It was in a spartan office in Santa Cruz that Kenny Swain met Grandma Millie -- and where a little Washington utility drew first blood in its feud with Enron Corp.
Swain was on a squad of unlikely detectives that included a retired teacher, a high-tech entrepreneur, an anthropologist and a recent political science grad. Swain himself was a former employee of an organic farming group.
Their task: to search more than 2,000 hours of recorded conversations between Enron energy traders.
Their mission: to uncover scheming and ill intent that had gone unnoticed by federal investigators.
"Instantly, my ears perked up," said Swain, recalling the moment a year ago when he heard Enron traders gloat about fleecing "Grandma Millie" and other innocent Californians.
"I rewound the tape and listened again to make sure I'd heard what I thought I had. Then I played it again for all the other listeners. They were aghast."
In a memorable subplot to the Western energy crisis of 2000-01, it has fallen to the dogged Snohomish County Public Utility District to uncover -- and bring to the world's attention -- some of the most embarrassing material that remains in the possession of the Houston-based energy firm.
Enron, of course, is the onetime Wall Street wonder that tumbled into bankruptcy proceedings in December 2001, becoming a national metaphor for white-collar fraud. Its tormentor is a utility with 300,000 customers in suburban and rustic communities between Puget Sound and the Cascade foothills north of Seattle.
It was Snohomish that unearthed the tape -- later aired repeatedly on television and radio news -- of an Enron trader chanting: "Burn, baby, burn. That's a beautiful thing." At the time, a wildfire threatened California's electricity supply.
Only last month, Snohomish investigators made public a tape of an Enron trader persuading a Nevada generator to shut down for a day in January 2001 as rolling blackouts plagued California. The utility also found signs that top Enron executives had paid close attention as traders tried out questionable ploys in western Canada, similar to "gaming" tactics used later in California.
Behind such revelations is a tale of modern data sleuthing and old-fashioned tenacity that dug up evidence that had eluded the Justice Department and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission in their investigations of Western energy market manipulation.
