Con Law Part 42

'Professor!'

They jumped at the voice behind them. They turned and saw Jimmy John Dale holding a handkerchief that was as red as his jumpsuit. He glanced around and came closer. He gestured at Carla.

'You working with her now? She got you trespa.s.sing on private property?'

Carla hid the container behind her back.

'Jimmy John-'

He pointed toward the desert. 'G.o.dd.a.m.nit, get the h.e.l.l outta here before someone else sees you, calls the sheriff.'

They ran back up the rise to Carla's truck.

'That was a close call,' Book said.

'I've had closer. But we got a sample.' She held up the container. 'People will soon be drinking this toxic brew in their tap water.'

'I thought the EPA hadn't found any confirmed incidents of groundwater contamination, here or anywhere else?'

'Define "confirmed." Frackers don't have to disclose the chemicals they put down the hole, so how can those chemicals be traced to their wells if they show up in the tap water? They say there's no proof that the benzene or methane was from fracking. Fact is, there's been over a thousand confirmed incidents. The Bureau of Land Management found water wells in Wyoming's shale fields that contained fifteen hundred times the safe level of benzene. And the EPA's now supplying drinking water to people living in the frack fields in Pennsylvania. They found a.r.s.enic in their tap water. How'd you like to drink a carcinogen with your morning coffee?'

'Not so much.'

She pointed down at the well site.

'Eighty tons of toxic chemicals are going down that hole tonight-and most of it's going to be left down there to migrate to the aquifer or it's going to come back up and then be injected down disposal wells and allowed to migrate to aquifers. Does that make any sense? But the industry says, "Don't worry, we know what we're doing. It's all safe."'

She blew out a breath.

'They'll start collecting the flow-back in the morning, if the gas flows. I need a sample of what comes up the hole. It's usually worse than what goes down the hole. No sense in heading back to town, we'd have to turn right back to get here in time. I've got camping gear in the truck. A sleeping bag, gets cold out at night.'

'Only one sleeping bag?'

'It's a double.'

Chapter 30.

Book woke at dawn wrapped in a double sleeping bag, but he was a single. Carla was already up and at work, perched below the rise and peering through binoculars down at the well site.

'Coffee's made,' she said.

He unzipped the bag and got up then went behind the truck for his restroom duties. He came back and poured coffee into a tin cup. Carla was an experienced camper. He went over and squatted next to her.

'See the open pit? It's filling up with the brown water. That's the flow-back. Frack fluid that comes back up the hole. The frack fluid picks up riders down in the earth, stuff released by the fracking process, like radium, radon, methane. They'll pump it into those tankers and then haul it to the disposal wells, inject it into the earth like an addict injecting heroin. Nearest disposal wells are north of here, in Pecos County. I need a sample.'

'How?'

'I'm thinking.'

She thought most of the morning. When the last tanker truck left, Carla jumped up.

'Come on. I've got an idea.'

She went to the truck and rummaged through her belongings then pulled out a pair of shorts. She took off her jeans and put on the shorts. They drove the pickup back to the highway and pulled over. Carla got out and lifted the hood. She then rolled the legs of her shorts up until they were short-shorts. She reached inside the pickup and retrieved a jar with a lid.

'That last tanker truck will be along in a minute. Hide in the brush. When he stops, get a sample from the back of the tank. And wear the gloves.'

'What if other cars come by?'

She held her arms out to the vacant highway. 'We got rush hour, Professor.'

'How do you know he'll stop?'

'He'll stop.'

Book hid in the brush next to the highway and wondered if Carla knew what she was doing. He soon learned that she did. He heard the truck and ducked down. Carla stuck her head under the hood and her b.u.t.t out toward the highway, her long lean legs serving as a stop sign.

The truck stopped.

The Hispanic driver climbed out and walked over to Carla. Book heard him say, 'Senorita.' When the driver ducked his head under the hood, Book came out of the brush and ran to the rear of the tanker. He found a drain valve and filled the jar with foul-smelling brown water. He screwed the top on, peeked around the tanker, and ran back into the brush. Carla got into the driver's seat of the pickup and started the engine. She squealed like a teenage girl and thanked the driver profusely in Spanish.

'Gracias, gracias, hombre.'

The driver returned to the truck packing more than a set of keys in his pocket. He fired up the big tanker and drove off. Book came out of the brush with the sample.

'You're good.'

A black-and-white videotape played on the big screen in Billy Bob's office. Security cameras had caught Carla and the professor the night before, sneaking onto well site number 356 and collecting a sample of the frack fluid. Billy Bob stuffed a donut into his mouth then said, 'How many times is this with Carla?'

'Ten, twelve,' Willie said.

Willie Freeman was ex-military police turned security director for Barnett Oil and Gas.

