Had Frank McDonough’s death affected my already bruised psyche?
The only trouble was that the more I tried to convince myself that I hadn’t seen her, the more convinced I was that I had.
Two speeding trains of thought came to mind.
Congenital birth defects.
And the brave new world of biotechnology.
I had some knowledge of both fields, so I let my mind play as I drove around in my dusty blue Suburban looking for my winged girlfriend from the night before. I thought to myself, let’s take a little mind trip down the road of genetic abnormalities, defects, disorders, aberrant syndromes. Actually, as I thought about it, I remembered spending an afternoon with David on the very subject. We had even contacted the prestigious Mutter Museum, which is part of the Philadelphia College of Physicians.
Mutter was happy to supply examples of deformities they’d come across in recent years. They ranged from boys in Mexico with apelike hair all over their bodies to children with duplication of body parts, pituitary abnormalities, as in dwarfs and giants, and skin diseases that made some people resemble lizards more than human beings.
I don’t remember exactly what got David and me on the subject, but we did spend a couple of weekends on it. He also pulled out a book on the subject from his vast collection in storage:Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine. I thought Anomalies was still around the house somewhere, but I couldn’t locate it that morning. Maybe it was back in the cabin along with the modern-day Neanderthal, Kit Harrison.
As I drove around the Bluff and nearby Clayton, I tried to let my mind run free. I didn’t rule out anything yet. I even considered the possibility of extraterrestrial visitors. I finally rejected it, the idea of another E.T., but maybe I shouldn’t have.
I have a pretty strong memory. I’d been number one in my high school class, and the files in my head were filled with more information than I had expected. I had actually examined a hermaphrodite, a child having both male and female reproductive organs. I’d also come across humans and animals with missing body parts, and several with duplicate parts. I’d seen two ears on one side of a little girl’s skull. A boy with six toes. A girl with four breasts. In vet school I’d also witnessed what toxins and pesticides can do to alter livestock. Not a pretty sight, and not one you ever forget.
As far as pictures go, I’d seen images of “formed fingers”; that is, horns, on a human head. A parasitic horse body growing from an otherwise perfect one. A second head growing on the head of a calf. From somewhere in the back of my brain came a tidbit from ancient Babylon:An infant born with the face of a lion means the King shall not have a rival. I had once seen a child with the ears of a lion.
But never a very pretty, otherwise normal-looking girl with a pair of beautiful white and silver wings! Maybe she was an extraterrestrial.
Of course, there was also biotechnology and genetic engineering as a serious area of exploration and mystery. David’s chosen field, I reminded myself.
My memory files in David’s specialty area were a little less comprehensive than I would have thought. David and I had been good at sharing most things, but he never liked to talk much about his work.
Strange, as I thought about it now. David rarely brought work home with him. I, on the other hand, was always ready to chat about the Inn-Patient, or the beautiful colt I had delivered at four the previous morning on somebody’s horse farm.
So what did I already know about biotechnology? From the broadest overview, biotech involved harnessing natural biological processes of microbes and of animals and plant cells. Cross-species research and experiments would be in the field of molecular biology, too. David had been a molecular biologist, and a good one, though he never made much money as a researcher.
I remembered a couple of things he’d talked about that might relate to a little girl with—say it, Frannie—beautiful silver and white wings. When the film version of Jurassic Park came to Boulder, David told me that the idea of cross-species genetic work was actually a whole lot less far-fetched than the wonderful movie dinosaurs. He said cross-species experiments were being done now in a number of independent labs. The experiments were sometimes illegal.
Biotech was definitely the new frontier in science. It can, and undoubtedly will, push evolution farther and faster than anything has in history. The question, though, is whether we’re ready, emotionally and morally, for what we will be able to create in the very near future. I remembered that David said that most serious work was still being accomplished with fruit flies, and I found that profoundly reassuring.
David had also told me something interesting in light of what had happened to me the night before. He said that in the area of genetic manipulation, “Things always go awry. It happens all the time, Frannie. Goes with the territory.”
Things always go awry.
Chapter 21
IT HAD BEEN a busy and productive day for Kit. He’d been a functioning FBI field agent again. It felt good, excellent. He was working alone, but at least he was off the Bureau’s long, restrictive leash.
He had taken a chance by interviewing the widow of Frank McDonough. Barbara McDonough didn’t seem to know anything beyond the obvious, but the more they talked, the more certain he was that Dr. McDonough had been murdered. McDonough had been an excellent swimmer for one thing, a former college star. For another, he’d supposedly broken his neck making a shallow dive, but his wife claimed he never dived into the pool.
He had talked to three other associates of McDonough at Boulder Community Hospital. He’d also called in a favor from a good buddy at Quantico. McDonough’s name was being run against every doctor working in the area around Boulder. He was looking for solid connections, which was about all he could realistically do on his first day in town.
