Gone(76)

“Hutch and I are both investigative journalists. We work in different mediums; I write, he makes films. We’ve shared ideas for years. Three years ago he tells me about his plans for Citizen Farmer. He’d found a UN report that animal agriculture — the meat industry — is more harmful to life on planet earth than fossil fuels. Superheating the atmosphere with methane, for starters. In the meantime, I knew Rondeau had moved north with his wife. His wife and child were gone, his career there was over, so he came up here. Bought this old place where he started really losing it. Interested in my brother’s film work, in the middle of a divorce, and curious about Rondeau, it all lined up for me. I found the place in Indian Lake. Yes, there was also the lore about dark drug experiments.”

“So why not come clean right away when Rondeau interviewed you?”

“I was afraid. I didn’t know who to trust. It wasn’t until Rondeau confided in me, over dinner, that I decided to give him the documentary clip. I wanted to point him in the right direction, stay safe.”

“You set him up. You wanted to see what would happen.”

“No,” she shook her head, adamant. “There was the misfortune of Connie Leifson, there was the call from Tamika Levitt. Rondeau was off and running, his own suspicion of the system taking off.”

“Levitt told the press he had a psychotic break. She now says she witnessed him losing it in front of her. The official story is that he went to Indian Lake, all part of his delusional fantasies. But there it all finally got to him and he broke down. He drove himself to Bluestone, went into the quarry.”

“And what — tied himself up? Stripped himself naked? You were there — what happened?”

Peter remembered the way Eldridge had reacted when he’d seen Rondeau. He’d been hostile. And the way Eldridge had commanded the search. All the troopers had been sent back to the surface after the family had been found. Only FBI had kept going in the mine. Who knew what they had discovered.

“People are getting sick,” Addison said. “I kept going because Hutch and I knew there was more. More he missed with Citizen. More to the damage caused by factory farming. Like MCR-1, a genetic mutation. Like antibiotic failure — even the last resort antibiotic, called colistin, has lost its effectiveness. The risks livestock pose to human health — it goes all the way back to the first agrarian societies, it’s where smallpox comes from, all sorts of animal-borne pathogens. It’s why we have vaccines; all issues with livestock.”

“Your brother has been turned, Addie. He was just on national television saying—”

“I know what he said. He has to. He has to protect his family. But I have something that is a game changer.”

“What? It’s all hearsay. It’s all circumstantial . . .”

Addison interlaced her fingers. She looked remorseful, the way the dusted light in the room greyed her skin, the way her eyes downcast. “I have a protected source.”

“Telling you what? Giving you what?”

“Evidence that the industry is trying to fast-track a new drug. Something even more effective than an antibiotic. Something invulnerable, nothing can resist it. But having too much trouble getting around the FDA.”

“Who? Who is the source?” He slammed his hands on the kitchen table.

“Slow down, Peter,” Addison said. She patted the air with her hands. “You need to think very carefully. You need to ask yourself if you want to go any further down this road. Give them any more reason to put you in the crosshairs.”

He thought about the dark van. He also thought about Rondeau, who lived in a cloud of these same fears. No wonder his mind had split in two.

“Really ask yourself, Peter, if this is what you want. You and your partner.” Addie inflected the word partner so that he understood her meaning. His life partner. His future wife. And, did he? Did he want to know more?

“What about you?” he asked Addie. “You’re still here. You haven’t disappeared. You said you were afraid . . .”

“I am. I’m careful.”

“Careful? You bought the house in Indian Lake! You’re flying drones around . . .”

“Yeah, I’m afraid, okay? They’ve tarred Rondeau as mentally unstable, unreliable. My brother’s life is a wreck. Who knows if he and Lily will make it through — they were already holding on by a thread.” She was losing her cool, getting agitated. “This is what they do to people who challenge authority? Not on my watch. If this is what happens behind closed doors, if you question the powers that be, then I don’t care about myself. It’s worth the risk.”

She fell silent. The house creaked and sighed in the wind. He thought he heard mice scratching around inside the walls. Or something else, like microphone static . . .

Peter collected his scattered thoughts, hoping to synthesize all of this new information in a meaningful way. Rondeau and this Whitehall guy were each trying to blame the FBI in D.C. for faulty evidence leading to a wrongful conviction. They were up against lead agent Lee Angstrom and the reputation of the FBI. Then Whitehall had vanished. Rondeau headed north, tried to start over. He couldn’t let it go, Peter thought. He was still thinking about it, two, three years later. Driving him nuts. Peter was afraid it would drive him nuts, too.

“We need to do something,” he said. He found her eyes. “We need to make this right.” He thought he saw something in her face. “Whitehall resurfaced, didn’t he? Maybe you were looking for him, maybe Rondeau still was . . . he’s your protected source, right? Whitehall?”