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strange animal behavior you people have been reporting on." Calvin saw no reason to mention Matty. |
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"And you think there's an environmental cause." |
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"Yes," Calvin said, "and possibly related to what Sally Forand was investigating." |
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"I see." Waite rocked back and put the tips of his fingers together as if holding an invisible ball. "If I recall, Sally never reported anything about strange animal behavior." |
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"Love Canal didn't happen overnight either," Calvin said. |
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"And you think you're living on your own Love Canal." |
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"That's what I'm asking you." |
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Waite nodded and crossed the room to a file cabinet, where he stooped down and pulled out a bottom drawer. From in back he extracted a manila file, came back to the desk, opened the folder and pulled from it a five-by-seven black-and-white photo that he handed to Calvin. |
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It showed an attractive young woman with blond hair pulled back, grinning happily, and beside her, a younger, long-haired Dennis Waite. They were holding a newspaper open to a page with portraits of women too small to make out. FEBRUARY, 1973 was penned on the bottom white margin. |
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"We were going to be married that June," Dennis Waite said. "She was killed in a car crash on Memorial Day weekend. It was a hit-and-run. She died instantly." |
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Waite nodded. "They found the other car about half a mile from hers. It had rolled over a couple times down a bank. Some blood but no driver. I had the impression it was staged." |
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"Staged?" Calvin said. "You mean, you suspected she'd been murdered?" |
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"At the time," Waite said. "Remember, it was the era of political assassinations and conspiracy theories. And I was a young reporter caught up in Watergate fever, so I was full of suspicions. Her death was my grassy knoll." |
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"Was there an investigation?" |
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"Yeah, but it turned up nothing." |
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"What made you suspect she'd been murdered?" |
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