Disclaimer and beta thanks in part 1.

You're not going to make me beg for reviews, are you?

oooooooooooooooooo

Chapter 5
Monday, November 21, 2005
9:15 A.M.
Wilson Street, Pasadena

The light turned green, and Charlie started pedaling. He had briefly considered driving to school now that he had his license, but it seemed wasteful to drive only a few miles when he had been biking for years. Besides, the journey was downhill nearly all the way, so although he got his exercise on the way home, it was a nice coast in the mornings.

He carefully signaled at the stop sign, and then turned into campus. Pedaling much more slowly on the sidewalks, he nodded at a few students as he passed, and then had to come to a stop and walk his bike when the foot traffic became too thick. He locked his bike in its usual spot, at the rack in front of the math building, but instead of turning inside the stuccoed edifice, he turned back the way he'd come, walking down the long arched colonnade to the geology building.

He was really going to have to find himself not just his own work to do, but some consulting outside of his family, he thought dryly. First Don, and now Dad. Two nights ago, he'd found his father sitting in front of a pile of paperwork, muttering to himself as he looked through it. "Is that related to your consulting gig?" he'd asked as he was passing through the dining room.

"Yeah, it is. I can't seem to get the information I want the old-fashioned way, so I'm going to have to get official about it."

Charlie had dropped into a chair across from him and taken a closer look at the papers. "A Freedom of Information Act request?"

"That's right." Alan looked at him over his glasses. "I'm looking for information that used to be publicly available, and if personal connections won't do it, I'll have to make a formal request."

"That can take a long time, though, can't it?"

Alan shrugged. "I don't have much choice, do I? I have a client who wants to know about the hydrology of the upper Arroyo Seco and the chemical release patterns of JPL, and if the city won't tell me..."

"Dad, how did you get involved in this? Do city planners have much to do with groundwater?"

"City planners have much to do with everything. You'd be surprised at all the things I had to learn to be able to do that job. Just a little bit of each subject, but a little bit of a whole lot of subjects. And most of it on the job, too." He shook his head and put his pen down. "I think you have to have a lot more training ahead of time before going into the field nowadays."

Charlie remembered wondering exactly how to rephrase his question. He'd finally settled on, "So this environmental group: are they going to analyze the data themselves, and they just want you to get it for them?"

Alan fixed him with another look. "Do I have any idea what I'm doing, is what you want to know." When Charlie shook his head and started to protest, he held up a hand and went on, "I'll admit, it's not my specialty. But yes, they want someone to tell them what the aquifer is like, what kind of contaminants have been released up there, and how far they might have spread. I don't think they're worried about the wells in Pasadena the same way the city is; they want to know what might have gotten into the Arroyo and down to the L.A. River, or into the groundwater closer to downtown. I know the city has that information, I remember seeing the report. I just can't get my hands on it anymore."

"You don't happen to remember who did the research, do you?" When Alan shook his head, he went on, "I'm not the only CalSci professor who does consulting, you know. Raymond Anderson in the geology department is a hydrologist who works with cities and water departments. If he didn't do the report himself, maybe he knows who did."

Alan gave him a grateful smile. "That would be great, Charlie."

He realized too late that his father had thought he was volunteering to talk to the professor for him. Figuring that he still owed him for his faux pas of the previous evening, he ducked his head and accepted his "assignment."

He'd considered carefully how to approach Dr. Anderson. From what Larry had said about him, he was the kind of person who was a stickler for regulations; if information was supposed to be kept confidential or restricted in some way, he would follow the letter of the law. Charlie had decided in the end to be as straightforward as he could without mentioning that his father had already tried and failed to get the report in question from the city.

The professor's door was ajar, and Charlie knocked as he poked his head in. "Dr. Anderson?"

"Yes?" A short, red-haired man looked up from his computer. "Charles Eppes, right?"

"That's right." He entered at the other man's wave and took the indicated seat in front of the desk. "Um, like I said in my e-mail, I was hoping you could help me out with a favor. Have you done any studies on the perchlorate plume from JPL?"

