“Nothing there,” Dickie said. “Politically, anyway. He’s what he appears—a liberal Democrat, a moderate but devoted greenie, a solid citizen.”
Scotty looked at Dickie, something flickering in his eyes. “Personally, it’s a different matter.”
Dickie lit another cigarette.
“So what’s the personal angle?” Hawk finally asked.
Dickie sighed. “As you’re no doubt aware, being in recovery is a day-to-day thing.”
Sally could see the pain passing through her dear friend. “And you’re saying Stone was out of recovery some day or days, in the not-distant past?”
Dickie closed his eyes, tipped his head back, exhaled a stream of smoke. “A little something the surveillance on Nina turned up. Last June, she called him in Cody. Her phone records indicated that she hadn’t called him there before, and there were no previous calls from any of his numbers to her at Shady Grove. So we’re surmising that they’d been out of touch awhile, and she’d initiated contact. Two days later, the Cody cops arrested him for DWI. He went straight from the Cody jail to a very private treatment center in Colorado.” Dickie lifted his head and opened his eyes, darting a cold glance at Scotty. “Generally speaking, of course, that ain’t nobody’s business but his own.”
“But specifically speaking,” Scotty said, “Jackson’s fall off the wagon had come across the FBI’s screen. And what was interesting is that the only person to visit Jackson at the Colorado facility was a Ms. Cruz.”
“Cat went to see him?” Sally asked.
For a second, Scotty looked startled. “How did you know?”
“The way she looked at him at the Wild West meeting. The way she talks about him. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if the feeling wasn’t mutual, and they’re both feeling guilty as hell. So she went to be with him when he was falling apart? Doesn’t surprise me a bit.”
“Surprised us some, if for no other reason than that she had to fly from Lagos, Nigeria, to New York, then to Denver, then charter a plane. Evidently, she stayed in town a week, went to see him every day, and then flew back to Africa.”
“And I’m assuming Nina never called or went down to see either of them,” Sally said.
“Not that anyone could discover,” Scotty answered.
And yet, when the time had come to plan the benefit, Nina and Stone had been in touch. She’d called on him for help, and he’d come. And, by all accounts, by that time, he was back on the wagon and feeling strong, and Cat, Nina’s sister and closest confidante, was, well, who knew where. Passing strange.
“What I can’t figure is, how the hell does Jimbo Perrine fit into all this?” Sally wondered.
“Old Jimbo had a few side businesses to go along with his taxidermy thing. Ran a little dope, did a little quiet business in ‘lost’ weapons and ammunition. Had some survivalist buddies out in the back country who used him as a middleman for everything from guns to beans and bacon. The FBI has been watching him, too. We’re tracing possible links with animal rights types, as unlikely as that seems,” Dickie said. “But when the going gets weird, sometimes the weird get together.”
“What I would really like to know, right now, is why Sally’s become a target,” said Hawk.
Everyone sat silent for a moment.
Then Scotty Atkins broke the silence. “It would appear that, acting entirely on her own, your friend, Dr. Alder, has piled up a fair bit of information on Nina Cruz and the people around her. And she has even taken it upon herself to handle evidence pertinent to this case.”
“I really am sorry for not telling you about that can of powder. But don’t forget, when I found that note in Nina’s office, I turned it right over to you,” Sally said.
“As was only fitting,” Dickie said. “The problem now is that among the many things you’ve learned, and, by now, I dearly hope, have told us, is something that has led some person to try to kill you.”
What did she know? Who knew she knew it? Sally had to answer those questions, before it was too late.
Chapter 23
Twenty-nine Messages
The weekend before Thanksgiving started out surprisingly normal, considering that she’d nearly been killed the day before, that Hawk too might have been hurt or worse. She got up early, had her coffee, saw that the snow had piled up and the skies were gray and low, so she went to the gym. Nobody bothered her there; nobody ever did. Today was no different. She sweated out an hour of cardio, lifted weights for a while, lingered a little longer in the steam room than usual, but nothing wildly out of the ordinary. Spent the rest of the day working in her office, taking time out for lunch with a couple of colleagues. Typical college professor day. Except that much of the time, she was wracking her brain to figure out why somebody was shooting at her, and who that somebody might be. It was a little distracting.
