mercury had been dumped into the environment on a daily basis — over the nearly two decades during which the smelter operated. Mercury was an exceedingly toxic, pernicious substance, which over time could cause severe and permanent brain damage in people who were exposed to it — especially in children and, to an even greater extent, to the unborn.
It all added up to one thing: The Heights — or at least, the portion of the development that had been erected in the valley — was essentially sitting atop a large Superfund site, with a toxic aquifer underneath.
As he replaced the initial documents, everything came together in Pendergast’s mind. He understood everything with great clarity — everything — including the arson attacks.
Moving more rapidly now, Pendergast glanced through documents relating to the early development itself. The terrain management plan called for using the vast tailing piles to fill the narrow ravine and create the broad, attractive valley floor that existed today. The clubhouse was built just downstream from where the old smelter had been, and a dozen large homes were situated within the valley. Henry Montebello, the master architect, had been in charge of it all: the demolishment of the smelter ruins, the terrain alterations, the spreading of tailings into a nice broad, level area for the lower development and the clubhouse. And his sister-in-law, Mrs. Kermode, had also been an integral player.
Interesting, Pendergast thought, that Montebello’s mansion was on the far side of town, and that Kermode’s own home was built high up on the ridge, far from the zone of contamination. They, and the other members of the Stafford family who were behind the development of The Heights, must have known about the mercury. It occurred to him that the real reason they were building a new clubhouse and spa — which had seemed the very essence of needless indulgence — and situating it on the old Boot Hill cemetery was, in fact, to get it out of the area of contamination.
Pendergast moved from one manila folder to the next, paging through documents relating to the original subdivisions and association planning. The lots were large — minimum two-acre zoning — and as a result there was no community water system: each property had its own well. Those houses situated in the valley floor, as well as the original clubhouse, would have obtained their water from wells sunk directly into the mercury- contaminated aquifer.
And, indeed, here was a file of the well permits. Pendergast looked through it. Each well required the testing of water quality — standard procedure. And every single well had passed: no mercury contamination noted.
Without question, falsified results.
Now came the sales contracts for the first houses built in The Heights. Pendergast selected those dozen properties in the contaminated zone in the valley for special scrutiny. He examined the names of the purchasers. Most appeared to be older, wealthy individuals in retirement. These houses had changed hands a number of times, especially as real estate values skyrocketed in the 1990s.
But Pendergast did recognize the name of one set of purchasers: a “Sarah and Arthur Roman, husband and wife.” No doubt the future parents of Ted Roman. The date of purchase: 1982.
The Roman house was built directly on the site of the smelter, in the zone of greatest contamination. Pendergast thought back to what Corrie had told him about Ted. Assuming he was her age, or even a few years older, there was little doubt that Ted Roman had been exposed to toxic mercury in his mother’s womb, and raised in a toxic house, drinking toxic water, taking toxic showers…
Pendergast put the records aside, a thoughtful expression on his face. After a moment, he picked up the phone and called Corrie’s cell phone. It went directly over to her voice mail.
He then called the Hotel Sebastian and, after speaking to several people, learned that she had left the hotel shortly after her work shift ended at eleven. In her car, destination unknown. However, she had asked the concierge for a snowmobile map of the mountains surrounding Roaring Fork.
With somewhat more alacrity, Pendergast dialed the town library. No answer. He looked up the head librarian’s home number. When she answered, she explained to him that December twenty-fourth was normally a half day at the library, but she had decided not to open at all because of the storm. In response to his next question, she replied that Ted had, in fact, told her he was going to take advantage of the free day by engaging in one of his favorite activities: snowmobiling in the mountains.
Again, Pendergast hung up the phone. He called Stacy Bowdree’s cell, and it, too, went over to voice mail.
A furrow appeared on his pale brow. As he was hanging up, he noticed something he normally would have seen immediately had he not been preoccupied: the papers on his desk were disarranged.
He stared at the papers, his near-photographic mind reconstructing how he had left them. One sheet — the sheet on which he’d copied the message of the Committee of Seven — had been pulled partway out and the papers surrounding it displaced:
mete at the Ideal 11 oclock Sharp to Night they are Holt Up in the closed Christmas Mine up on smugglers wall
Pendergast quickly left his office and went upstairs, where Iris was still dutifully manning the desk.
“Has anyone been in my office?” he asked pleasantly.
“Oh, yes,” the secretary said. “I brought Corrie down there for a few minutes, early this afternoon. She was looking for her cell phone.”
61
The vile, rotting odor in the air seemed to intensify as Ted waved the burning stick about. The flames licking at its end began to die back into coals, and he pushed it back into the stove.
“Love is the Fire of Life; it either consumes or purifies,” he quoted as he slowly twirled the stick among the flames, as if roasting a marshmallow. There was something awful — after his fierce and passionate ranting — about the calm deliberation with which he now moved. “Let us prepare for the purification.” He pulled the stick from the stove and passed it again before Corrie’s face, with a strangely delicate gesture, gingerly, tentative now — and yet it hovered so close that, although she twisted away, it singed her hair.
Corrie tried to gain control of her galloping panic. She had to reach him, talk him out of this. Her mouth was dry, and it was hard to articulate words through her haze of pain and fear. “Ted, I liked you. I mean I
“Right. Sure. You’d say anything now.” Ted began to laugh, a crazy, quiet laugh.
She pulled against the cuff, but it was tight around her wrist, securely fastened to the pipe. “You won’t get in trouble. I won’t tell anyone. We’ll forget all about this.”
Ted did not reply. He pulled the burning brand away, inspected it closely, as one would a tool prior to putting it to use.
“We had good times, Ted, and we can have more. You don’t have to do this. I’m not like those others, I’m just a poor student, I have to wash dishes at the Hotel Sebastian just to pay for my room!” She sobbed, caught herself. “Please don’t hurt me.”
“You need to calm down, Corrie, and accept your fate. It will be by fire — purifying fire. It will cleanse you of your sins. You should thank me, Corrie. I’m giving you a chance to atone for what you did. You’ll suffer, and for that I’m sorry — but it’s for the best.”
The horror of it, the certainty that Ted was telling the truth, closed her throat.
He stepped back, looked around. “I used to play in all these tunnels as a kid.” His voice was different now — it was sorrowful, like one about to perform a necessary but distasteful service. “I knew every inch of these mine buildings up here. I know all this like the back of my hand. This is my childhood, right here. This is where it began, and this is where it will end. That door you came out of? That was the entrance to my playground. Those mines — they were a
His tone became freighted with nostalgia, and Corrie had a momentary hope. But then, with terrible rapidity, his demeanor changed utterly. “And
