Environmental Hazards Ch. 01

"So Jimmy Shell, stickler for the rules, worked for Dave Magdalene, the worst abuser of the rules in the State EPA's history. Yes, I know that for a fact." I said. "Then Jimmy jumped ship."

"Yes sir." said Krueger. "All the stuff with Magdalene happened well after Shell left Dreschel Magdalene. Anyway, Jimmy Shell's evaluation reports with FENL were a mixed bag... he was considered a good chemist, but a lousy employee and not liked by his peers. It was his lack of interpersonal skills that allowed him to be denied transfers back to the various Engineering departments of the Company, though others had successfully made those transfers."

"Sounds like he wasn't much of an employee." said Cindy. "So why didn't they just fire him?"

I said "Firing people is expensive, even without a Union fighting them every step of the way, as we know from our Sharples experiences. Many companies just make it so miserable on an employee that they just find another job and quit. However, Environmental Chemistry is what I call the 'black hole' of Chemistry jobs, even with a Masters degree; it's truly the bottom of the totem pole. There is a huge stigma attached to environmental chemists; manufacturing chemists try hard to not hire environmental chemists. It is hard as hell for environmental chemists, especially with only Bachelor's degrees, to get out of the hole."

"The managers know that," I went on, "and abuse the hell out of their employees; they believe those employees have no other place to go. The employees that took an environmental lab job out of School find out soon enough that they've made a near-fatal mistake, and are in a hole they almost can't get out of. The only things they can do are find another, completely different line of work, or go back to School. I wasn't in Environmental Chemistry but working in a Crime Lab, and I still started my own outside business, all of which led to being in the Police Force now. And I do feel sorry for those poor dumb suckers who are stuck in those Environmental Chemistry jobs right now."

"Yes, but how do you really feel about it?" Cindy asked, sensing the passion welling up inside me about it. Everyone laughed and I smiled and nodded.

"You were saying, Lt. Krueger?" I asked, to get this train back on the tracks.

"Yes, sir." said Krueger. "Okay, Forbes Environmental National Laboratories is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Forbes & Sehgal Engineering. Jeremy Forbes created the lab as a separate entity, then merged it into Forbes & Sehgal when their engineering firms merged about ten years ago. The Lab Manager is Paul Brandon, whom we met today---"

"Wait a second." I said. "Is he the Lab Manager for all the labs, or just the one in the City and the annex down here?"

"He's listed as the Lab Manager over all the labs." said Krueger. "They have other labs in Florida and a brand new one in Phoenix, Arizona, and Brandon is listed as the Manager of them, as well."

"Wow, another lie he told me." I said. "He said he was only the manager of the ones here. Okay sorry to interrupt; keep going."

"Brandon has been with FENL for six years, all of it as Lab Manager." said Krueger. "Before that, he was Manager of a small lab that went bankrupt, and before that he was in chemical sales. That company would only confirm he worked for them and the dates of his employment."

"What was the lab that went bankrupt?" I asked.

"It was called Dreschel Advanced Chemistries, Inc." said Krueger. "And no, Dave Magdalene was not a part of it. The owner was the same Dreschel that was part of Dreschel Magdalene, but we're having trouble getting records on him... he's like a ghost. Maybe a venture capitalist that was seeding these labs."

"Could well be." I said.

Krueger started his report again: "The Chief Chemist is Robert Ferris---"

"Ferris!" exclaimed Cindy. "He's the cat whose wife died in the Crown Chemicals case. The cold case we looked at, with the PCGW?" (Author's note: The Phyllis Files, Ch. 01.)

"Oh yes, I remember." I said. "Was it FENL he was working for then?"

"I... I thought he was managing his own lab." Cindy said. "I'll need to check my old notes or call your mom and see if she remembers."

"Yeah, let's nail that one down, too." I said. "Okay, Lt. Krueger, we've abused you with interruptions, for which I apologize."

"No problem, sir, if it'll help solve this murder." said Krueger. "Last, but not least, the Quality Control Manager is a guy named Clifford Ewing. He's an older man, nearing retirement, and has been with FENL since it started up. He's been in Quality Control positions at other companies, and the State EPA has consulted with him in the past. He's even testified in Court in a few cases, as he's good at explaining in layman's terms just what a problem is."

