CHAPTER 3

Knowing I had a contract on the way began to change my perspective on

my promise to Heidi Charlayne. I didn’t know the first thing about finding old

friends who had disappeared. But over the years I had developed a methodology

for organizing and analyzing information. It had served me well.

I turned on my computer. By the early 1990s, software had become

relatively versatile and user friendly. I’m no hacker, just a computer user. So I

found a graduate student at Arizona State who created some customized software

for my particular needs. It allowed me to track people and events, providing a

visual representation of how they intersected over time. It was similar to tools I

had used for intelligence work in the army.

I started a profile on Charlie Gonnerman. I entered the address Heidi had

written for me on the napkin at Lucinda’s.

Then my memory carried me back a couple of decades. Charlie and I had

gone to high school together in the sixties. We weren’t close friends. But we had

been on the football team together. Charlie was never a star, just another body on

the bench. For one thing he was sort of small, but he always worked hard and

earned his spot on the roster. During the winter he was on the wrestling team,

never more than an also-ran in that sport either. I didn’t remember him having a

girl friend, but I didn’t think he was gay.

Charlie’s father died of a heart attack when Charlie was seventeen. It

must have had quite an impact on him. He told me once that life was short and
you had to make every moment count. Consequently he lived his life differently

than most of our classmates from the Scottsdale High School class of 1968.

He threw his heart and soul into the causes he believed in, whether it was

the anti-war movement, social justice, or the protecting the environment. While

most of our peers were clawing their way up some corporate ladder or making a

name in academia, Charlie lived a minimalist lifestyle while he saved the world.

I didn’t see Charlie much during the seventies. I played a year of college

ball as a wide receiver at San Francisco State. While my grades were good

enough to stay eligible and keep my scholarship, I didn’t carry enough hours to

maintain my draft deferment. When the draft lottery was held during my

freshman year of college, my date of birth matched up with number 26. That

meant that without a student deferment it was a sure bet that my ass would be

drafted. After considering my options I went see an Army recruiter. I figured

that if I could enlist for a job I might actually like, perhaps I could avoid playing

13 months in the Southeast Asian Conference. I wasn’t very smart then, either.

When I finally left the Army twelve years later, I returned to Phoenix and

enrolled at Arizona State to study journalism. That’s where I ran into Charlie

again. He had taken his time getting through college, dropping in and out as the

years went by. By 1982 he was about to graduate with a degree in environmental

studies.

I had an assignment in one of my classes to write an in-depth article on an

issue of local concern. I had noticed a story in the local papers about wells in the

Valley becoming contaminated after years of chemical dumping at several

facilities operated by a large electronics firm. When I contacted one of the

environmental groups to get some background information on water quality, they

referred me to Charlie Gonnerman.

Charlie had become a local expert on the environmental politics of water

in the desert. We got together. For several hours one afternoon and evening

Charlie told me more than I ever wanted to know about water, water rights,

irrigation, conservation, and a water table that continued to drop. He recited the

entire history of western water projects, hydroelectric power, and an agricultural

industry that was slowly committing environmental suicide.

Then he discussed the electronics firm that for years had been dumping

solvents containing PCBs on their back lots. When the practice began, nobody

knew that PCBs were carcinogenic. And no one apparently considered that the

solvents would eventually seep into the aquifer that lay beneath the Valley of the

Sun. Then traces of the PCBs began to show up in water from wells near the

electronics plants. Those wells fed directly into the Phoenix water supply. While

Phoenix’s political leaders had historically been quite conservative, pro-business,

and generally suspicious of environmental causes, even they tended to be

sensitive to the possibility of carcinogens flowing into their homes (and the homes

of their constituents) through the kitchen faucet.

The political questions tended to focus on money. How much would it

cost to clean up the wells? What would it cost to clean up the dumping sites?

What would it cost them to find an alternative means of disposing of the solvents?

And who should pay? Always who should pay?

 Charlie laid this all out for me in rapid-fire staccato fashion. If I hadn’t

brought a tape recorder I never would have been able to keep up with him. I got

an A on the paper and actually sold a version of my article to the Rocky Mountain

News.

I talked with Charlie from time to time after that. My Rocky Mountain

News article opened up some doors for other stories on environmental issues, and

I continued to use Charlie as a resource. If he didn’t know the details on an issue

he could refer me to someone who did.

He completed his degree, and started working as a substitute science

teacher at local high schools. But he continued his work as a researcher and

advocate with environmental groups. I knew substitute teaching didn’t pay very

much, but Charlie lived pretty simply.

I completed entering what I knew about Charlie in the personality data

base file, then made a note check on what schools Charlie had taught at recently. I

imagined him stepping into a classroom with his frizzy blond hair, frizzy blond

beard, round, wire rim glasses, and what ever post-hippie attire he had scrambled

together that morning.

That was about all I could do with the Gonnerman file. I flipped through

my Rolodex for another number and dialed it. “East Phoenix Precinct,” the

dispatcher answered.

“Joe Diaz, please.”

 “Just a moment, I’ll see if he’s on duty.” She didn’t put me on hold, a

good sign. “I’m sorry sir, Officer Diaz is not in the building at the moment. Can

I take a message for him?”

“Yes, would you ask him to call Travis Jefferson. It’s not urgent, but if he

could call this afternoon I’d appreciated it.”

“I’ll give him the message, sir.”

“Thank you very much,” I said.

I went back to my computer to review projects that were either proposed,

pending, or in progress. There weren’t that many. Under “In Progress” there

were only two. One was the new one on Charlie Gonnerman. The other was

Juliette Skye Valdez.

I didn’t want to think about her. This whole thing with Charlie

Gonnerman was becoming just the sort of distraction I needed. But it wasn’t

enough. I stared at the computer screen, knowing that with the push of a button I

could open her file. As simple as that: open the file; open the wound.

I needed a drink. I didn’t know if I had a problem with booze, and I didn’t

care. I just felt like crawling into a bottle. I closed my eyes and placed my face

into the palms of my hands, my elbows resting on the desk. And with my eyes

closed I could see her, just like the first time I had seen her, in Denver at the

climbing gym where she trained. I could see her black tights, the hot pink sports

top, her long legs, tan lower back and shoulders, and that long, auburn hair that

tumbled below her shoulders as she reached up for another hold.

The phone jolted me. I hit the intercom button, “Hello.”

 “Jefferson. That you, man?” It was Diaz.

I didn’t want to come back. I wanted to close my eyes again, to hold on to

that vision. “Yeah, Joe. It’s me.”

“They said you called. Wha’s up, man? You sound like shit.”

“Yeah, you got it. What time you get off?”

“Shift change is at four thirty. I should be out of the precinct house by

five. You want me to meet you somewhere?”

“How about Brandi’s on 44th? A little after five?”

“Choo got it, mon,”