2. Sick Children

The DeSoto's engine coughed twice before catching, and I pulled away from the curb with the manila envelope riding shotgun. The morning sun was struggling through a sky the color of old dishwater. Levensville looked different to me now. The water towers on the skyline weren't just landmarks anymore. They were reservoirs of poison.

I drove to the Flats first. Not to ask questions—not yet—but to look. To see what Marcus Ellis had been talking about.

The neighborhood was waking up. Men in work clothes trudged toward bus stops. Women hung laundry on lines strung between buildings. Kids in patched jackets headed to school, their breath fogging in the damp air. A normal morning in a normal neighborhood. Except it wasn't normal. Not if Ellis was right.

I parked near a playground on Belmont Street and got out. The playground was empty at this hour, the swings creaking in the breeze off the river. A public drinking fountain stood near the benches. I walked over to it and stared at the spigot. The metal was stained, a rusty orange that didn't look like ordinary wear.

"You're not from around here."

I turned. A woman stood on the sidewalk, a shopping bag on her hip and a toddler clinging to her skirt. She was young, maybe twenty-five, but her face had the tired look of someone who'd already lived too many years.

"I'm a reporter," I said. "Jack Malloy."

"I know who you are." She shifted the bag. "Your picture's in the paper sometimes. The crime column."

"That's me."

"Why are you here?"

I hesitated. The story wasn't ready. Talking too soon could spook the people I needed to protect, or warn the people I needed to expose. But this woman was looking at me with eyes that had seen things, and I needed to see them too.

"I'm looking into the water," I said. "The drinking water. In this neighborhood."

Something moved in her face. Not surprise. Confirmation. "You finally noticed."

"What do you mean?"

She pointed at the fountain. "My boy Marcus, he won't drink from that. None of the kids will, not anymore. They say it tastes like metal. Like pennies. But that's all there is. The water in our houses is the same." She pulled her toddler closer. "My daughter's been sick since she was born. The doctors say it's something in her blood. They don't know what."

"Does anyone else have sick children?"

She laughed, but it wasn't a happy sound. "Everyone here has sick children. That's why they call it the Flats. Everything's flat. The land. The people. The chances."

I pulled out my notebook. "Can I get your name?"

"No." She backed away. "No names. I've got enough trouble. But if you're really looking, go to St. Agnes. Talk to Malone. He's got a list."

She walked away quickly, the toddler stumbling to keep up. I watched her go, then turned back to the fountain. The rusty stain seemed to pulse in the gray light.

St. Agnes was empty when I arrived, the pews clean and the candles unlit. Malone was in a back room that served as his office, surrounded by books and papers and a typewriter that looked older than mine.

"You're back," he said.

"I need to see the list."

"List?"

"The woman on Belmont mentioned a list. Children who've been sick."

Malone's expression closed like a door. "That's confidential. Parish records. I can't just—"

"I had a visitor last night. At my home. Three in the morning." I leaned against his desk. "He told me he knew where my wife buys groceries. Where my son plays baseball. He told me to drop the story."

Malone was silent for a long moment. Then he stood up, walked to a filing cabinet, and pulled out a thick folder. "These are the children I've been tracking for the past five years. Leukemia. Liver damage. Birth defects. All in the Flats and the neighborhoods closest to the river. All drinking water from the same system."

I opened the folder. Names. Addresses. Medical records. Photographs. Children with hollow eyes and bald heads. Children in hospital beds. Children who would never grow up.

"How many?" I asked.

"Forty-seven confirmed cases that I've documented. There are probably more. The families here don't always trust doctors. They suffer in silence." He sat down heavily. "I've been writing letters to the Water Board for three years. To the city council. To the state health department. I get form letters back. Thank you for your concern. We're looking into it. Nothing ever changes."

"Why haven't you gone to the press?"

"I did." He looked at me, and I saw the exhaustion in his eyes. "Two years ago. A reporter from the Herald. Young guy. Hungry. He promised to break the story wide open." He paused. "He died in a car accident a week later. Brakes failed on a mountain road. Case closed."

The room felt colder. "You think someone killed him."

"I think a lot of things I can't prove." Malone took the folder back. "Be careful, Mr. Malloy. The people who run the Water Board aren't bureaucrats. They're something else."

"Who runs it?"

"Hollis Crane is the commissioner. But he's not the power. The power is behind him. Old families. Old money. People who've owned this city since before it was a city." He closed the filing cabinet. "Crane is just the man out front. The one who smiles for the cameras."

I thought about the voice on the phone. Cultured. Pleasant. A voice that had probably smiled for cameras. "What do you know about Crane?"

"He's rich. He's connected. He hunts big game in Africa. Throws parties at his estate. Donates money to the right causes." Malone's voice was flat. "I've never met him, but I've seen his picture. There's something wrong with his eyes. They're the eyes of a man who doesn't care about anything except winning."

I closed my notebook and stood up. "Can I keep this folder?"

"Copies only. I've learned to keep copies."

He handed me a second folder, identical to the first. I tucked it under my arm. At the door, I paused. "The reporter. The one from the Herald. What was his name?"

