the room. Finally, grinning broadly, he held up his hands and the noise subsided. The CEO leaned into the microphone. 'Ladies and gentlemen,' he crowed triumphantly, 'it's been one h.e.l.l of a year!'

On the following Sat.u.r.day, 17 April, the Hardy kids were spending one last day at their grandparents' house.

Now, an hour before dusk, Dismas and Frannie were working mostly in silence, finis.h.i.+ng up the last of the unpacking in their newly designed kitchen. Skylights, white cabinets, and fifty additional square feet they'd borrowed from the rooms at the back of the house gave the s.p.a.ce an airy, open feel.

They had finally come around to accepting the Chinese position that disaster and opportunity derive from the same symbol. And so, retaining the original home's footprint, they'd gone up. Over the first floor, they'd added a new master bedroom and bath. This freed up enough s.p.a.ce to convert their old bedroom into a family room. This meant no more television in the living room, a long-awaited goal - now rational and uninterrupted conversation might have a chance to transpire there.

Hardy had installed a new, enlarged fish tank - sixty gallons - into the wall between the kitchen and the family room behind it, so that it could be enjoyed from either side. He'd bolted an old marlin fishhook into the wall above the new stove and on it - in easy reach - hung his cast-iron pan, which glistened black with reseasoning and a fresh rub with olive oil.

They'd stored as much as they could in the back rooms during the construction and over the past three days had done most of the heavy moving. Now, the new furniture graced the living and dining rooms. Three new ones and the one surviving Venetian gla.s.s elephant caravaned again on the mantel. The new bed upstairs sported a wedding-ring quilt they'd discovered together in an antiques shop on a family trip to Mendocino one weekend.

Tapped out, even with the insurance money, they were broke as newlyweds after the honeymoon.

Hardy finished stacking a load of dishes into one of the cupboards and turned around, surprised to find himself suddenly alone. He pushed open the door to the dining room and walked through it, pa.s.sing the st.u.r.dy and graceful Shaker table and chairs. A dozen coats of lemon oil still hadn't completely eradicated the smell of carbon from the old sideboard, but the old piece was a comforting presence, some connection to what had been before.

The sun was low and its light streamed through the shutters in the bay windows, illuminating the living room. Frannie was sitting forward on the ottoman in front of what Hardy thought might become his reading chair, although it was still far from broken in, too new to tell.

'You OK?'

She smiled politely, quickly. 'Just taking a break.'

Standing in the opening between the two rooms, he studied her face for a minute, then pulled a chair from behind him and sat so that he was facing her.

'It's beautiful, isn't it?' she said.

Feet planted, elbows on his knees, Hardy took it in - the s.h.i.+ning hardwood floors, the Navajo rug, the blond leather couch, a handful of tasteful new accessories, some art. With the addition over them, they'd been able to raise the ceiling to over nine feet. Frannie was right - it was a little eclectic, vaguely Santa Fe, but it all fit together well.

'We do good work.'

His phrasing struck her and the ambiguous smile returned, flitted, disappeared.

'What?' he asked.

'We do, you know. Do good work together.'

'That's what I just said.'

'Yes, but the difference is that I mean it.'

He looked levelly at her. 'I do, too, Frannie.'

She hesitated, then stood up and walked to the shutters, where she stood for another minute before turning back to him. 'Real life is going to start again here on Monday. Just the four of us.'

'I know that.'

'School, kids, all the household errands, your work. I don't want to get where we were before.' She gestured around their new home. 'If I don't have you, I don't want any of this - I mean it. I'd give it all away tomorrow if you start to feel now that you have to work every single minute to pay for it, if it's too great a burden.'

His hands had gotten clenched. 'It wasn't the work.' He blew out through his cheeks. 'The work was escape.'

'From what?' The next he barely heard. 'From me?'

He lifted his shoulders, then let them down heavily. 'I don't know. It was all of a piece. I think I forgot we were doing this together.'

This struck a chord and she broke a small laugh. 'Well, at least we did that together. But, you know, I never did lie to you. I never have.'

'I know that.'

'Do you, really? Because it's true.'

He considered it, then let out a long breath. 'I never really believed it, Frannie. It was just difficult to understand.'