Krueger then continued: "As to the company itself, the Engineering firm tries to claim status as a national engineering powerhouse, and they have offices in major growth areas of the country, including Charlotte, Atlanta, Dallas-Ft. Worth, Houston, Phoenix, and Minneapolis, which serves the North Dakota growth areas."

"They're in pretty tight with politicians, including U.S. Senator Samuel Russell of this State." continued Lt. Krueger. "On their board sits a former U.S. EPA Director, a former State EPA Director, a former U.S. Ambassador, and a former Army Corps of Engineers General."

"So it's no big surprise that they landed the Pine Valley Development project." said Chief Soltis. "Big name, big strings to pull."

"So anything behind the façade?" I asked.

"Just one little thing." said Krueger. "SBI Agent Chow had an insight, and grabbed not only Jimmy Shell's pay records, but the pay and financial records of all FENL employees and their laboratory accounts in and out. And a strange things pops out." He put up a form with numbers.

"This is the Inorganics, or Wet Lab, monthly report." said Krueger. "All of the employees assigned to this lab are salaried, so the salary allotment for the lab should always be constant, yes? But look at this..." He began showing us each month's report going back for several months. The salary figures changed from month-to-month.

"Why is that happening?" asked Cindy.

"No idea." said Soltis. "Commander?"

"You know..." I said, "tomorrow is Friday. I think we need to ambush the lab annex down here, and ask the employees some questions. Don't say anything about this anomaly, but we have some questions to ask about how they fill out their time sheets. And we may need a warrant to get all the time sheets that we haven't gotten already. Okay, what else, Krueger?"

"The Pine Valley project." said Krueger. "First, the topography." He displayed a topological map of the western half of the State. "As you can see, there is a ridgeline between the River and the other river that is the State Line. It's not prominent like the mountain fingers that extend from the north of the State, but it's there, and water drains into either river based upon that line."

"Benning County is the least populated county in the State, by both actual population and per square mile bases." said Krueger. "About 1500 people, most of them in the town of Columbus, which is on the western edge near the State Line river. There has been some talk of the county north or south annexing Benning County, but it simply hasn't happened."

"There is little farming in the county. Even BigAgraFoods didn't want to buy the farmland on the west side of the county." continued Krueger. "The sawmill and paper mill closed up a long time ago. There was a photography chemical company, but it closed down a while back, also."

"What was the name of that photography company?" I asked.

"Bexall Photography Supplies, Inc." said Krueger. "They were a subsidiary of a shell company, called 'Bexall Chemicals & Manufacturing, Inc.'. They went bankrupt some 20 years ago, maybe more. I don't have a complete rundown on them or the paper mill yet."

"When you do research it," I said, "do a Lexus-Nexus search on Bexall. I seem to remember there was something strange about them..." I was halfway in a reverie...

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

9:30pm. Chief Soltis, Cindy, and I were about to leave. I stopped by the desks of Detectives Steve Ruger and Kimberly Wesson.

"How's it going, guys?" I asked.

"Sir, they're still downloading data into the servers." said Ruger. "There's a ton of papers both down here and up in the City. Agent Chow of the SBI has been really helpful to us, but it'll be late tonight or early tomorrow morning before they're done."

"We're also determining our plan for tomorrow." said Wesson. "I think we need to re-interview the people at the FENL lab down here, in much more detail, especially about the results they were getting from the field testing samples from Pine Valley."

"We're also looking into this company called 'Bexall'." said Ruger. "They were a chemical company upriver of the Pine Valley project, but so far we have not found a single sample run from that site or area."

"Captain Ross," I said, "it's official: these guys are good. I am really happy to see you following that line. Ask the data people to research Bexall really hard, including a Lexus-Nexus search of previous media accounts of them. And add two things to your action plan: we're going back to the local FENL in the morning, so we can ask the employees about how they fill out time sheets, if they put down overtime, and all that. Then we're going to visit the Bexall site just north of the Pine Valley project, then we'll go to that project itself and look around."

"Okay," I said after they took notes, "unless the Chief has something else for you, I see no reason why you should not go home and get some sleep, and be back in the morning rarin' to go."

"I think that's a good idea." said Soltis. "Come back in the morning, after the data's loaded, and we'll pick it up in the morning. And I agree with the Iron Crowbar: you guys are doing a great job."

"Before you go," I said, "let me just ask this: any ideas in your heads about this case?"

