Copyright 2001 by Morris Rosenthal
Colin picked up Eric and Connie at four, for the meeting with a detective he knew at the Springfield Police Headquarters. They discussed all the possible scenarios on the way down, Colin worried that nobody would buy into the truth that neither of them actually entered Fourteen building, that the photograph was just a fluke. The supporting evidence of the gap alongside the door had of course vanished with the rest of the building, leaving just a cracked and pitted concrete slab. Somehow, they both missed the scenario where the police arrested Eric as soon as he identified himself, on suspicion of illegal dumping and arson, which was exactly what happened.
"I'm really sorry about this fellows," Detective Plinchard apologized, "The warrant came down from upstairs. If we hurry you over to the Judge now, you can get bail set, and not have to spend the night here."
After a hasty consultation, Colin convinced Eric that it would be better to get the process started than to sitting around arguing, which would get them nowhere. Procedure required that Eric be taken away in cuffs, and Colin postponed going over the details with Plinchard until after the hearing. He took Connie around the corner to a bank machine, where they each withdrew the limit of $500 in the hope that they could make bail for Eric immediately. Then they went and waited around the courtroom, watching the usual afternoon traffic of shoplifters and vandals, waiting for Eric's turn.
When it finally came, a lawyer from city hall approached the bench with his leather grip, and produced something for the judge to inspect. There was a whispered argument, the lawyer pleading and the judge looking disgusted, which concluded with the lawyer returning the evidence to his grip, and stalking out of the court. The judge turned to the court reporter and gave him the legalese for "insufficient cause for detention," and Eric was set free without saying a word after less then two hours in captivity.
Plinchard swooped down to congratulate him even before he could make his way over to Connie. "Wasn't that fun," he tried to sound upbeat, "Now you've seen for yourself that the system really can work, hey?"
Eric shook his proffered hand and his head at the same time. "I'd really like to know what that was all about. Are they arresting all of the guards?"
They joined Colin and Connie, and Colin offered to treat them all to dinner, since he had five bills burning a hole in his pocket. "Let's go somewhere nice," he said, "Where we can talk."
"I know just the place," the detective offered. They ended up at Belugi's, probably the most expensive restaurant in the Valley that lets men in without a tie. Plinchard's '90 Caddy was probably the cheapest car in the lot, not that they got the chance to find out. The kid in the red jacket who parked it almost sneered when he was handed the keys, then the detective flipped his shield at him and said, "You take good care of my baby now, or Immigration will be paying someone a visit." The kid eased himself gingerly behind the wheel, praising the car broken English, and drove around the back at about three miles an hour.
Everyone in the restaurant seemed to know the Gourmet Detective, or rather all of the employees did. For his drink, he ordered the usual, which turned out to be an expensive single malt Scotch in a brandy snuffer. Colin and Connie split a carafe of the house wine, and Eric got a Bud. They placed their dinner orders when he drinks came, with Plinchard ordering for everyone except Eric, who to the horror of the waiter, insisted on a hamburger.
"I think the chef can figure out how to make one." Eric was in no mood for debating with a stuck-up waiter.
"I suppose he could mash some meatballs together," the man replied nasally, and made a dignified retreat to the kitchen.
"I'm sorry," Eric said to the others, "I'm still a little queasy from the smell in the holding cell. I would have ordered bread and water, but it's already on the table."
"Yeah, about that," Plinchard began, after draining his entire Scotch without a blink, "Like I said, it was strictly a political thing." He looked around cautiously to see if anyone could overhear, but the booths were designed for privacy. There was maybe a one out of three chance that the FBI had the napkin holder bugged, he figured, but that's the risk you run if you want good food. He lowered his voice a bit all the same. "I shouldn't be telling you this," he said, with a significant look at Colin, "But we got an anonymous tip fingering Eric as the inside man for an illegal dumping operation." He glanced at Colin again, as if to check if he'd sung sufficiently for his dinner. Colin pretended not to notice.
"That's ridiculous," Connie leapt to his defense. "How can you just arrest someone on an anonymous tip? Whatever happened to questioning?"
"Questioning is what detectives do," Plinchard replied, the stress on detectives. "The idiots upstairs put their heads together with the morons in City Hall, and issued a warrant. You saw the judge chew out that legal eagle the mayor sent over. They're probably worried by now that you'll sue for false arrest."
Eric sipped his bear and grimaced. He hated drinking beer out of a glass.
