Bloodstream

by Tess Gerritsen

She turned to the August and September issues, where she read more of the same, news of fish fries and church dances and swim races in the lake. There was unpleasant news as well: a three-car accident had sent two visitors to the hospital and a house had burned down due to a cooking mishap. Shoplifters had taken their toll on area stores. Life was not perfect in Vacationland.

  She turned to the October issue and found herself staring at a headline in bold print:

  15-YEAR-OLD BOY SLAYS PARENTS, THEN FALLS TO HIS DEATH; YOUNGER SISTER’S ACTIONS “CLEARLY SELF-DEFENSE.”

  The juvenile was not named, but there were photographs of the murdered parents, a handsome, darkhaired couple smiling in their Sunday best. She focused on the caption beneath the photo, identifying the murdered couple: Martha and Frank Keating. Their last name was familiar; she knew of a local judge named Iris Keating. Were they related?

  Her gaze dropped to another headline below it: FISTFIGHT BREAKS OUT IN HIGH SCHOOL CAFETERIA.

  Then another: BOSTON VISITOR MISSING; GIRL LAST SEEN WITH AREA YOUTHS.

  The basement was unheated, and her hands felt like ice. But the chill came from within.

  She reached for the November issue and stared at the front page. At the headline screaming up at her.

  14-YEAR-OLD ARRESTED FOR MURDER OF PARENTS: FRIENDS AND NEIGHBORS STUNNED BY CRIMES OF “SENSITIVE CHILD.”

  The chill had spread all the way up her spine.

  She thought: It’s happening all over again.

  14

  “Why didn’t you tell me? Why did you keep it a secret?”

  Lincoln crossed the room to shut his office door. Then he turned to face Claire. “It was a long time ago. I didn’t see the point of dredging up old history.”

  “But it’s the history of this town! Considering what’s happened in the last month, it strikes me as relevant.”

  She placed the photocopied articles from the Tranquility Gazette on his desk. “Look at this. In 1946, seven people were murdered and one girl from Boston was never found. Obviously violence is nothing new to this town.” She tapped the stack of papers. “Read the articles, Lincoln. Or do you already know the details?”

  Slowly he sat down, staring at the pages. “Yes, I know most of the details,” he said softly. “I’ve heard the stories.”

  “Who told you?”

  “Jeff Willard. He was chief of police when I was first hired twenty-two years ago.”

  “You hadn’t heard about it before then?”

  “No. And I grew up here. I knew nothing about it until Chief Willard told me. People just don’t talk about it.”

  “They’d rather pretend it never happened.”

  “There’s also our reputation to consider.” He looked up, at last meeting her gaze. “This is a resort town, Claire. People come here to escape the big city, escape crime. We’re not eager to reveal to the world that we’ve had our own problems. Our own murder epidemic.”

  She sat down, her gaze now level with his. “Who knows about this?”

  “The people who were here then. The older ones, now in their sixties and seventies. But not their children. Not my generation.”

  She shook her head in amazement. “They kept it a secret all these years?”

  “You understand why, don’t you? It’s not just the town they’re protecting. It’s their families. The kids who committed those crimes were all local. Their families still live here, and maybe they’re still ashamed. Still suffering the aftermath.”

  “Like Warren Emerson.”

  “Exactly. Look at the life he’s had. He lives alone, and has no friends. He’s never committed another crime, yet he’s shunned by everyone. Even by the kids, who have no idea why they’re supposed to steer clear of him. They just know from their grandparents that Emerson is a man to be avoided.” He looked down at the photocopied article. “So that’s the background on your patient. Warren Emerson is a murderer. But he wasn’t the only one.”

  “You must have seen the parallels, Lincoln.”

  “Okay, I admit there are some.”

  “Too many to list.” She reached for the photocopied articles and flipped to the October issue. “In 1946, it started off with fights in the schools. Two kids were expelled. Then there were windows smashed in town, homes vandalized—again, adolescents were blamed. Finally, the last week of October, a fifteen-year-old boy hacks his parents to death. His younger sister pushes him out the window in self-defense.” She looked up at him. “It only gets worse from there. How do you explain it?”