"No data yet, Mr. Holmes." said Steve Ruger. I pointed at him then gave him the thumbs-up. I would find out later that Cindy had forewarned him while she was supervising him and his team gathering data.

"That's true, sir." said Kimberly Wesson. "I do have the idea that Jimmy Shell found out something he wasn't supposed to know, and he was killed for it. It's that secret we have to find, to lead us to the criminals."

"Good thoughts." I said. "Okay, we'll let the data guide us in the morning."

Part 5 - Thoughts

As always, it felt strange entering the house in which Melina and I had spent our married lives together. Frank Soltis was renting it from me and Molly Evans, and it was plainly furnished. The kitchen had a 'lived in' look that I would expect of a bachelor pad.

"You can have the guest bedroom." I said to Cindy, when we learned the third bedroom had no bed. "I'll crash on the couch, here. Or on the floor of the third bedroom."

"Way too nice of you." said Cindy. "Especially with your bad back. You sure?"

"Positive." I said. "The floor will be good for my back, actually." We then got some paper plates and utensils to eat the two large pizzas we'd obtained on the way home.

"Guys," said Frank Soltis, "it is really great having you here. My guys are learning not only good methods, but they see the speed and efficiency at which you are working. Steve and Kimberly are good Detectives and good people, but they really turned it up a notch seeing how you guys do."

"Yes, I think they are good people, and will do very well." I said. "And this is a great case to learn from. I suspect that it's going to get a lot bigger, though."

"Theorizing without data, Don?" Cindy said jokingly before taking a big bite out of her pizza slice.

"About the murder? Maybe." I replied. "About the cover-up that's beginning to happen? No, I think I'm seeing plenty of anecdotal evidence to support that supposition. And no disrespect to your guys, Chief, but this one is going to take some serious inter-agency support. We'll have the FBI in here as well as SBI assets."

"Norm Chow is doing a great job." Cindy said. "He could make the SBI great again. I hope the FBI doesn't scoop him up."

"I wouldn't blame Jack Muscone for trying." I said. "By the way, Frank, do not let Les Craig of the FBI worm his way into this investigation. We find his lack of faith in the Crowbars... disturrrrbing."

"Yes, Lord Vader." Soltis said, catching on.

"There is a lot of stuff to look at." Cindy said. "Any thoughts on what can narrow down our searches?

"Yes." I said as I reached for another slice of pizza. "I think we can take it as a working hypothesis what Detective Wesson said: right now the motive for killing Jimmy Shell would have to be related to his work, and the likely scenario is he found out something he wasn't supposed to find out. And the secret is big enough to warrant hiring a killer to exterminate him."

"If what he found is related to the Mob," Cindy said, "they'd have one of their people kill him instead of hiring someone."

"Yeah, that's a thought... and a very good one." I said. "So much for looking for a $100,000 discrepancy in the finances."

"I think I'm seeing where you're going with this." said Soltis. "But I'll ask anyway: what would this Lab have to hide?"

"Follow the money." I said. "Forbes & Sehgal Engineering was hired to do the environmental engineering and testing for the Pine Valley project. The amount of money in this project is pretty staggering. FENL tests the samples. Oh, and let me add... most environmental projects are generally one-and-done when it comes to testing. Yet FENL is getting a steady supply of samples, enough to set up a satellite lab nearby. What does that suggest to either of you?"

"Not that surprising." said Soltis. "The Pine Valley project is being done in stages. They're doing soil testing as they build the golf course and the roads, to see what they can do with the land. And they're probably doing contamination testing just to make sure they don't come upon an old trash dump or something."

Cindy said "I agree with that. I also think that if there's something suspicious going on, they can keep it isolated down here instead of risking people in the City knowing what's going on."

"Excellent points." I said. "My only pushback on that is that if I were going to be falsifying data, I wouldn't have a Boy Scout like Jimmy Shell here. From all accounts, he's the one employee that's such a Boy Scout that he might become a whistleblower if he found something wrong. And... well, he did come over all dead, didn't he?"

"To whom would he complain?" asked Chief Soltis. "He never came to the local Police and made a complaint."

"No, he most likely would've gone to the State EPA." I said. "What he should have done is retain a lawyer first, then go to the State EPA and the SBI or FBI---"

"Ohhhhhh," said Cindy, "so that's why his wallet was rifled, but the cash and credit cards not taken! If he had a SEPA or SBI card in it from an Agent he talked to..."

