Scratchgravel Road (Josie Gray Mysteries #2)(79)
Otto said, “You want to blow holes in the ground. Make a trench to divert the flow?”
“That’s exactly it,” Sandy said.
“Why not just use a trencher?” Josie asked. “Wouldn’t that be safer?”
“We can use it to lay the explosives, but not for the whole diversion,” Sandy said. “We have a Ditch Witch Quad trencher on site, and it’ll dig down eight feet, but only twenty-four inches wide. That won’t help with the mudslide. We need a five-to ten-foot width to do any good.”
Diego’s face was grave. “Here’s another concern. We can make estimated guesses, but in the end, we don’t know what the explosions are going to do to the equipment and the volatile nature of some of our experimental solutions.”
“When you say volatile nature? Are you referring to a nuclear explosion? What do you mean?” Josie asked.
The chemical engineer sitting to Sandy’s left raised a finger and looked at Diego. “Mind if I take this?”
Diego nodded. “Please do.”
The man had been introduced as Scott Franklin. He was a chemical expert who said he specialized in designing and implementing cleanup solutions.
“Part of my job is to supervise volatile chemical experiments in the pilot plant. We deal with chemicals that quite honestly are just as dangerous as the radiation everyone fears. The explosive nature of some of the chemicals is enough to kill us all several times over.” He pursed his lips and glanced around the room, letting the weight of his words sink in. “I guess my point is that we’re working in unpredictable conditions. I have chemical compounds that haven’t been exposed to tremors. There are a lot of variables with explosives that I don’t personally feel comfortable with. What kind of tremors will be felt in the lab?” He frowned and looked around the table, his expression full of worry.
Sandy’s face reddened and her eyes widened. “We’ve been through this. None of us are comfortable with any of this! We’re operating in crisis mode here, Scott. This isn’t the time for covering your ass. We need your expertise to help us figure out solutions based on the facts we have. Not what we would like to have.”
Scott looked hurt by her response but he said nothing in return.
“Do you have an explosives team?” Josie asked.
Diego smiled grimly. “I was going to ask you the same. Sandy and I have talked. We’ve got the explosives, but no one on site with the experience to work with them.”
Josie glanced at Otto, who nodded agreement.
“Otto and I know someone who might do it. He works at the County Maintenance Department in Artemis as a mechanic. He was in the army. Served as an explosives ordnance disposal tech.”
Diego looked skeptical. “How long ago was he in the service?”
“He’s been out of the service a little over a year,” Josie said. “He served two tours of duty in Iraq. I don’t think you’ll find a better option than Mitch.”
Otto said, “The local paper had a writeup when he came home. He was a master EOD specialist when he left the army. Received some kind of commendation for valor.”
“Let’s get him out here then,” Diego said.
TWENTY-ONE
Cassidy stood in front of her living room window and peeked through the curtains. She watched Leo back out of the driveway and drive toward town, where he was headed to pick up groceries. Cassidy had convinced him she had a headache and felt too sick to run errands. Begrudgingly, he had left.
Cassidy figured she had twenty minutes. She sat at the kitchen table where Leo kept his laptop set up, where he conducted his research for the Feed Plant. She had stood behind him while she was making dinner on two different occasions and was able to figure out his login and password to unlock the computer, and to connect to the Internet. Cassidy had shown no interest in computers or the Internet, and she was hoping she could use this to her advantage. She was hoping once she logged in to his computer, the information wouldn’t be protected or hidden.
First, she logged in to his e-mail account and read everything for the past two weeks, both sent and received. She found nothing that connected to the body or Scratchgravel Road. In order to cover her tracks, she marked the new e-mail she had just opened as unread, and then closed the program. She had no idea if he would be able to tell that she had opened his e-mail, but she couldn’t worry about it at this point.
Next, she opened Internet Explorer and checked his bookmarked sites. She clicked through several Web sites and found horrific pictures of radiation poisoning and chemical burns. She could barely force herself to look at the pictures, worrying that Leo might have killed the man in the desert in the same way the people in the pictures had been killed.
Since the evening she had come home from the hospital and threatened to move out, Leo had changed. He had been talking to her more, helped her cook dinner the night before, actually acted interested in what she had to say. But his attempts were too little, too late. She thought it was all an act. He was spending countless hours on the computer each day, and she suspected it was related to the dead man.
Cassidy was scrolling through his list of “Favorites” and saw a link to First Bank and Trust—not their bank. She clicked on the link and a login appeared with Leo’s name preloaded. As far as she knew, they only had one account, with Bank of America, where both their checks were automatically deposited. She typed in the same password that she had used to log in to his computer and was taken to an account page. A few clicks later and she discovered Leo had made a deposit the day before in the amount of $1,200. She leaned back in the chair, staring at the computer screen, with no idea how to move forward.