  “When violence occurs, Claire, it’s only human nature to ask why. But the truth is, we don’t always know why people kill each other.”

  “Look at the sequence of events. Last time it started off with a quiet town. Then here and there, kids start to misbehave. Hurt each other. In a matter of weeks, they’re killing people. The town’s in an uproar, everyone demanding that something be done. And suddenly—magically—it all just stops. And the town goes back to sleep again.” She fell silent, her gaze dropping to the headline. “Lincoln, there’s something else that’s strange about it. In the city, the most dangerous time of year is the summer, when the heat makes everyone’s temper flare. Crime always takes a nosedive when it gets cold. But in this town, it’s different. The violence starts in October, and peaks in November.” She looked up at him. “Both times, the killing started in the fall.”

  The beeping of her pocket pager startled her. She glanced at the number on the display, and reached for Lincoln’s phone.

  A CT technician answered her call. “We just finished the brain scan on your patient, Warren Emerson. Dr. Chapman’s on his way over to read it now.”

  “You see anything?” asked Claire.

  “It’s definitely abnormal.”

  Dr. Chapman clipped the CT films to the X-ray viewing box and flipped on the switch. The light flickered on, illuminating the transverse cuts of Warren Emerson’s brain. “This is what I’m talking about,” he said. “Right here, extending into the left frontal lobe. You see it?”

  Claire stepped closer. What he’d pointed out was a small, spherelike density located at the front of the brain, just behind the eyebrow. It appeared to be solid, not cystic. She glanced at the other cuts on view, but saw no other masses. If this was a tumor, then it appeared to be localized. “What do you think?” she asked. “A meningioma?”

  He nodded. “Most likely. See how smooth the edges are? Of course you’ll need tissue diagnosis to confirm it’s benign. It’s about two centimeters in diameter, and it seems to be thickly encapsulated. Walled off by fibrous tissue. I suspect it can be removed without any residual tumor left behind.”

  “Could this be the cause of his seizures?”

  “How long has he had them?”

  “Since his late teens. Which would make it close to fifty years.”

  Chapman glanced at her in surprise. “And this mass was never picked up?”

  “No. Since he’s had the seizures most of his life, I think Pomeroy assumed it wasn’t worth pursuing.”

  Chapman shook his head. “That makes me rethink my diagnosis. First of all, you rarely see meningiomas in young adults. Also, a meningioma would continue to grow. So either this isn’t the cause of his seizures, or this is not a meningioma.”

  “What else could it be?”

  “A glioma. A metastasis from some other primary.” He shrugged. “It could even be an old walled-off cyst.”

  “This mass looks solid.”

  “If this was from TB, for instance, or a parasite, the body would launch an inflammatory reaction. Surround it or bind it up with scar tissue. Have you checked his TB status?”

  “He was PPD-negative ten years ago.”

  “Well, in the end, it’s still a pathologic diagnosis. This patient needs a craniotomy and excision.”

  “I guess this means we have to transfer him to Bangor.”

  “We don’t do craniotomies in this hospital. Our docs usually refer neurosurgery cases to Clarence Rothstei
n, out at Eastern Maine Medical Center.”

  “You’d recommend him?”

  Chapman nodded and flicked off the light box. “He’s got very good hands.”

  Steamed broccoli and rice and a pathetic little dab of cod.

  Louise Knowlton didn’t know if she could bear it any longer, watching her son slowly starve. He had lost two more pounds, and the strain showed in his grim expression, his flashes of irritability. He was no longer her cheerful Barry.

  Louise looked across the table at her husband and read the same thought in Mel’s eyes: It’s the diet. He’s behaving this way because of the diet.

  Louise pointed to the platter of french fries that she and Mel had been sharing. “Barry, sweetie, you look so hungry! A few of those won’t matter.”

  Barry ignored her, and kept scraping his plate with the fork, eliciting teeth-shattering squeals against the china.