Hawk suggested going out that night, but she didn’t really feel like it, so they made dinner, rented a movie, watched it, and went to bed. Their lovemaking that night went on and on, rocking from gentle and sweet to hard and fast and back again, as if they were checking out each other’s existence, reminding each other they were still there, still whole, still feeling, feeling every which way.
She fell into a heavy sleep, and slept far into the morning. When she finally opened her eyes and contemplated getting out of bed, she discovered that her body wouldn’t move. It wasn’t just that she didn’t want to move. She couldn’t. For some time she lay there, absolutely still, wondering how she’d become an inanimate object.
Hawk came in with a cup of coffee. “I thought I’d let you sleep late. It’s almost noon.”
“What’s noon?” she asked, utterly serious. It turned out that she could speak, but time measurement concepts weren’t computing.
Hawk looked at her more closely, setting the coffee on the night table. “Middle of the day,” he said. “Sun’s highest in the sky. Look,” he told her, pulling the window curtain aside.
She stared out at a sky so brilliant blue, the sight hurt her eyes. She closed them.
Hawk got into bed, rolled her onto her side, pulled her back to his front, and held her a long time, saying nothing. She remained motionless where he’d put her.
Eventually, he got up, picked up the now-cold coffee, and left the room. She still didn’t move. As the afternoon wore on, the sun moved across the dazzling sky, but Sally remained where she’d been all day.
She might have dozed; she wasn’t sure. But sometime in the late afternoon, she realized that she could feel at least one part of her body. Nature’s call brought her back into herself, and she got up on leaden legs to go to the bathroom. She managed to drink a glass of water, but it was all she could do to drag herself back to bed. She collapsed onto the bed and was almost instantly asleep for the next ten hours.
When she woke in the middle of the night, she thought she must be in the middle of a tornado. There was a roaring in her ears like a train speeding by, ten inches from her head, and the bed was shaking hard. It took a minute to realize that Hawk was sitting on her, holding her down, until the shaking let up.
“What was that?” she asked him.
His eyes were worried. “I think you had some kind of fit. I’m wondering if I should take you to the hospital.”
“No,” she said, sounding remarkably like herself. “I’d just get sick.” And, after a minute, she added, “I had a bad dream.”
He hugged her hard, and the trembling started again, much more gently. But then she realized that this time, it wasn’t her. He was crying, his chest shuddering. Hawk Green, Man of Steel. She was flooded with love that brought her back to life again, and eventually she slept in peace.
Sunday morning found her ravenous, sitting at the breakfast table inhaling her first cup of coffee while he worked up eggs and potatoes. “Take a look at the Boomerang,” Hawk told her, glancing over his shoulder from his station at the stove. “Front page.”
She looked at the banner headline: GOVERNOR PROPOSES TAX INCREAS
E. This was big news, of course, especially in Wyoming. The voters had inexplicably elected a Democrat to the statehouse, and the guy was doing far-out radical things like suggesting that Wyoming raise property taxes just a touch, in order to buy chalk for the schools and pay teachers enough so they wouldn’t have to moonlight at Wal-Mart. “Guess the gov doesn’t plan to run again,” she said.
“Not that story. Below the fold,” Hawk said.
There were three stories. A Centennial woman had won $10,000 in the New York State lottery. A tanker truck carrying hazardous chemicals coast to coast had flipped over somewhere west of Laramie, and they’d had to close the interstate for six hours while they got the mess cleaned up, sort of (officials were advising motorists to keep their windows closed in the vicinity, at least for a few days).
The third story, a couple of paragraphs in the lower left-hand corner of the page, dealt with a corporate bankruptcy. The BIOS corporation of Salt Lake City, a biotech firm that had ridden a combination of top-secret government R&D contracts and medical research projects to rocketing success, had filed for Chapter 11 status.
“BIOS?” said Sally. “That’s the company Kali works for, right?”
“That’s my recollection,” said Hawk.