'Now she's got a partner in crime.'

'That's the professor,' Billy Bob said. 'He's from Austin, came out here 'cause Nathan Jones wrote him a letter, said I was contaminating the groundwater.'

'We ain't contaminating the groundwater.'

'Nope.' He pointed at the screen. 'Who's that?'

One of his workers had caught the professor and Carla on the well site behind a tanker truck. The video showed him pointing toward the desert. The professor and Carla ran off the site.

'Jimmy John Dale,' Willie said.

'He working with Carla?'

'No.'

'Why'd he let them go?'

'The professor's been to Nathan's house, talking to his wife, couple times. Jimmy John was there each time. He and Nathan grew up here together. Best friends.'

'Boyfriends?'

'No. Jimmy John's a cowboy, straighter than an iron rebar.'

'Good. 'Cause I don't want queers on my rigs. Or wets. Or Longhorns. Or Democrats. Or-'

'I know the list, boss. You want me to do anything with this tape? Take it to the sheriff? Call Tom Dunn, tell him to get another restraining order against her?'

Billy Bob shook his head. 'We got nothing to worry about with Carla. She's chasing shadows. She ain't gonna find nothing in my slick water.'

'Standard slick water, Carla,' the lab tech named Randy said. 'No a.r.s.enic, no diesel fuel, just typical ingredients. It's all legal.'

's.h.i.+t.'

They had driven to Sul Ross State University on the east side of Alpine. Sul Ross was known for its ranch horse compet.i.tion team, but the university had a quality chemistry department as well. Randy was an a.s.sistant professor and a friend of Carla; he didn't hesitate when she called and asked him to come in on a Sunday afternoon.

'What about the flow-back?'

'Contains methane and benzene, but that's injected down disposal wells, also legal. Shouldn't be, but the EPA signed off on it. Heck, the government puts radioactive waste down disposal wells, why not frack fluid?' Randy shrugged his shoulders as if apologizing. 'Billy Bob's going by the book, Carla. I know you hate him, but he's no worse than any other fracker.'

'William Robert Barnett Jr., aka Billy Bob Barnett, was accused of tax fraud in two thousand one-he settled that case-securities fraud in two thousand four-he agreed to a cease-and-desist order-and got arrested in college for smoking dope.'

Book and Carla had stopped at the Alpine hospital to check on Nadine and found her propped up in bed, her left arm and right leg in slings, Book's laptop on her tray, and a long bendable straw in her mouth leading to a large soda water. She'd been investigating Billy Bob Barnett on the Internet.

'Hospital's got WiFi,' Nadine said.

'What else?'

'Food's okay, not so much the coffee.'

'About Billy Bob.'

'He's worth a hundred million dollars.'

'Lot of money.'

'He was worth five. His entire net worth is in company stock. Took the company public in oh-four, he got ten million shares. Stock opened at twenty, peaked at fifty in oh-eight, now it's down to ten.'

'What happened?'

'Gas prices plunged, from a high of eleven dollars per thousand cubic feet in oh-eight to under two dollars today.'

'Quite a drop.'

'Glut of gas on the market. His company's all in on shale gas, so the stock price rises and falls with the natural gas futures market.'

'So if the government shut the company down because its fracking was contaminating the groundwater-'

'Billy Bob Barnett wouldn't have a pot to p.i.s.s in, to use the West Texas vernacular,' Carla said.

'Might be a motive for murder.'

'Actually, it's worse,' Nadine said. 'Billy Bob pledged his stock for a one-hundred-million-dollar personal loan when the stock price was worth twenty. If it drops below ten, the bank can foreclose on its collateral-his stock. He'll lose everything.'

'Big loan.'

'He likes the good life-private jet out at the Marfa airport, homes in River Oaks and Santa Barbara, three ex-wives and five kids to support. So he's heavily in debt personally and his company's revenues are down and fracking expenses are up. He's being squeezed from both ends. And his board deferred his bonus-ten million dollars.'

'That would put a dent in my cash flow,' Carla said.

'He can't raise the price of gas, the market sets that. So his only course of action would be to cut expenses.'

'By cutting corners,' Carla said.

'And his shareholders are putting a lot of pressure on him to boost the stock price.'

'He's a desperate man.'

'That's good work, Nadine. How'd you find all that information on the Internet?'

'Professor, I'm twenty-three. My generation might not know current events, but we know our way around the Internet.'

'Call Henry. Professor Lawson. Explain the situation to him, ask him what Billy Bob might do to cut corners.'

'Other than murder Nathan Jones?'

Book nodded. 'Other than that.'

Book's phone rang. He checked the caller ID. Joanie. He answered.

'Book, Mom wandered off again. The police found her at a strip joint.'

'They're open on Sundays?'

'Book, she walked all morning.'