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“Apparently, a hotline to Batman.”
He hit the green button. Within two seconds, Robie answered.
“Yes?”
“Need some help. Wondering if you could provide it?”
“Tell me what it is and I’ll see what I can do.”
“We’re looking for a guy who used to work at the Air Force station here. First name Ben, last name unknown.”
“Is he military?”
“Yes. We learned that the DoD pulled out the military component and outsourced the work to a firm named Vector. You know them?”
“Why is this guy important?” said Robie, ignoring the query.
“He told a guy I trust that we were sitting on a ticking time bomb here. So I want to talk to him.”
“I’ll see what I can do.”
“One more thing.”
“Yeah?”
“Irene Cramer. Any idea why the Feds are interested in her?”
The line went dead.
Jamison glanced at Decker. “Well?”
“Not sure. I might have just said something I shouldn’t have.”
They drove past the western edge of the Brothers’ Colony, where they saw colorful oil rigs erected along the way with trailers and trucks and lots of activity.
Decker read the sign erected in front of one rig nearest the Air Force property:THE ALL-AMERICAN ENERGY COMPANY. Two large Stars and Stripes were suspended from tall flagpoles and flapping in the breeze. Decker said drily, “Well, that’s patriotic.”
“What could be more American than drilling for oil?” quipped Jamison.
* * *
Kelly said, “We’ve had a BOLO out on Parker from the minute we found him missing. There’s been no sign of the guy.”
They were walking to the room where the postmortem had been performed by Walt Southern on Pamela Ames.
“I guess around here there are lots of places to get rid of a body,” said Jamison.
“Yep. We got landfills full of crap that they add to every day, including some radioactive stuff that comes naturally out of the drilling process.”
“Radioactive,” said Jamison. “And they can just dump that in a landfill?”
“Well, they’re not supposed to. But people aren’t supposed to do lots of things and they still do.”
“That’s why we have a job,” grumbled Decker.
As they entered the room Southern was finishing up some notes in a paper file.
He eyed Decker warily. “Heard you came by to look at Cramer’s body while I was out of town.”