“Hold the eggs,” Sally told him. “I want to see what more there is to this story.”
She went to the desk in the corner of their living room, opened up Hawk’s laptop, connected to the Internet, and clicked her way to the New York Times.
The story had actually made the bottom of the front page, continued in the business section. BIOS stock, which had been trading at $36 a share as recently as September, had taken a plunge sometime in late October, when word got out that the FDA was going to deny approval for the marketing of Madicin, a BIOS-developed wonder drug designed to treat spongiform encephalopathy in both animals and humans.
The wire-service report quoted an unnamed BIOS official: “Once again, government red tape stands in the way of progress,” the official said. “With the spread of chronic wasting disease across the West, and concern about the possibility of a mad cow outbreak, you’d think they’d understand the gravity of the situation. People and animals are getting sick and dying out there. Madicin’s time has come.”
When she told Hawk what she’d learned, he said, “I bet our friends at the sheriff’s department knew this was coming. It’d be interesting to know why they didn’t tell us, and what they’re thinking.”
Sally frowned. The fuckers had held out on her again. “I’m going to call Dickie,” she said, getting up and going to the phone. But when she picked up the receiver, it was dead.
“Phone’s not working,” she said, a little tremor starting in her stomach.
“Oh. Oh yeah. I forgot. I unplugged it yesterday. Given the shape you were in, I didn’t want you disturbed.” Hawk was busy with his potatoes, didn’t see the fear in her eyes.
Much relieved (and a bit ashamed about leaping to panic), she plugged it back in and heard the stuttered ring that signified voicemail. “You have twenty-nine new messages,” said the pleasant mechanical female voice.
Four were from Delice, charting an emotional course from warm sympathy (“Heard what happened this afternoon. Can I do anything? Call me.”) to concern (“Anybody in there? Are you guys okay? Give me a call as soon as you get this.”) to annoyance (“Come on, Mustang. Quit screening calls and pick up the goddamn phone. I just want to know that you’re all right, for Christ’s sake. Pick up or I’m coming over there!”) to resignation, and more friendship (“Hi. I left some flowers on your porch. Hope you’re okay and you get this before they freeze. Call me if there’s anything I can do.”).
Sally looked up and noticed the vase of gorgeous lilies and irises and mums.
“They didn’t freeze,” she said.
“She dropped them off last night. I heard her come and go—she didn’t even ring the bell. I brought them right in.”
A little more life flowed back into Sally.
As it turned out, half the people she knew had called to see how she was doing. There was even a message from Arvida Perrine’s mother, which struck Sally as remarkably sweet. Her friend and boss, Dean Edna McCaffrey, left a message that just said, “I’m canceling your classes next week. Don’t know what you’ve gotten yourself into, but sounds like you need some time to get out of it. Let’s have lunch when you’re up to it.” It was a thoughtful offer, although Sally’s only class was on Tuesday, given the Thanksgiving break. And given the fact that half the students had already gone home, having no intention of attending Thanksgiving-week classes, lots of Sally’s colleagues just scheduled “independent research” days on the assumption hardly anybody would be around.
Sam Branch had called, too. “This is it, Mustang,” the message said. “The boys took a vote, and it was unanimous. For your own good, whether you like it or not, we’re pulling out. I’ve already called the Wild West offices and let them know. Sorry to say, but the woman who answered the phone didn’t seem all that disappointed. By the way, if I were you, I’d take a nice long vacation somewhere far away until these fuckin’ Californians go back to the swarm they came from.”
That was a disappointment, she guessed. But she had to admit, it was also a relief. Now that the bullets had started flying her direction, she certainly didn’t want to put anybody else in harm’s way. And now she had the perfect excuse to extricate herself from the Night for Nina and from anyone and everything having to do with the Wild West. Her life would go on whether she played music with Thomas Jackson or not, whether she wrote a book about Nina Cruz or didn’t. Enough was enough. Good-bye, Stone. Adios, Cat. Farewell, Angelina.
Except that several of them had called.