"What was the tip?" he asked, "Just some guy calling up on the phone and saying, 'Arrest Eric Levy for the Wilkins Fire.' I know there can't have been any evidence, because I didn't do anything."
"It was a note," Plinchard confided, dropping his voice again, "I didn't see it myself, but supposedly it was pasted together out of words clipped from a newspaper, like a ransom note. Apparently someone is really anxious to remain anonymous." He shot another look at Colin, who gave him an encouraging nod, almost home. "The note was in a package with some items that got sent to the lab. The only other thing I hear about it was that a company called PDC was somehow involved. Supposedly they check out as being in the hazardous waste business."
"PDC," Eric said incredulously, "That's the place I got those checks from. For my poems," he added hastily. Then the significance of it all hit him. "Someone is trying to frame me! This is worse then a made for TV movie."
"Take it easy Eric," Colin admonished, "We'll work this thing out. Paul," he turned to the detective, "I was suspicious that something like this was coming when you guys arrested him on sight. Let's get to why we were coming to see you in the first place."
"I'm all for that," Plinchard replied, morosely swilling the ice around his otherwise empty glass. He was beginning to wonder if he should risk being seen with Eric, but the waiter glided up with a fresh glass, and any thoughts of early flight vaporized.
Colin produced the manila envelope that he had been carrying around all afternoon, and pulled out a series of photos, all developed from the same negative. He laid them out in a block between himself and Plinchard, and Eric could see from across the table that they were an improvement on what he had seen the night before. The clearest of the group clearly showed that there were at least ten rows of barrels of maybe twenty barrels each, filling the brightest area of the exposure. A pile of orange bags covered part of the chemical crop, and there was a suggestion of a large black square in the right side of the foreground.
"I took this photo two nights ago at Wilkins," Colin stated. "I've been working on a story about industries abandoning their responsibilities when they migrated south, and Eric let me come by and take a few pictures for color. He's sure," Colin indicated Eric with his wine glass, "That this building was completely empty after Wilkins ceased operations on the site. I went to see him last night to discuss coming to see you, but the place was in flames when I got there."
"Why didn't you call the police immediately when you saw that someone had been dumping all this crap," Plinchard asked angrily, "You must have known it was an illegal operation."
"We didn't know the stuff was there," Eric explained. "The building isn't on the round, there wasn't a Detex key in it. It would have taken me an hour to figure out which key opened the door."
"It was just dumb luck," Colin picked up the thread. "I got all the shots I wanted of the barrels in the basement, and I was just shooting off the rest of the roll into every dark crack I could fit the camera into. We used to do that with caves chambers we couldn't get into when I was into spelunking."
Even with two very stiff drinks in him, Plinchard looked mighty skeptical. "Kind of miraculous timing, wouldn't you say?" He examined the pictures again. "And this one lucky shot of yours was the only one on the roll to come out?"
"No, just the worst," Colin replied, and poured the rest of the photos out of the envelope. "This one," he narrated, pulling out a clear exposure of the blue and black drums half submerged in the basement water, "Is the shot I brought the camera for. The blue barrels contained cutting oil or used hydraulic fluid, something like that. This stuff, I'm sure, was left by Wilkins from when they were operating. It might even still be there, if the water protected it."
Plinchard grunted and flipped through the rest of the shots. Then he nodded. "O.K. You know I would have taken your word anyway," he addressed Colin, "But you better tell me all the details so we don't look stupid when it hits the fan. Was this your first visit to Wilkins?"
"Second," Colin replied. "I spotted the stuff in the cellar on the first visit when I came just to look the place over for background." He didn't mention that he had been on a scouting mission for Senator Hardwick. "I knew Eric through a mutual friend in Northampton, so he let me in as a favor. Most of the story is about paper mills, and some of the long term effects of all the chlorine and shit they dumped in the rivers."
"And you haven't done any investigating of Wilkins on the side," Plinchard looked at him narrowly.
"Everything I know is in Kearn's series in the Post," Colin replied. "I just thought that basement shot would make a great eye-catcher."
"How about you," the detective turned to Eric, "What was this business about you getting money from PDC."
"I write poems as a hobby," Eric said, glad that Connie was with him. At least the cop wouldn't think that made him pansy. "I've been involved with some environmental activists, giving readings and stuff, and I've had a few of them published in the Green Valley and another magazine out in Boston. The woman who sort of, uh, 'discovered' me, told me that she got this PDC company to sponsor me, and she's given me some checks from them. Nothing big," he replied to the questioning rise of Plinchard's eyebrows, "Maybe six hundred dollars all told. And listen," he continued, "Someone must have conned her, because there's just no way she could be involved in something like this."