'I know,' she said. 'I'm so sorry for that.' She took a tentative step toward him. 'So maybe we can start over? New house, new att.i.tude.'

'I've been trying.'

She came the rest of the way to him. 'I know. I have, too. These past few months with Ed and Erin - they've been good. But it wasn't the routine like the four of us at home. And I think the routine is what gets to you.'

Hardy eventually answered her. 'You think right.'

'So it's going to start again.'

He tried to make light of it. 'Not till Monday.'

But she wasn't giving it up. 'So what are we going to do?'

Another sigh. 'How about if you need to confide in somebody, you come to me?'

'I could try that. If you'd listen.'

'That sounds fair.' He met her eyes. 'But how about, also, a little balance between kid things and adult things? I'm not asking for the moon here - say seventy thirty, maybe a date every couple of weeks?'

Frannie had to acknowledge his point. 'I know. It got a little too much. That was me.' She straightened him up and sat on his lap. 'But I'm still going to have friends, and some of them are possibly going to be men.'

Now Hardy almost smiled. 'I wouldn't want to stop you. Friends are good. It's possible I'll have a few myself, females I mean. Though it's not as likely as you and men.'

'I don't know,' she said. 'Some women like that old, rugged look.'

'I don't think it would be a looks thing. And what do you mean, old?'

'Well, not real old, more like mature, stately.'

'Stately. I like that.' He kissed her, well and good. When it stopped fifteen seconds later, he pecked her again. 'Stately that,' he said.

'I believe I will,' she said.

And standing, taking his hand, she led him back past the dining room, through their kitchen, up the stairs to their new bedroom.

The next day, Sunday, a strong, sea-scented breeze blew in off the ocean, but the sky was a deep blue and the temperature was s.h.i.+rtsleeves.

All four of the Hardys and most of their friends and relatives had gathered to celebrate the move - Glitsky, his father Nat and his son Orel; David Freeman; Ed and Erin Cochran; Moses McGuire, his wife Susan Weiss, and their son; Pico and Angela Morales and two of their kids; Max, Ca.s.sandra, and Ron Beaumont, and his girlfriend, Marie.

The Hardys' backyard was a long and narrow strip of gra.s.s bordered by rose bushes. The area was between two medium-rise apartment buildings that, fortunately, caught the afternoon sun.

It was a pot luck, and everyone except Freeman had brought a pot of something - chili, spaghetti, cioppino, Irish stew. All of it, with salads and breads and the pony keg of beer, was on the picnic table. Now, after the house tour and the oohs and aahs, the drinks and first plates of food, Glitsky gave Hardy a look and the two of them went inside the house to admire the crown moulding. Or something.

In fact, they went all the way through the house and out on to the new porch, which was twice as wide as its earlier counterpart. Hardy sat on the new railing, but hadn't gotten comfortable yet when the front door opened and David Freeman appeared, brandis.h.i.+ng a cigar.

'I thought I'd just step outside for a smoke.'

'You already were outside, David,' Hardy said. 'In the back.'

But the old man clucked at that. 'Children. Second-hand smoke. Hurts their young lungs. If you fellows want privacy, though...'

Hardy looked the question to Glitsky, who shrugged. It didn't matter. 'If you can keep a secret.'

'It's my life's calling,' Freeman responded, straight-faced.

'What?' Hardy was facing Glitsky.

'I've known about this for a couple of weeks now,' Glitsky said, 'but I wanted to wait until today to tell you. Something about the symmetry of it all.'

'Notice how he strings it out,' Hardy said to Freeman.

'I was just admiring that,' the old man responded.

Glitsky rarely smiled, but Hardy decided that the expression he wore now would qualify as a decided smirk. 'I will not beg,' he said soberly.

'It's about Baxter Thorne.'

'All right,' Hardy conceded, 'I might beg a little.'

Within a week of the election, during which time Glitsky's search task force had been unable to unearth even a shred of evidence relating the Pulgas Water Temple attack to Thorne or to his company, the FMC offices in the Embarcadero had closed for good. Although police investigators had asked Thorne to stay in touch, two days after FMC shut its doors, he was gone without a trace or forwarding address.