  “Barry, stop that!”

  He looked up. Not just a glance, but the coldest, flattest stare she had ever seen.

  With trembling hands, Louise extended the platter of french fries. “Oh please, Barry,” she murmured. “Eat one. Eat them all. It will make you feel so much better if you just eat something.”

  She gave a startled gasp as Barry shoved his chair back and abruptly stood up. Without a word he walked away and slammed his bedroom door shut. A moment later they heard the incessant gunfire of the video game as their son blasted away hordes of virtual enemies.

  “Did something happen in school today?” asked Mel. “Those kids picking on him again?”

  Louise sighed. “I don’t know. I don’t know anything anymore.”

  They sat listening to the accelerating blast of gunfire. To the cries and moans of virtual victims as they lay dying in some Super Nintendo hell.

  Louise looked down at the pile of limp and soggy french fries and she shuddered. For the first time in her life, she pushed her dinner away, unfinished.

  Noah’s stereo was playing full blast when Claire arrived home. The headache that had been building all afternoon seemed to tighten around her cranium, digging its claws into her forehead. She hung up her coat and stood at the bottom of the steps, listening to the relentless pounding of drums, the chanting of lyrics. She couldn’t understand a single word. How am I supposed to monitor my child’s music when I don’t even know what the songs are saying?

  This could not go on. She couldn’t deal with the noise, not tonight. She called up the stairs: “Noah, turn it down!”

  The music played on, unabating. Unbearable.

  She climbed the steps, her irritation swelling to anger. Reaching his room, she found the door locked. She pounded on it and yelled: “Noah!”

  It took a moment before the door swung open. The music rushed at her, engulfing her in a tidal wave of noise. Noah hulked in the doorway, his shirt and trousers so baggy they hung like tattered ceremonial robes.

  “Turn it down!” she yelled.

  He flipped the amplifier switch and the music abruptly went dead. Her ears were still ringing in the silence.

  “What are you trying to do, make yourself deaf? And drive me totally nuts in the process?”

  “You weren’t home.”

  “I was home. I’ve been yelling, but you couldn’t hear me.”

  “I’m hearing you now, okay?”

  “In ten years you’re not going to hear a thing if you keep playing your music that loud. You’re not the only one who lives under this roof.”

  “How can I forget when you keep reminding me?” He dropped like a stone into a chair and swiveled around to face his desk. Turning his back on her.

  She stood watching him. Even though he was flipping the pages of a magazine, she knew by the muscles tensed in his shoulders that he wasn’t really reading. He was too aware of her, of her anger toward him.

  She came into his room and wearily sat down on the bed. After a moment she said, “I’m sorry I yelled at you.”

  “You do it all the time now.”

  “Do I?”

  “Yeah.” He flipped a page.

  “I don’t mean to, Noah. I have so many things going wrong at once, I can’t seem to deal with them all.”

  “Everything’s all screwed up since we moved here, Mom. Everything.” He slapped the magazine shut and dropped his head in his hands. His voice was barely a whisper. “I wish Dad was here.”

  For a moment they were both silent. She heard his tears fall on the page of the magazine, heard his sharp intake of breath as he struggled for control.

  She stood up and placed her hands on his shoulders. They were tense, all his muscles knotted with the effort not to cry. We are so much alike, she realized, both of us constantly fighting to rein in our emotions, to stay in control. Peter had been the exuberant member of the family, the one who screamed with delight on roller coasters and roared with laughter in movie theaters. The one who sang in the shower and set off smoke alarms with his cooking. The one who had never hesitated to say “I love you.”

  How sad you would be to see us now, Peter. Afraid to reach out to each other. Still mourning, still crippled by your death.

  “I miss him too,” she whispered. She let her arms slip around her son and she rested her cheek in his hair, inhaling the boy-smell she loved so much. “I miss him too.”

  Downstairs, the doorbell rang.

  Not now. Not now.

  She held on, ignoring the sound, shutting out everything but the warmth of her son in her arms.

