containers with strange contents.
âBeware of BFRC!â is how they put it: Big Fucking Red Cloud.
Many of their investigations consisted of tracking down knowing disposers. Plating companies were among the worst offenders, and their acids were dumped everywhere, much of it in southeast San Diego. Nell knew of one particularly egregious case where fifty 55-gallon drums were transported to Mexico by a waste disposal company that had bribes in to a Mexican customs official. The de-headed drums were dumped into the Tijuana River and the empty ones were sold to squatters who used them to haul drinking water. And there were other horror stories involving Mexico as a dump site; one involved the casting of re-bars used in cheap Mexican concrete housing with metal that had been made radioactive in the United States.
Presidential candidate Bill Clinton had recently sort of approved of the North American Free Trade Agreement, his approval being subject to more environmental safeguards from the Mexican side, but Mexicans said that their citizens had suffered from U.S. toxic waste in ways that no one would ever know about. In that poor Mexicans had a high mortality rate from diseases long since eradicated in the U.S., who could say if hazardous waste contributed to it?
That was the way of things in a Third World country, or so the Mexicans said. And nobody south of the border thought that the Americans would sign the NAFTA agreement unless it greatly favored the U.S. It had always been thus, ever since the gringos stole their land in the Mexican War, or so the Mexicans said.
Of course Nellâs job stopped at the international border, but she often thought about the people down there. She frequently took holidays on the Baja peninsula, and had been to Mexico City twice, as well as to Acapulco. She was interested in the Mexican culture, liked the people, and hoped to be able to afford a decent specimen of pre-Columbian sculpture someday, like those sheâd admired in the shops of Mexico City.
If Finbar Finnegan thought it was tough staring down the muzzle at the forty-five-year benchmark, Nell Salter could have told him that it wasnât a lark turning forty-three, which she had accomplished in July. Unlike Fin, she hadnât managed to chalk up three divorces during her twenty years in law enforcement; one was enough, when she was twenty-two, then working as a civilian crime-scene photographer for the San Diego P.D.
The job of crime-scene photographer hadnât been exactly what sheâd envisioned. During young Nellâs second day on the job sheâd found herself literally cheek by jowl with a dead drug dealer whoâd had his throat cut, and was discovered inside the trunk of his own Mercedes two weeks after his murder. Nellâs civilian husband had made her strip naked before she was allowed into the house after that one. Her clothes smelled, her hair smelled, her fingernails smelled. For months she could whiff that dead drug dealer. It might happen when sheâd walk into an unfamiliar room, or when sheâd open the trunk of her own car. Once it happened when she was cooking dinner. Keeping a small can of aerosol in her purse helped her to get her imagination under control.
âThis isnât what I expected from corpse photography,â sheâd explained to her boss.
He said, âDid you expect theyâd resemble mannequins that you could dress up like dolls?â
Nellâs fourteen-month marriage to her high school sweetheart deteriorated quickly after that. His boozing, aggravated by a job layoff, made things worse. One night after a drunken row, heâd punched her in the face, breaking her nose and blackening both eyes.
As a civilian employee of the S.D.P.D. Nell had known what to do, but didnât. She didnât call the police and didnât prosecute, but she did try a gag that a cop had told her about. While he was packing his clothes, vowing to leave forever,
âBeware of BFRC!â is how they put it: Big Fucking Red Cloud.
Many of their investigations consisted of tracking down knowing disposers. Plating companies were among the worst offenders, and their acids were dumped everywhere, much of it in southeast San Diego. Nell knew of one particularly egregious case where fifty 55-gallon drums were transported to Mexico by a waste disposal company that had bribes in to a Mexican customs official. The de-headed drums were dumped into the Tijuana River and the empty ones were sold to squatters who used them to haul drinking water. And there were other horror stories involving Mexico as a dump site; one involved the casting of re-bars used in cheap Mexican concrete housing with metal that had been made radioactive in the United States.
Presidential candidate Bill Clinton had recently sort of approved of the North American Free Trade Agreement, his approval being subject to more environmental safeguards from the Mexican side, but Mexicans said that their citizens had suffered from U.S. toxic waste in ways that no one would ever know about. In that poor Mexicans had a high mortality rate from diseases long since eradicated in the U.S., who could say if hazardous waste contributed to it?
That was the way of things in a Third World country, or so the Mexicans said. And nobody south of the border thought that the Americans would sign the NAFTA agreement unless it greatly favored the U.S. It had always been thus, ever since the gringos stole their land in the Mexican War, or so the Mexicans said.
Of course Nellâs job stopped at the international border, but she often thought about the people down there. She frequently took holidays on the Baja peninsula, and had been to Mexico City twice, as well as to Acapulco. She was interested in the Mexican culture, liked the people, and hoped to be able to afford a decent specimen of pre-Columbian sculpture someday, like those sheâd admired in the shops of Mexico City.
If Finbar Finnegan thought it was tough staring down the muzzle at the forty-five-year benchmark, Nell Salter could have told him that it wasnât a lark turning forty-three, which she had accomplished in July. Unlike Fin, she hadnât managed to chalk up three divorces during her twenty years in law enforcement; one was enough, when she was twenty-two, then working as a civilian crime-scene photographer for the San Diego P.D.
The job of crime-scene photographer hadnât been exactly what sheâd envisioned. During young Nellâs second day on the job sheâd found herself literally cheek by jowl with a dead drug dealer whoâd had his throat cut, and was discovered inside the trunk of his own Mercedes two weeks after his murder. Nellâs civilian husband had made her strip naked before she was allowed into the house after that one. Her clothes smelled, her hair smelled, her fingernails smelled. For months she could whiff that dead drug dealer. It might happen when sheâd walk into an unfamiliar room, or when sheâd open the trunk of her own car. Once it happened when she was cooking dinner. Keeping a small can of aerosol in her purse helped her to get her imagination under control.
âThis isnât what I expected from corpse photography,â sheâd explained to her boss.
He said, âDid you expect theyâd resemble mannequins that you could dress up like dolls?â
Nellâs fourteen-month marriage to her high school sweetheart deteriorated quickly after that. His boozing, aggravated by a job layoff, made things worse. One night after a drunken row, heâd punched her in the face, breaking her nose and blackening both eyes.
As a civilian employee of the S.D.P.D. Nell had known what to do, but didnât. She didnât call the police and didnât prosecute, but she did try a gag that a cop had told her about. While he was packing his clothes, vowing to leave forever,
Similar Books
