Page 148 of South of Nowhere

“The company made a pitch to everybody in Fort Pleasant about selling the town’s water rights. Half didn’t want to, the other half did. And the way the town charter was set up, the county board was the sole decision maker. I remember Prescott Moore, the supervisor, did a full-court press and it got approved. Checks went to everybody who had well water in town. From the get-go, they regretted it. The checks were a lot smaller than they’d expected—and they lost all control over their water—there were guarantees that personal supplies would be protected, but the lakes and rivers vanished. And then sediments started to appear in the town tap water.”

Annie Coyne said, “You know, water transit works the other way too. You take it out of aquifers, but you can also add it back.”

Those in the room—and Gutiérrez from afar—were looking her way. She continued, “During a rainy season farmers pump water underground to save it for dry ones. Here, the Never Summer’s ninety-nine percent pure. But as it moves south of Nowhere it starts flowing past residential areas and companies. It picks up pollution. By the time the water gets to Fort Pleasant it’ll fill up the aquifers with all kinds of crap.”

Tolifson said, “You’re saying they need to divert the flow so it doesn’t pollute their product.”

“A possibility.”

Starr said, “We’ll put them both on the suspect list. The water company and GraphSet.” She frowned as she doodled a daisy on the yellow pad. Then she looked up at Colter. “This reward business of yours. You do interrogations, right?”

“I call them interviews. But yes.”

She said, “I know those kids from Oakland, the muscle, don’tknow diddly. They’re willing to squeal like whatever animal squeals—some pigs do and some pigs don’t. But that Lark woman, she’s not talking either, but seeing her reaction to Foley getting killed, I got this feeling we could call her Mama Bear.”

Dorion asked, “Sleeping together?”

“Dollars to donuts. Which means she could’ve picked upsomethingabout who the client is. She shut down completely with me and the mayor. Want to have a go at it, Colter?”

He nodded.

Starr and Colter rose and left the conference room. They walked to a security door, and she punched in the code to get into the lockup, which consisted of four cells and an interrogation room.

The metal doors had small head-high windows and Colter caught a glimpse of two Oakland thugs sitting sullenly on beds. They continued to the room at the end, where a weapon lockbox was mounted by the door—you never met with a suspect armed. But Starr couldn’t find the key. She shrugged. “She’s shackled.”

“If I can get out of shackles, she can get out of shackles.” He handed her his Glock.

“You can do that, really? The shackle thing?”

“I’ll teach you how if you want.”

“ ’Deed I do.”

Starr opened the door and he stepped inside.

65.

Alisette Lark.

As Colter Shaw sat across from her, she looked at him with narrow eyes.

It was a gaze very, very different from the ones she’d shot his way earlier in the day.

“So, reward seeker.” Her voice was husky. She’d apparently been softening it earlier. “There many of you around the country?”

“Not enough to make a union.”

“You don’t take over a Hyatt for your annual convention, hm? Sessions and keynotes and boxed lunches?”

He set his pen and paper in front of him. Sometimes the people he was interviewing balked at his recording their conversation on his phone, even the offerors—whose side he was on, of course. But no one ever had a problem with taking notes.

“You were never military, Alisette.”

Always let the subject know right off that you’ve done your homework.

“But you get the chain-of-command concept, obviously, considering this job.”

She regarded him with eyes that now reflected boredom.

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