"Good shot, Rogue 2!" I said. "We need to have you eat more pizza, more often."

"Ah, but your plan to make me unable to compete in the Po-leece Boxing Matches will not werrrrk, Commander..." Cindy said in her best 'German' imitation.

"Darn, she's on to me." I said. Then we explained the tremendous importance of the Police Boxing Matches to Frank Soltis...

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

What Cindy didn't know is that I always pack a few extra things in an old bag that I acquired when I was in the military. In it are a tent floor liner, an inflatable mattress, an inflatable pillow, cooking and eating utensils, and emergency items.

As I lay on the floor on the air mattress, and a real pillow provided by Frank, my mind was sifting through the case as I dozed. There was something there, not so much anything I'd missed, but something I simply needed to make a connection with that would tear the lid off FENL hell and expose the truth...

"Oh, Commmannnderrrrrrr..."

"Yes, Angela..." I said, then opened my eyes. The room was bathed in an eerie black-and-white with just a tinge of blue, the only light coming in from the window. Above me, straddling me, was Angela Harlan, gloriously naked except for her black high heel pumps. I could see her thick black pubic bush and her gaping pussy right above me, a really deliciously arousing sight.

"Oh my darling Commander." Angela whispered as she knelt down over me, kneeling down onto me, once again teasing me by lowering her pussy to just above my hard cock but not quite touching...

"Nice house, here." Angela said. "I can feel the years of your past here with that hot tramp you were married to..."

"What do you want, Angela?" I asked, feeling myself in my dream state trying to not dredge up the memories of the past.

"Oh, let those memories come, my darling Commanderrrr..." Angela said, her breast hanging down and almost touching my pecs, her face right above me. "But what I want is for you to get your head out of your ass. It's all about the raw data, Commander... the raw data..."

I blinked, and suddenly I was alone in the room again, seeing what little color there was. I sat up and looked at my iPhone; it was 3:25am.

The raw data... yes, that's it, the raw data. Once again, Angela Harlan's Spirit seemed to be leading me down the right path. I declined to question why she was helping me this way...

Part 5 - Shock

"This is Meredith Peller, Fox News Midtown!" said the extremely attractive thirtysomething blonde on the television set at 7:00am, Friday, March 24th. "A shocking development in the State Capitol, as Governor Val Jared vetoed the Budget bill passed yesterday!"

Meredith continued: "The Governor stated that the Budget did not contain money to help Law Enforcement arrest undocumented workers and turn them over to ICE for deportation. The Governor said that undocumented workers were harming the job prospects of the State's American Citizen and legal immigrant workers, and that he would not accept a Budget that did not allow for a huge crackdown on lawbreaking immigrants."

"The Legislature will attempt to override the veto," continued Meredith, "but experts tell Fox News Midtown that neither House has the 2/3s majorities to override Governor Jared's veto. If the veto is not overridden, or a new Budget bill not passed by March 31st, the State will be without a budget beginning July 1st, which could lead to a serious financial crisis throughout the State. Legislators will have to scramble though the weekend to get something done if they want to meet next week's deadline."

"She's not nearly as bad as Bettina." said Cindy as we watched at the Precinct Headquarters with Detectives Steve Ruger and Kimberly Wesson.

"True," I said, "but she still refers to those mysterious 'experts'. Always in the shadows, these 'experts'." Steve and Kimberly chuckled.

"So how long have you two been here?" I asked. Ruger and Wesson had been here when we arrived.

"I got here about 4:30 this morning." said Ruger. I asked them to call me when they got done putting the data into the servers. I've been going over lab reports since then."

"I got here an hour ago." said Wesson. "I was going over Lt. Krueger's report on the company and on Jimmy Shell."

"Cool." I said. "Steve, did you see test results of the pre-screening tests?"

"Uh, no sir." said Steve. "I was looking for tests that were run on bad blanks or standard runs."

"That's something I want to look for, the pre-screening tests." I said. "Okay, guys, why don't we head on back to FENL now, be there when they open up at 8:00am?"

Cindy and I rode in my Police SUV while the Detectives drove their cars, each carrying a Patrol Officer, and the Chief in his vehicle. When we pulled into the parking lot of the building the Forbes Environmental National Laboratories was in, something didn't seem right.