Free Badwater (The Forensic Geology Series) by Toni Dwiggins

backpackin whale-watchin bat-lovin assholes got the government by the short hairs and they’re stealin my rights. So somebody wants to pay me for my fuckin talc I’ll fuckin well sell it.”
    Soliano pounced. “Then someone did buy talc from you?”
    “No, someone didn’t. Maybe your fucker stole it. I can’t afford a guard, I can’t even afford to fix up this old shit.” She jerked a thumb at the crumbling ore chutes and bins. “But I will. I been workin other people’s mines for twenty years.” She jutted her chin. “You see this face? Think I was born this ugly? I got this face workin sunup to sundown and I earned it. This face is a mine owner’s face, now. This is a proud face, fuckers.”
    I’d sure give her that. And I wondered what role pride might have played. If Jardine chose this mine because it was easier access here than to others nearby, he likely would have assumed—as we had—that this place was abandoned. And then the woman in white showed up with her shotgun. A woman whose mine, and pride, were not to be trifled with. I asked her, “If you caught someone stealing, would you report him?”
    Her venomous look swung to me.
    “Or, you could tell him to pay or you’ll call the cops. A market of one is better than none. Right?”
    She studied me. “Don’t need no thief money, girly. I got a big market lined up. Know what it is?”
    Sweat sluiced down my back.
    She came closer, tipping her hat brim back, bringing her face up to mine. “You wanna know?”
    I could not look away. She had that effect, like a desert sidewinder. You wouldn’t want to turn your back.
    She raised her index finger. She opened her mouth, emitting an overripe odor like fruit that has turned. She licked her finger. It glistened in the sun. It hit me like a snake strike, scoring my left cheek, and then withdrew.
    My skin shriveled where the wet trail evaporated into the triple-digit air.
    Chickie examined her finger. “Dirt,” she said.
    I stiffened. What’s wrong with dirt?
    Her own face was shiny clean. “Ever wear makeup?”
    I said, tight, “Yes.”
    She bared her teeth, white as her hat. “Then stick your nose down out of the air, girly. You’re my market.”
    Hap gave me the bandana from his sombrero. I wiped her touch from my face. I wanted to disinfect it. I tried to return the bandana but Hap put up his hands: a gift.
    And then I thought, maybe this was not a market question at all. Maybe Chickie was an accomplice. Maybe Chickie was counting on another source of income while waiting for Park Service approval to sell her talc.
    “Ms. Oldfield,” Soliano said, “you are certain the talc originates here?”
    “You want certain, go with DNA. I can give you probability. I can tell you the proportion of tremolite to talc, down to parts per billion, in the evidence talc. I can tell you it’s consistent with the talc here, and it’s inconsistent with the three other mines I sampled. I can’t promise there’s no other location it could have come from. Maybe there’s a mine out there with talc as good a match as this one.” I pocketed the bandana. “And maybe pigs can fly.”
    Soliano turned to Scotty. “Let us look again here.”
    Scotty groaned.
    Walter said, “In the meanwhile, I have soils to sample around here.”
    I nodded. It was, actually, within the realm of possibility that our evidence talc did not come from this mine—leaving flying pigs aside—and I’d be a whole lot happier if Walter could match the mud samples from Ryan Beltzman to this place. I moved to follow Walter, to lend a hand. I caught Chickie watching me. Her hooded eyes had slitted to emit a whitish gleam. It was, I thought, a truly pissed look and it was directed at me, the fucker who’d claimed to trace the talc to her mine.
    That look convinced me I’d found the right address.

12
    W alter and I followed the geology and our noses around the hill to the backside of Chickie’s mine. Here was another entrance, a back door.