Pammie Montgomery: “Hey, Sally, how are you? The chef wants me to bring over some tortilla soup. Call the restaurant when you want a delivery, and I’ll be there in a flash.”
Quartz: “Sorry I haven’t been able to return your calls, but I’ve been kind of tied up. Really bummed to hear about the latest attack. Hope you’re all right. Peace—out.”
Nels Willen: “Boy, this just keeps getting worse and worse. My opinion, it’s time to fold up the tent and ride off into the sunset, but then, I’m afraid it ain’t up to me. Anyway, I hope you’re doin’ okay. There are a couple of things I need to share with you. I’ll be around on Monday. How ’bout I come to your office in the morning?” He left a number to call.
A nearly inaudible woman’s voice: Kali. “I am so sorry about this latest violence. The whole thing is just terribly upsetting. I’m sorry, too, that I won’t be able to meet with you this week—I have an emergency trip out of town. Be well, sister.”
Sister? If Sally were Olivia de Havilland, maybe, contemplating Joan Crawford.
Thomas Jackson: “Now that the weather’s cleared up some, I’m packin’ up to head down to Laramie for the week. I heard about you being shot at. Also hear the Millionaires have bailed out of the benefit. Hey, Sally. I feel just horrible about involving you in something that’s turned out to be so dangerous. I’m not sure how to make it up to you....Anyway, I’ll be in Sunday night. I’m staying out at Shady Grove. If you’re willin’, I’d like to come into town and visit with you. Maybe even work on a couple of songs, if you still want to play.”
If she still wanted to play. With him. Hoo-boy.
Cat Cruz had called twice, the first time on Saturday to say she had heard about the shooting. She doubted there was anything she could do to help Sally out, but if there was, she wanted to do it. The second call from Cat had come in earlier Sunday morning. “I assume by now you’ve seen the newspaper,” she said. “If you’re still planning to write my sister’s life story, which I hope you are, we’ve found out a thing or two about this BIOS company that might interest you. Call me.”
She wouldn’t call, damn it. She was determined not to call. Especially given the last message in the queue, sent just minutes ago. “Sally, this is Scotty Atkins. Bet you’ve been feeling lo
w. Don’t obsess about it. We’re pursuing our investigation and expect to have things wrapped up very soon.” A slight pause. “Take it easy,” he said, and hung up.
Well, sure. Uh-huh. She would take it easy if it killed her. Don’t talk to Willen. Don’t think about singing with Stone. Don’t call Cat. Have a little breakfast, lie around the house, maybe read a good book. Spend a week of enforced leisure catching up on that big pile of paperwork that never seemed to get any smaller. Plan a quiet Thanksgiving dinner with Hawk, or find out where the Langham clan was gathering to feed and get herself invited. Focus on turkey and stuffing.
Yeah, right.
“Think I’ll skip the eggs this morning,” she told Hawk. Tortilla soup sounded good.
“Good timing,” said Pammie Montgomery when Sally reached her at the Yippie I O. “I’m just finishing up my shift. I should be there in half an hour or so. I’m supposed to pick up Quartz, so maybe I’ll bring him by.”
If Cat Cruz had somehow found out things about this BIOS business, chances were it was Quartz who’d found them. Sally felt a little guilty about using Pammie to get to him, but only a little.
Hawk had taken off for his office by the time Pammie arrived with two one-quart cartons of soup and a dozen smaller containers of condiments and accoutrements—tortilla strips, little chunks of cheese, chopped cilantro, diced tomatoes, extra chiles, sliced avocado, lime wedges. “Mix and match,” she said.
“I just dump in everything,” said Quartz.
“This soup’s full of chicken!” Sally said, taken aback. “I thought you were a vegetarian.”
“I’ve fallen from grace,” Quartz admitted. “I’d even drink a cup of satanic coffee right about now.”
“Beats the hell out of powdered soy smoothies,” said Pammie. “Did you ever give that stuff a try, Sally?”
“Um, nope,” Sally said. “Guess I’m just a creature of habit. Speaking of habits, you wouldn’t have any idea how Nina got started with her power drinks, would you?”
Bye, Bye, Love Page 24