The Twenty-Three 3 (Promise Falls) by Linwood Barclay Page B

for him. There was no one in the reception area, so I kept on going, through a door that read AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY , and standing by a large panel of dials and readouts was an unshaven man in a red-and-black flannel shirt. I put him at around forty, and when he saw me, he said, “Who are you?”
    I showed him my ID. “You Ottman?”
    He nodded.
    “What the hell is happening?”
    “That’s what I’m trying to figure out now.” He pointed farther into the plant, a cavernous space filled with oversized pipes and tanks and conduits whose purposes were a mystery to me. There was a young woman in jeans, a dark sweater, and a hard hat, with some kind of device that reminded me of Spock’s tricorder in her hand.
    “I’ve got Trish trying to sort it out now. She came on shift a couple of hours ago.”
    “Is it the water that’s making everyone sick?”
    Ottman grimaced. “Best guess, yes.”
    “Garvey!”
    We both turned. Randy stuck out a meaty hand and shook Ottman’s. “Mr. Finley, good to see you.”
    “Always Randy to you,” he told the man, and clapped a hand on his shoulder like they were old buddies from way back. “What in the fuck has happened?”
    “I was just telling the detective here we don’t exactly know yet. We’ve got to run tests on the water, check the records, see that everything that’s supposed to be done was done. We test the water every twelve hours. Last time would have been noon yesterday. So that would have meant another test last night, at midnight.”
    Before I could say anything, Randy jumped in. “Was that done?”
    Ottman looked as though he didn’t want to have to answer that one. “I don’t know,” he said.
    “What do you mean?” I asked. “You keep records, right?”
    “That’s right. But the overnight guy didn’t do that.”
    “Who’s that?”
    “Tate.”
    “Tate Whitehead?” Finley asked.
    Ottman nodded.
    “Jesus,” Finley said. “That guy’s got the IQ of a lug nut. You’ve got him in charge of our drinking water?”
    Ottman frowned. “I put him on nights because the responsibilities are minimal. He does a couple of tests, checks that things are running the way they should, and if there’s a problem, he lets me or someone else know and we send in the troops to deal with it.”
    I asked, “Why didn’t Whitehead do the midnight check?”
    “I don’t know,” Ottman said.
    “Did you ask him?”
    He shook his head. “I don’t know where he is. The dumb bastard knocked off early. He’s supposed to be relieved by Trish, but she says when she got here at six, he was gone.”
    “He do that a lot?” Randy asked. “Fuck off early?”
    Ottman was looking increasingly pained. “He’s done it before. But he punched in last night at nine. He was here.”
    “So for all you know,” I said, “he left right after that. He might never have done the midnight check, let alone made a record of it. So if the water was contaminated, it wouldn’t get caught in time.”
    “In theory,” Garvey Ottman said.
    Finley was slowly shaking his head. “Garv, tell me Tate’s not still drinking.”
    “I thought he had it under control,” the water plant manager said. He rubbed a hand over his mouth. “Oh my God, this is horrible. If that dumb bastard did this, I swear, I’ll kill him with my bare hands.”
    “You might have to take a number,” I said. I was astounded the lives of thousands of people could depend on the judgment of an incompetent drunk. “Let’s say something got past Tate. What could it be?”
    “First thing I’d look at is contamination in the reservoir,” he said. “Maybe a fuel spill, or runoff, upstream, from a farming operation, like effluent from a pig farm or something like that. But I’ve done a quick test on the water in the reservoir and it checks out. I mean, it’s not perfect. The reservoir water never is, because that’s what gets treated before it gets pumped up into the tower.”
    “I need an address for Tate