"Yes, I have. The latest was just a month or so ago. NASA is worried that the plume might be spreading far enough to endanger a third well." He took off his round glasses and looked at Charlie. "You said this is for a consulting project?"

"That's right. My father has been hired by an environmental organization that's concerned about water quality in the L.A. River."

"You're coming at this third-hand, then. Why couldn't they get that information themselves?"

Charlie blinked. He hadn't anticipated that question. If he said it was because they wanted to take advantage of his dad's connections, Anderson would wonder why that had failed. But the more he thought about it, the stranger it seemed.

He realized he'd left the other man waiting without an answer. Just as he was about to say something, however, the hydrologist spoke. "This is a pretty controversial issue, you know. I get contacted about it a lot. It really becomes apparent who's done their homework before they come talk to me."

"I'm sure." It wasn't unusual for CalSci professors to be in the news with regards to their work; not just research results, but their public outreach. Every time the L.A. Times did an article on earthquakes in southern California, one of the university's eminent geologists was sure to be quoted. He was sure that Dr. Anderson had his fair share of interviews as well with regards to his area of research, and that he often spent more time explaining the basics than he would like. "That must be frustrating."

The older man waved a hand. "Most of the time, it's fine. Like last week; the regular science reporter from the Times was doing a follow-up story, but since he already knows his stuff pretty well, there was no problem. It was the other two guys who drove me up the wall." He chuckled and shook his head. "I'm getting paranoid in my old age. They claimed to be visiting researchers, but they left me wondering if they weren't really some kind of terrorists or something."

Charlie's eyebrows shot up. "What makes you say that?" he asked, keeping his voice level. Maybe he was just being paranoid, too, but the time he had spent working with Don had taught him that even offhand comments like the one had just heard could be important.

"Oh, I'm being silly, I'm sure. It was just that they clearly knew something about hydrology, but had no clue about the situation here. They were asking all sorts of obvious questions that anyone with the most basic understanding of Southern California geology would have already known the answer to. Now, we certainly get lots of visiting scientists here who are experts in some other area than California, but most of them are at least aware of the terranes and the alluvial fans that contribute significantly to the structure of the aquifers. These two..." He shook his head. "They understood everything once I explained it, but it just struck me as odd."

"Are they here at CalSci for the semester?"

Anderson shook his head. "They said they were visiting at UCLA, but that they were in the area and wanted to ask me a few questions as one of the premier hydrologists in the region." He shrugged modestly. "I'm flattered they thought so, but I'm not sure I told them anything they couldn't have found by reading a good book."

"What kind of questions were they asking?" Charlie leaned forward slightly in his chair.

"The same kind of information you asked about in your e-mail. They didn't know there was a report that had been prepared for the city like you did, though."

"Did you give them a copy?" The other professor was regarding him quizzically, and Charlie suddenly became aware of the interrogatory tone that his voice had taken on. "I mean, I'm sure you did, if that's what they were interested in."

Anderson slowly shook his head. "I did that report a couple of years ago, when NASA first released the information about the leak. But since then, the city decided that for reasons of public safety, it should be kept confidential. So no, I don't go around handing out copies to anyone who asks."

Just what his father's successor had told him. All Charlie hoped now was that he wasn't just anyone. "That's a good policy. I mean, if the report is about accidental contamination getting in Pasadena's water supply, you don't want to make that information accessible to someone who might want to deliberately contaminate the wells."

"That's right." Anderson fixed him with a look. "Which is why I'm sure you understand that I can't give it to you."

Charlie pressed his lips together. "Dr. Anderson, I do understand your concern, but surely you can trust a fellow colleague."

"I do trust you. But you don't want it for yourself, you want it for someone I know nothing about. If these environmentalists want to know about the likelihood of the perchlorate reaching the Los Angeles River, they should come and ask me themselves."

Charlie tried to argue for a few more minutes, but had no success. The hydrologist was sticking to his guns, and was not going to let the report that Alan wanted out of his sight. He finally left, frustrated and understanding at the same time.

Then he spent the rest of the day doing two things: trying to determine how easily he could re-construct Anderson's work, and wondering if it was a good idea to do so without learning a little more about Alan's clients first. Maybe he needed to give his brother a call.