"Carl Denning. He was twenty-six years old."

I drove to the Herald building on the other side of town. It was a smaller paper than the Courier, a weekly that covered the kind of stories the big dailies ignored. The editor was a woman named Harriet Vance, a chain-smoking veteran with gray hair pulled back in a severe bun and eyes that missed nothing.

"Denning," she said, exhaling a cloud of smoke. "Haven't thought about Carl in a while."

"Father Malone thinks his accident wasn't an accident."

Harriet stubbed out her cigarette and immediately lit another. "Malone's a good man. So was Carl. He was onto something with the Water Board. I told him to be careful. He wasn't." She shook her head. "The police said brake failure. The coroner said accidental death. That's what the record shows."

"What do you think?"

"I think Carl was a good reporter. He was also young and reckless. He told me he was meeting someone the night he died. A source. He wouldn't say who." She opened a drawer and pulled out a battered notebook. "This was in his car. The police gave it to his family. His mother gave it to me."

The notebook was scorched at the edges, water-damaged, but still legible. I flipped through it. Carl Denning's handwriting was small and precise, the handwriting of a man who paid attention. There were notes about water quality tests. Names of board members. Timelines. And on the last page, a single word, underlined three times: BYPASS.

"What's this?" I asked, pointing at the word.

"I don't know. It's the last thing he wrote. The night he died."

I copied the page into my own notebook and gave Denning's back to Harriet. "Did he have family here?"

"A mother. She lives out in Crestwood now. She doesn't talk about it." Harriet leaned forward. "If you're going after the Water Board, you need to understand what you're up against. This isn't a story about corruption. This is a story about power. The kind of power that doesn't just ruin you. It erases you."

"I understand."

"No, you don't. Not yet." She lit another cigarette. "But you will."

That afternoon, I went to the Water Board office. Not to ask questions—I wasn't ready for that confrontation—but to watch. The building was as I remembered it: granite, columns, the smell of old money and older secrets. Cars came and went. Employees in suits walked in and out. Somewhere inside, Marcus Ellis was sitting at his desk, and somewhere above him, Hollis Crane was making decisions that determined who lived and who died.

I sat in the DeSoto across the street and waited. At four o'clock, a black Cadillac pulled up to the front entrance. A man got out. He was tall, silver-haired, dressed in a suit that probably cost more than my car. He moved with the easy confidence of someone who had never been told no.

Hollis Crane.

I watched him walk into the building, greeting the doorman by name, smiling. The smile was the worst part. It was warm. Genuine, even. The smile of a philanthropist. The smile of a man who could call you in the middle of the night and threaten your family without raising his voice.

I drove to a pay phone and called Loomis.

"What do you have?" he asked.

"A lot. Too much for the phone." I looked back at the Water Board building. "I need another day. Maybe two."

"Malloy—"

"Frank, there are dead children. At least forty-seven. And a reporter who died two years ago looking into the same thing."

Silence on the line. Then: "Forty-seven?"

"At least. The water in the Flats is poisoned. The board knows it. They're covering it up."

More silence. Then Loomis sighed, the sound crackling through the receiver. "Be careful, Jack. I mean it."

"I will."

I hung up and drove to the Flats. It was dusk now, the streetlights flickering on. I found a doctor's office on a corner near the river, a weathered building with bars on the windows. The sign said DR. HELEN ROYCE, PEDIATRICS.

The waiting room was crowded. Mothers with children on their laps. Babies crying. The smell of antiseptic and fear. A nurse looked up when I came in. "Can I help you?"

"I need to talk to Dr. Royce."

"She's with a patient. It'll be a while."

"I'll wait."

I found a plastic chair near the window and sat down. A little girl across the room stared at me. She was maybe six, her skin pale as paper, a scarf wrapped around her head where her hair should have been. She smiled at me, and I smiled back, and I thought about Tommy.

An hour later, Dr. Royce came out. She was a tall woman with tired eyes and steady hands, her white coat stained with something that might have been ink or might have been blood. "You're the reporter," she said. "Word travels."

"I need to ask you about the water."

She led me into her office and closed the door. "I've been practicing in the Flats for eighteen years. In the first five, I saw maybe one case of childhood leukemia. In the last five, I've seen thirty. And that's just my practice. There are other doctors in this neighborhood who've seen the same."

"Thirty children."

"At least. And it's not just leukemia. Liver tumors. Kidney failure. Birth defects." She sat down heavily. "I've sent reports to the state. To the federal government. To anyone who would listen. Nothing. They tell me there's no proven link to the water supply. They tell me I'm not a toxicologist."

"Do you believe them?"

"I believe what I see. And what I see is children dying in a neighborhood where the water tastes like metal."

I showed her the documents Ellis had given me. She studied them, her lips pressed together in a thin line. "Where did you get these?"

"A source at the Water Board."

"These numbers—" She shook her head. "If these are real, it's not just negligence. It's criminal. The levels of benzene alone should have shut down the whole system years ago."

"Can I quote you?"

"Do you think that will help?" She looked at me with eyes that had seen too much. "I've been quoted before. On the record. Off the record. Nothing changes. They just find new ways to ignore us."

