‘The point is,’ Pierce said, ‘that evidently someone – one of my colleagues perhaps – had told the police that I’d been furious at Bree for leaving Caloco, especially so abruptly.’
‘And were you?’
Pierce looked at his wife, then nodded. ‘Pretty mad, yes. Betrayed, hurt, all of it. But that was personal.’
‘But her leaving? Changing sides in these gas additive wars I keep hearing about. That was business.’
Pierce wore a look of amused toleration. ‘And you think that the big bad oil companies got together and, because she’d had a philosophical change of heart, we decided to kill her?’
Hardy had to smile himself. ‘Actually, hearing it out loud it doesn’t sound too plausible.’
‘It’s completely absurd,’ Carrie said. ‘Regardless of what you may hear on the radio, murder isn’t really one of Caloco’s business tools. Or any of the seven sisters.’
‘Seven sisters?’
Pierce explained. ‘That’s what they call us, the spin-offs of Standard Oil after antitrust broke up the mother company. But none of the sisters would have any reason to kill Bree or anybody else. Frankly we don’t need to.’
Hardy said it mildly. ‘Even for three billion dollars?’
Pierce had on his tolerant face, the one Hardy supposed he used for the public. ‘And what is that figure, three billion dollars? Where does that come from?’
‘That’s the number I’ve been hearing. Isn’t that the yearly income from this gas additive everyone’s fighting about?’
‘MTBE?’
‘That’s the one.’
Pierce nodded. ‘That sounds about right. Three billion.’ He pulled out a stool, sat on it and indicated Hardy take one, too. Which he did. Carrie excused herself and moved over to the main counter to pour more coffee.
Hardy tried not to follow her movements, but it was not easy. He tore his eyes away, back to Pierce. ‘So my point is that that’s a lot of money. And if Bree led the charge against this stuff…’
But Pierce was shaking his head. ‘No.’ He lifted his hand, ticking off the points on his fingers. ‘First, Bree didn’t have anything like that kind of power. She wrote our drafts, she was a great and persuasive spokesperson, but Jesus Christ himself could come down and say MTBE was the devil and it wouldn’t just go away. The stuff has cleaned up the air unbelievably. It works, Mr Hardy. The EPA loves it. Hell, it mandates it – that’s a long way from being outlawed. It’s not going away because one woman says it might have side effects, which, PS, is nowhere near proved. Second, and this is always a tough one to sell, but three billion really isn’t all that much money.’
Hardy had to reply. ‘Three billion! We’re talking three billion dollars.’
Pierce nodded. ‘It’s all relative. It’s mixed into gas at eleven per cent. And basically the stuff’s only used in California, and only for half the year at that. So you do the math. Three billion represents about ten per cent of half of California’s gasoline bill. It’s a drop in the bucket.’
‘You’re telling me you wouldn’t miss three billion dollars?’
‘Somebody in some department might notice, but long-term? That’s exactly what I’m saying. It’s nothing.’
Carrie came back over with an urn of coffee, china cups and saucers, sugar, and cream on a silver platter. ‘It’s the hardest part of Jim’s job, Mr Hardy. Making people see that this isn’t all about money. They think because we make a profit that we must be evil. But Jim hired Bree to do good, to find out how to make a better product, better for the world. No one seems to understand that. And that cost billions, too, to re-tool the refineries-’
Pierce reached over and patted her hand. ‘What Carrie’s saying is that it’s a complicated issue. It’s true that we’ve spent billions developing MTBE and for a while everyone was thrilled with it. It seemed to be doing the job. Now some questions have come up and we’re looking into them. But the point is that we’re committed to clean fuels and if it turns out that we have to develop some new refining tool, we’ll do that, even if it costs billions, which it will because everything costs billions. That’s the price of admission in this league.’
He took a sip of his coffee. ‘But the other point, Mr Hardy, is that Bree getting a case of the doubts is no reason on God’s earth for any oil company to do anything, much less have her killed. And that’s essentially what I told the police.’
Hardy picked up his own cup and took a drink. Most of what Pierce said made logical sense if he accepted the premise that three billion dollars wasn’t a lot of money, but that remained a bit of a leap. ‘I once figured out how long it would take to count to a billion,’ he said. ‘If you did nothing else. One number every half second, twelve hours a day. You want to guess?’
Pierce shrugged. ‘I don’t have any idea. A week?’
Hardy shook his head. ‘Thirty-two years, give or take a few months.’
Pierce chuckled. ‘Get out of here.’
‘It’s a really big number, a billion,’ Hardy said.
‘Can that be right?’ Carrie asked.
Hardy nodded. ‘It’s right. But my point is, it might be why people seem to have a hard time thinking three billion isn’t a lot of money. Why Bree might have been killed for it.’
‘She was one person, Mr Hardy,’ Pierce said.
‘So was Hitler. If he’d been killed, it might have avoided World War Two.’ He shrugged. ‘Look, I’m not saying I don’t believe you. I’m trying to get a handle on what I keep hearing on the radio, that the oil companies had a motive to kill her.’
Pierce remained unruffled, as though he’d heard it all before, which he probably had. ‘You’re welcome to look, Mr Hardy, but it will waste a lot of your time.’ He sipped coffee. Hardy had the impression he was stalling for a moment. Then he seemed to reach some decision, and sighed. ‘You know the source of all this radio nonsense, don’t you?’
‘No. I thought it was kind of a groundswell…’
Pierce was shaking his head. ‘Not at all. It’s a well-funded group of eco-terrorists. Don’t laugh, that’s what they call themselves. Eco-terrorists.’
‘And?’
‘And they all seem to be working to get Damon Kerry elected since he’s the standard bearer against MTBE.’
‘All right.’ Hardy didn’t see where this was going.
‘Well, at the time she left us, Bree was very much under the spell of Damon Kerry, too. Perhaps more, although I shouldn’t say that after all I’ve had to endure on that score.’ He glanced at his wife, whose lovely face again betrayed her distaste at this subject.
Pierce turned back to Hardy. ‘What I’m saying is that at least these are the kind of people who admit to resorting to violence, or the need for it. Maybe somehow Bree crossed them, joined the camp and was going to renege, something like that.’
‘You’re not saying Kerry-’
‘No no no, not personally. But somebody behind him. Possibly. Really I don’t know. I don’t like to point a finger at anybody, but…’ He trailed off.
Hardy remembered Canetta’s comments about Al Valens, who had also left a message for Ron Beaumont. A question presented itself. ‘You said this group – these terrorists – are well-funded. Where do they get their money?’
Carrie nearly blurted it out. ‘That’s easy. SKO.’
Pierce snapped at her. ‘We don’t know that, not for sure.’
‘Of course we do.’
Husband and wife glared at each other.
‘Who?’ Hardy asked.
Making a show of reluctance, Pierce let out a long breath. ‘Spader Krutch Ohio.’
‘The farming conglomerate?’ Hardy asked.
Pierce nodded. ‘Corn. Ethanol, the other additive. It’s a huge company, as you say, heavily subsidized by the government. They’ve got a stake in seeing MTBE outlawed.’