“…who is also your friend, and now can’t see you.”
Bob hadn’t thought about that. “Shit. Marcus.’
“The actual reason you came here in the first place,” she reminded him. “I’ll have Anuvab talk to him, tell him you’re okay. At least that way he won’t be worrying.”
“I get that there are other people to consider,” Bob said, “like your administrator friend. But the plus side is that we’re ahead of the game now. We know Baird was involved somehow. We know he’s got friends on the police.”
“I had a thought on that,” she said. “I did some reading from the local newspaper archive. When the initial fracking permit was rejected for Jenkins’s quarter lot—before they pivoted to housing—it had already gone through the local level, the county board of supervisors, and gotten the okay. Despite the fact that most folks expected it to reject the plan outright.”
“Then why didn’t it go ahead?”
“Because the Energy Management Division—that’s the state board that overviews drilling approvals—said there was no point asking for a permit, that it considered that area of the valley’s oil and gas profile overdeveloped already.”
“The professor mentioned that; he said the state never approves those sorts of projects anymore. So… it wasn’t the local politicians who shut it down, not really.”
“Technically, they withdrew their permission before any permit was issued. So technically, it was. But everyone knew they’d initially given it a thumbs-up, by a 3-2 vote.”
“So… Baird had political supporters,” Bob said. “He wouldn’t have the two who voted against it in his back pocket. And the other three…”
“Two of them are arch-libertarians who sit on the board to dissuade over-regulation. They rubber stamp anything they see.”
“And the third?”
“The third?” She frowned. “Gerry Tucker. He’s sort of a local educational hero. That’s not going to a warmly received notion, that an assistant high school principal is in bed with a developer.”
“Maybe he isn’t,” Bob said. “Maybe he genuinely believed it was in the county’s best interests. There’s really only one way to find out.”
She nodded. “Okay. Okay then. But… I talk to him first, Bob. Gerry’s an open book, or seems it to most local folks. I just can’t see him being on the bad side of this.”
District Four Supervisor Gerald Tucker’s office was above a picture framing store in a strip mall off Brimhall Road.
Sharmila had never visited before, but as she climbed the stairs, it struck her that the place fit his reputation: unassuming, unglamorous.
He’d helped put two generations of kids through schools in Bakersfield and Oildale before being drafted in to represent the mostly affluent district on the non-partisan board.
A middle-aged receptionist greeted her as she entered the office. “Gerry will be just a few minutes, Ms. Singh, if you’d like to have a seat,” she said.
A moment later, a broad-shouldered giant of a man in a grey two-piece suit appeared. “Ms. Singh?” He held out his hand to shake as she rose, then clasped both their hands with his left. “I was so very sorry to hear about your father,” he said. “We worked together several times over the years; he was a good man. Please... let’s talk in my office.”
He led her across the room to the back corner. The office was large but plain and functional. “Grab a seat there. Do you need a coffee?” Before she could answer, he sat on the corner of the desk and hit a line on his phone. “Ms. Joyner, if you could bring us a fresh pot of coffee…”
“I’ll be right in.”
He released the button before giving Sharmila his full attention. “Okay. Can’t hustle without my caffeine,” he admitted ruefully.
“I think that’s most of us,” she said. “Supervisor… you may have heard I have problems with the police version of things on my father’s death.”
“It’s been a topic of conversation, sure,” he said. “But… you know, it’s just people talking.”
The door opened and Ms. Joyner entered with a small tray, two cups and a tiny carafe. “I’ll leave you to it,” she said.
He waited until the door closed. “She’s a pistol, Ms. Joyner. I don’t think I’d get anything done without her.”
He poured them each a cup. Sharmila accepted it and perched the saucer on her lap.
“I’m looking into some of the projects that drew my father’s attention.”
“His opposition to the new trailer parks. It goes without saying, I hope, that he had my support on that one. Probably wouldn’t have mattered, as we need housing badly right now in the county. But we needed something longer term, real chances at homes for people.”
“That’s nice to hear,” Sharmila said. She took a sip of coffee and weighed his eager demeanor. He was either so practiced at politeness that nothing true came through or he was genuine, she thought. He had to be. “I was thinking more about one of the other cases that came up, the fracking application.”
He nodded sagely, thinking back. “Oh yeah, sure. That wasn’t going to happen, not on my watch.”
“But… you voted for it.”
He seemed slightly amused, Sharmila thought. “Because it was a dead vote, a non-starter. There was no risk. But it kept a few people whose support I needed happy, for my worker safety initiative.”
“So it was purely political. Worker safety?”
“I’m working with my District 5 peers to try and improve labor conditions for undocumented workers, potentially through safety-related zoning requirements for new agricultural projects.”
“That seems worthy. And the housing proposal? That’s still Jenkins, technically, isn’t it?”
“I believe so,” he said. “They have some silent partners, and when you add in the adjacent lots, we’re talking close to twenty-five hundred new units. That’s a lot of homes.”
“And a lot of concentrated poverty,” she said. “They’ll all end up as overpriced rentals.”
He sighed. “Possibly, yes. Your father felt so. Filing papers to run for sheriff was shrewd on his part. He could’ve asked for enough restrictive covenants on the project to have sunk the whole thing, I imagine, or at least delay the heck out of it.”
