Mark was in custody when he learned the transmission lines had gone down. A tower carrying a half a million volts that fed the West was pulled down by a train that had then derailed and wiped out a second tower, and a third.
The first interrogations took place in a dimly lit police station. They were running on backup generators, and the overhead fluorescents were more than the generators could handle.
The detectives who asked the first questions about Eli Pate asked them from out of the shadows.
The investigators lost interest in Garland Webb’s death quickly. Garland Webb they understood—or thought they understood. What they cared about was Wardenclyffe. How it had come to exist, who had been there, and who might still be alive. Garland Webb was not in that mix.
Neither was Jay Baldwin.
They’d found his body in the train wreckage. When they told Mark that, all he could see was Baldwin’s anguished face in the darkness outside of his home, imploring Mark for one chance, for just a little more time.
And if you had the chance to go back and save her? If you could have made a deal to keep from losing her? What would you have been willing to do?
Mark had been answering questions for hours by then, and the detectives seemed to accept his exhaustion when he lowered his forehead to the tabletop and closed his eyes.