Hardy didn't know what he had planned to do with Thorne if he ever did catch up with him. Getting his wife and family resettled at the grandparents had kept him from seeking Thorne out until it was too late. By the time Hardy tried to contact Thorne again, the man had fled.

Glitsky, though disappointed that he hadn't gotten another crack at him, thought that all in all it probably was good news for Hardy that Thorne had left town. It had never been one of Glitsky's goals to arrest his friend for homicide, even justifiable homicide.

There was an attempted burglary,' Glitsky said, 'two weeks ago tomorrow at the Georgetown home of a senator from the great agricultural state of New Jersey, who had recently announced his decision to lead the fight against the exemption on federal fuel taxes on ethanol. No one was supposed to be home, but the maid had stayed behind and was sleeping in her quarters upstairs when the break-in occurred. She kept a loaded gun in the nightstand by her bed. You might have read about it.'

'Thorne,' Hardy said.

Glitsky nodded. 'Unidentified for a couple of days, and by the time he was, it wasn't news anymore. It wasn't as if the senator's wife shot him or something to give it a profile, so it was just another bad-luck break-in. But since I'd put him on the wire as wanted for questioning, I got a call from Georgetown PD. Your man Mr Thorne is no longer, as they say, among the quick.'

Hardy eased himself off the railing. 'Well, there it is,' he said. Then, after a pause. 'How come I'm not happier about this?'

'It's a sad thing, that's why, somebody dying.' Freeman was lighting up his cigar. 'It's always sad when somebody dies.'

The sun had gone down. Ron and Marie and the two kids waved and shouted their goodbyes from the front gate on their way out and their laughter echoed back, bouncing off the apartment buildings, as they trekked to their car.

Hardy stood with his arm around Frannie on the porch. She leaned into him, and said that if she were him, she'd feel pretty good about the Beaumonts.

'They seem happy,' he admitted.

'That's not what I'm saying.'

'No, I know.'

In fact, he knew more than Frannie did. In the immediate aftermath of his investigation, to satisfy his own curiosity, he'd followed up on Ron Beaumont's story about his first marriage. The original custody hearing and eventual judgment had been big enough news in Racine, but the kidnapping itself had captivated most of the Midwest for a couple of weeks. It had been relatively easy to follow the story until it became by definition old news and disappeared from print.

Not so simple had been following the trajectory of Dawn's life. In all the newspaper reports on both the custody hearing and the kidnapping, Max and Ca.s.sandra's mother had been Dawn Brunetta. No one by that name lived anywhere near Racine any longer. Finally Hardy had called Ron and asked him if his ex-wife had used a professional name. Sure, he'd said - Amber Dawn.

A sergeant in Glitsky's detail named Paul Thieu had come up through missing persons and still prided himself on being able to find anyone in the known world. Hardy, keeping the reasons for his interest to himself - some client - bet Thieu a case of good wine that he couldn't find a p.o.r.nographic actress who in the last ten years had worked under the name Amber Dawn.

And even for a motivated and experienced Paul Thieu, it had taken nearly a month. Amber Dawn, aka Dawn Brunetta, born Judy Rosen, had died of a speedball overdose in Burbank in 1996. In the last five years of her life, she had worked intermittently as an administrative a.s.sistant and actress with a now-defunct company called Bustin' Out Productions, which had done business out of a warehouse in Van Nuys.

Her birth certificate and other personal effects had been in the apartment she shared with a thirty-year-old actor named Dirk Balling, real name Jon Stanton. She had been forty-five years old - five years older, Hardy realized, than she'd told Ron.

Thieu wanted to know if Hardy wanted to get copies of any of her movies. He'd located seven of them in which she'd had supporting roles. He could probably find more for another case of wine, although getting the actual copies might take a little digging. Hardy thanked Thieu for his efforts, gave him his case of mixed Cabernets, and told him he'd take a pa.s.s. He had what he needed.

Now, on his porch, he tightened his arm around his wife. He heard his own children playing some made-up game back in the house. Laughing, running around, getting crazy and loud. It was going to get louder, out of control, any minute. He kissed the top of her head, and gave her a smile.

'My turn,' he said.

The End.