The detective pulled out his notebook for the first time and asked Eric her name. "Tess Bookman. She has an office at the Green Valley building." He pushed his empty glass to the side, and slugged the remaining beer directly out of the long necked bottle. "That's really all I know. I guess all the guards know that I've published some poetry, because, well, because I guess I bragged a little. I never even met anyone from PDC," he concluded, "I just took the checks from Tess."
Plinchard shrugged non-committaly, and turned his attention Connie, who had drank the lion's share of the wine. "I don't know a thing about any of this," she anticipated him, "Except that Eric hasn't done anything wrong." Her face was flushed from both the wine her rising temper. "And you can tell your boss at the police station that if he arrests Eric again, I'm going to buy an expensive lawyer and shove him up..."
"Connie," Eric overrode her loudly, "C'mon, your embarrassing me. Besides, Detective Plinchard didn't have any part in it. He's going to help us."
Both Plinchard and Colin were amused at her outburst, and Plinchard mumbled, "I'd like to be there to see it." Then the food began to arrive, and conversation took a back burner for the next fifteen minutes. Eric finished first, but turned Connie down on her offer to filch from her plate. His brush with incarceration really had put a damper on his appetite. He refrained from asking any questions until the others were done, not wanting to see Plinchard talking with food in his mouth.
Colin was the next one finished. "So how's the great brain train going," he asked solicitously.
Eric almost bit through the neck of his beer bottle. "I forgot about that actually," he admitted, then decided to make the best use out of the opportunity. "I've been thinking about this train meeting, Con," he started just as she took a bite, "And I'm really having serious doubts about it."
"No," she swallowed prematurely and cut him off, "And I don't want to talk about that right now."
He waited until she took another bite and started again. "I haven't been able to write anything, and the meeting is in four days." This time she settled for giving him a nasty look, and returned ostentatiously to her chewing . "You don't want me to make a fool of myself reading something really bad, do you?"
"As a trained observer of human nature," the detective put his napkin on his plate and pushed it aside, "I don't think she cares." He belched, and caught the waiter's attention to bring him a third oversized whiskey. "This that poetry business you were talking about?"
"Yeah," Eric replied sourly, "And I'm thinking of getting out of it." It's going to be a fun ride home in the car he was thinking. He'd intended to consult with Carol on how to handle backing out of the commitment, but they hadn't rescheduled his sessions since he'd returned to class and Engineering Economics had preempted their time slot. He would have liked to continue bringing her the income, but he guessed that his days of being "in therapy" were coming to a close.
The waiter appeared with another whiskey, and started clearing the plates. Plinchard held himself to a small first sip, now that he was almost completely satiated. "If we could get back to our mutual problem for the moment," his voice heavy with contentment, "Maybe you could suggest who might have set you up. Even if it's only an inkling of suspicion," he admonished, "Better to let me check it out quietly now, rather then later."
"It's not a strong feeling," Eric exhaled deeply, "But the guard who's missing, he's been acting kind of funny all summer. Nervous, like." He paused, remembering. "In fact," he started again with more conviction, "I remember his asking if I was planning to make a living as a poet, right after I got the first check from PDC. I thought he was just being a wise ass, but I told him about how I had gotten this sponsor. I'd forgotten until just now, because it didn't seem significant."
"Checking to see if the frame was hung right," Plinchard nodded sagely.
"What was the guards name?"
"Anthony Bovine," Eric answered, feeling an unfamiliar hatred buzzing in his head. That had to be it. "I made him put some stuff he was stealing back once," Eric said, "And he's probably had it in for me ever since. I can't believe he took me in so completely."
"It's more comfortable for most people to be trusting than suspicious," Colin said philosophically. "Guys like Paul and I are built the other way around. I actually get confused sometimes when I'm around people who aren't trying to hide anything."
"Amen to that," the detective said. "Cops and reporters are a breed apart." The table fell silent again. Plinchard was too comfortable to ask any more questions. Connie was trying to nurse a sulk. Eric was thinking about all the little indications he'd ignored that the Ant was up to no good, and Colin was trying to figure out how supposedly honest men could charge $18.95 for a hamburger. In the end, Connie insisted on splitting the bill with him, and they rode back to the police station together in the scratch free Caddy.