Part 18 (2/2)

From across the room, Jimmy John Dale watched the professor and the girl named Nadine eating dinner. You don't generally see white girls eating moon pies like that. He sat at a table with five other roughnecks who also worked for Billy Bob Barnett; they had just gotten off their s.h.i.+ft and still wore their red jumpsuits. While he was watching Nadine, they were watching another woman across the room.

'I'd love to jump her bones,' Mitch said.

'I'd love to beat the s.h.i.+t out of her,' Sonny said. 'She's trying to shut down fracking, take our jobs.'

'Still, Carla's got a great body.'

Mitch was always practical like that. Jimmy John rubbed his temples. The headache was coming back.

'Can we go home now?'

'No.'

The band took a break. Book was watching his intern devour the moon pie when a young woman walked up and sat down at their table across from Book and next to Nadine and scooted in close. Nadine frowned at her then moved her chair over a bit. Book read her s.h.i.+rt: Fracking is for Gas Holes- 'Funny,' he said.

-and she read his Tommy Bahama s.h.i.+rt: I Plead the Fifth with a bottle of rum.

'Yours, too.'

She seemed familiar. He had seen her before. He looked at the funeral photo in front of him. She was the young woman standing off to the side during the burial of Nathan Jones.

'Professor Bookman, I'm Carla Kent. I need to talk to you.'

'I'm listening.'

'Nathan came to me.'

'Where?'

'My teepee at El Cosmico.'

'You have your own teepee?'

'Long-term stay.'

'What did he come to you about?'

'Fracking.'

'Why you?'

'Everyone in town knows me. I'm trying to shut down fracking.'

'You're an environmentalist?'

'From Santa Fe. Professor, Nathan was scared. Now he's dead. Because he knew something he wasn't supposed to know.'

'What?'

'Billy Bob's fracking is contaminating the Igneous Aquifer, the sole water source for this whole area-Marfa, Fort Davis, Alpine. Nathan said he had proof. They killed him to prevent that proof from becoming public.'

'It was an accident,' Nadine said.

'It was murder.'

'Billy Bob Barnett is a murderer?' Book asked.

'He is.' She seemed deadly serious. 'Professor, help me put that b.a.s.t.a.r.d in prison where he belongs.'

'Do you have any evidence of murder?'

'No.'

'Did you see Nathan's proof of contamination?'

'No.'

'Ms. Kent, I'm not here to shut down fracking. I'm just trying to find out how my student died.'

'And I'm trying to tell you how he died-he was murdered!'

Her emotions resided close to the surface. She took a deep breath to gather herself.

'Professor, I cared about Nathan.'

'You were at his funeral.'

'And Nathan cared about this land. And the people who live on it. The water they drink. He didn't know what to do, but he said he knew someone who would help us-he said us-a professor at UT. I thought he meant a petroleum engineering professor. Not a law professor.'

'I have other skills.'

'The paper said you came here for Nathan.'

'I might've come for the art.'

'Can I see it?'

'The art?'

'The letter.'

'Ms. Kent ...'

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