"This time might be different."

"Every reporter says that. Then they disappear, or the story gets killed, or they get scared and move on." She handed the documents back. "I hope you're the exception, Mr. Malloy. I really do."

I went back to the Anchor that night. The bar was busier than before, filled with dockworkers and factory men drinking away the week. Marcus Ellis was at his usual spot at the end of the bar. He looked worse than he had the night before—paler, shakier, a man coming apart at the seams.

"You're still alive," he said.

"So far."

"That's more than I expected." He drained his glass. "They called me too. Last night. After you left."

"What did they say?"

"They know I gave you the documents. They know everything." He looked at me, and his eyes were wet. "I have a daughter, Mr. Malloy. She's nine years old. She's sick. And now they're threatening to make her sicker."

"Who's they?"

"I don't know. I don't want to know." He stood up, fumbling with his coat. "I can't talk to you anymore. I'm sorry. I can't."

"Wait—"

But he was already gone, disappearing through the back door into the alley. I started to follow, then stopped. What would I say? That everything would be fine? That the story would protect him? I didn't know that. I didn't know anything anymore.

I sat at the bar and ordered a whiskey. The bartender poured it without comment. I drank it slowly, staring at my reflection in the mirror behind the bottles. I looked tired. I looked scared. I looked like a man who was in over his head.

Outside, the rain started again. Through the window, I could see the river, dark and swollen, carrying the city's secrets downstream.

I was almost finished with my drink when I heard the scream.

It came from the alley. A single shriek, cut short. I was off my stool before I knew I was moving, through the back door and into the rain. The alley was dark, lit only by a single bulb over the bar's back entrance. Water dripped from rusted fire escapes. Trash cans lined the walls.

Marcus Ellis lay on the pavement. He was on his back, his eyes open to the rain. There was a hole in his forehead, small and neat, like a third eye. The rain was washing the blood into the gutter.

I knelt beside him. I didn't need to check for a pulse. No one gets shot in the head and survives. But I checked anyway, because that's what you do.

The alley was empty. The killer was gone. The only sound was the rain and the distant rumble of thunder.

I stood up slowly. My hands were shaking. I looked around for anything—a shell casing, a footprint, a witness. Nothing. Just the rain and the dark and the body of a man who had been too scared to live.

Someone had been watching. Someone had known Ellis would talk to me. And someone had decided he'd talked enough.

I went back into the bar and told the bartender to call the police. Then I sat down and finished my whiskey, because there was nothing else to do.

The police arrived twenty minutes later. Two detectives in rumpled suits, a coroner's van, the usual circus of death. I gave my statement. I told them I didn't see anything. I told them Ellis had been a source. I told them he was scared.

"Scared of what?" one of the detectives asked. His name was Brody, a heavyset man with a mustache that looked like a dead caterpillar.

"He didn't say."

"And you didn't ask?"

"He didn't say."

Brody wrote something in his notebook. "You're the reporter. The one who writes about crime."

"That's right."

"Maybe you should stick to writing." He closed his notebook. "We'll be in touch."

I drove home through the rain, the windshield wipers beating out a rhythm that sounded like a warning. The streets were empty. The city was asleep. Somewhere out there, someone was still awake, watching, waiting.

At home, I checked the locks on all the doors and windows. Ellen was asleep upstairs. Tommy was in his room, the dinosaur nightlight casting shadows on the ceiling. I stood in his doorway for a long time, watching him sleep.

Then I went downstairs, poured another whiskey, and spread the documents across the kitchen table. Water quality reports. Medical records. A dead reporter's notebook. A dead clerk's confession.

There was a pattern here. I could feel it, just out of reach. The contamination wasn't random. It wasn't just negligence. Someone had designed this. Someone had chosen who got clean water and who got poison.

I found the report that Ellis had highlighted. A chemical analysis from two years ago, from a treatment plant on the south side. The numbers were normal. Too normal. The kind of numbers that came from a lab that wasn't testing real water.

At the bottom of the page, in small print, was a notation: BYPASS VALVE 7C, SCHEDULED MAINTENANCE ONLY.

Bypass. The word from Carl Denning's notebook. The last thing he ever wrote.

I stared at the notation for a long time. A bypass valve. Something that could divert water around the treatment system. Something that could send untreated water straight into the pipes that fed the Flats and the other poor neighborhoods.

I reached for the phone to call Loomis. Then I stopped.

The line was dead. Not just silent—dead. No dial tone. Nothing.

I looked out the window. The street was dark. Too dark. The streetlight on the corner was out, and I hadn't noticed when it had happened.

The house creaked. Wind, I told myself. Just wind.

But I didn't believe it. I went to the hall closet and took out my father's revolver. I checked the cylinder. Six rounds. I clicked it shut and carried it to the window.

Nothing moved outside. No headlights. No footsteps. Just the rain and the wind and the darkness.

But I knew someone was out there. Watching. Waiting. The same someone who had killed Marcus Ellis. The same someone who had called me at three in the morning.

I stood at the window until dawn, the revolver heavy in my hand, waiting for the bullet that had my name on it.