  “Mom,” said Noah, shrugging her off. “Mom, someone’s at the door.”

  Reluctantly she released her hold on him and straightened. The moment, the opportunity, had passed, and she was staring once again at his rigid shoulders.

  She went downstairs, angry at this new intrusion, at yet another demand tugging her away from her son. She opened the front door to find Lincoln standing in the bitterly cold wind, his gloved hand poised to ring the bell again. He had never stopped in at her house before, and she was both surprised and puzzled by his visit.

  “I have to talk to you,” he said. “Can I come in?”

  She had not yet lit a fire in the front parlor, and the room was cold and depressingly dark. Quickly she turned on all the lamps, but light was poor compensation for the chill.

  “After you left my office,” he said, “I got to thinking about what you’d said. That there’s a pattern to the violence in this town. That there’s some sort of connection between 1946 and this year.” He reached in his jacket and took out the sheaf of photocopied news articles she’d left him. “Guess what? The answer was staring right at us.”

  “What answer?”

  “Look at the first page. The October issue, 1946.”

  “I’ve already read that article.”

  “No, not the story about the murder. The article at the bottom. You probably didn’t notice it.”

  She smoothed the page on her lap. The article he’d referred to was partly cut off; only the top half had been included in the photocopy. The headline read: REPAIRS ON LOCUST RIVER BRIDGE COMPLETED.

  “I don’t know what you’re getting at,” she said.

  “We had to repair that same bridge this year. Remember?”

  “Yes.”

  “So why did we have to repair it?”

  “Because it was broken?”

  He ran his hand through his hair in frustration. “Geez, Claire. Think about it! Why’d the bridge need repairs? Because it got washed away. We had record rainfall this past spring, and it flooded the Locust River, washed out two homes, tore out a whole series of footbridges. I called the U.S. Geological Survey to confirm it. This year was the heaviest rainfall we’ve had in fifty-two years.”

  She looked up, suddenly registering what he was trying to tell her. “Then the last time the rainfall was this heavy …”

  “Was the spring of 1946.”

  She sat back, stunned by the coincidence. “Rainfall,” she murmured. “Moist soil. Bacteria. Fungi …”

 
; “Mushrooms are fungi. What about those blue ones?”

  She shook her head. “Max had their identity confirmed. They’re not very toxic. But heavy rains would encourage the growth of other fungi. In fact, it’s a fungus that caused mass occurrences of St. Vitus’ dance.”

  “Is that a seizure?”

  “The medical term for St. Vitus’ dance is chorea. It’s a writhing, dancelike movement of the limbs. Occasionally, there’ll be reports of mass occurrences. It may even have inspired the witchcraft accusations in Salem.”

  “A medical condition?”

  “Yes. After a cold, wet spring, rye crops can be infected by this fungus. People eat the rye, and they develop chorea.”

  “Could we be dealing with a form of St. Vitus’ dance?”

  “No, I’m just saying there are examples throughout history of human diseases linked to climate. Everything in nature is intimately bound together. We may think we control our environment, but we’re affected by so many organisms we can’t see.” She paused, thinking about Scotty Braxton’s negative cultures. So far nothing had grown out from either his blood or spinal fluid. Could there be a locus of infection she had missed? An organism so unusual, so unexpected, the lab would have discounted it as error?

  “There must be a common factor among these children,” she said. “Exposure to the same contaminated food, for instance. All we have is this apparent association between rainfall and violence. It could be just coincidence.”

  He sat in silence for a moment. She had often studied his face, admiring the strength she saw there, the calm self-confidence. Today she saw the intelligence in his eyes. He had taken two completely disparate bits of information and had recognized a pattern that she had not even noticed.

  “Then what we need to find,” he said, “is the common factor.”

  She nodded. “Could you get me into the Maine Youth Center? So I can talk to Taylor?”

  “That could be a problem. You know Paul Darnell still blames you.”

  “But Taylor’s not the only child affected. Paul can’t blame me for everything else that’s gone wrong in this town.”