Kit had just gotten back from Boulder, when he spotted Frannie’ O’Neill hiking in the woods behind the cottage where he was staying. It was almost five in the afternoon.
Frannie looked nervous and distracted. Of course, he didn’t know her very well, but that was the impression he had. Now where the heck was she going?
She was moving quickly: a woman on a mission. What mission, though? He thought it might be worth checking, and he had nothing better to do for another hour or two.
She was wearing khaki shorts and a red-plaid flannel shirt, and he couldn’t help remembering how she’d looked the night before. That image was still burned into his mind. A pretty picture, so maybe he didn’t want to let it go too easily.
He followed Dr. Frannie through the woods at a safe distance. She never looked back, but she did appear to be looking for something. Actually, she was moving so fast he finally lost sight of her.
Damn it.
He lifted a pair of Rangemaster binoculars to his eyes. He searched everywhere for Frannie O’Neill. Images jumped, giving him extreme close-ups of pine bark, the shapes of leaves, a patch of blue sky.
He finally spotted the red-plaid shirt again. She was still trekking at a fast pace through the woods, a bright blue knapsack on her back, an intent look on her face. She was preoccupied, oblivious to his own tiptoe through the woodlands. Or was she?
What the hell was she doing out here? Did it have anything to do with her husband’s work? Or possibly with his death? Or Dr. McDonough’s?
She took a sharp right fork around a bend. Don’t go that way, Frannie. Shit! Shit! She’d disappeared into the pines, aspens, and scrub oaks again. Fifteen minutes following her over hill and dale had already taught him not to give up the high ground. He continued upward, hoping she would appear below him.
Seconds later, he saw Frannie O’Neill come into view again. Late-afternoon sunlight spilled onto her face. She was definitely pretty; a real midwestern beauty, and he liked that. Her blue-green eyes sparkled in the light, and continued to search for something.
The narrow path she’d been sticking to widened, then it branched onto a wider dirt road. A dirt road to where? Was something important out here? Another
building? Maybe a lab hidden in the woods? Did Frannie O’Neill work there?
She trekked on, even picked up the pace. She really moved through the woods, didn’t she? She knew her way?
Kit thought he could hear traffic now. He was almost sure of it.
“What the hell? Traffic up here?” he mumbled under his breath.
The dirt path opened out to the back of a macadam parking lot! The lot was a dark rectangle behind a small town market. It appeared that she’d taken a shortcut through the woods to Clayton. She was in the next town over. What was she doing?
Kit watched in mild disbelief as she stopped near a flat rock at the edge of the woods. She unhitched her blue knapsack and flipped it open. She started taking out small boxes, cans, paper items, and setting them on the ground.
“What in hell is she doing?” He didn’t get this at all. It made no sense.
He refined the focus on the binoculars. He looked closely at the contents of the knapsack. He could even hear Frannie’s voice drifting up to him. He liked the melodic sound of it, even under the mysterious circumstances.
“Party!” she called.
Party? Party for whom? Party for what? This was no time for a party!
“Come on, kiddies.”
Kiddies?
Children?
As he watched, she emptied cans of food onto paper plates.
Suddenly, an incredible number of cats appeared. They began to materialize from under cars, from behind packing crates at the rear of the supermarket, from the tall grass. Tails up, they came scampering, talking back to her.
“Party time. Good kitties,” she said. Not kiddies—kitties, Kit realized.
He held the binoculars to his eyes, transfixed by a large herd of feral felines: coal-black ones, orange ones, spotted ones, striped ones, one three-legged, and one trailing kitten collected at Frannie’s soup kitchen. She was good with them. She seemed kind of sweet and nice, actually. She acted exactly the way she looked: like a decent enough person.
“C’mon, Momma Cat,” he heard her call. She was beaming—a big, generous, good-hearted smile. “Whitey. Big Boy. Freakazoid. Howza Susie Q?”
Yes, this Frannie O’Neill was one to watch, all right. She was the key to everything, no doubt.
Chapter 22
KIT FINALLY STARTED TO LAUGH, and it was probably the first time he had since coming to Colorado. He had always been pretty good at laughing at his own expense. For a moment, he sat watching the rubbing, chatting, chowing down. Just watching “the party.”
No, he was watching Frannie O’Neill. He was admiring her sweet way with animals, listening to the music of her voice, remembering her perfect-enough-for-him body. Jesus—he had a little schoolboy crush on her, didn’t he? No doubt about it. Perfectly harmless, but this wasn’t the time or place for it.
He purposely turned away and hurried back through the woods. It was an ideal time to check out her house, to check her out. He was thinking and acting like a field agent again. And violating her trust was also a good way to break away from the danger of a schoolboy crush on her.
She didn’t lock her doors, of course. So he looked through her room at the Inn-Patient, and he was good at it. She’d never know anyone had been in here. Still, he felt guilty about intruding in her house. Maybe she hadn’t known a thing about what her husband had been involved in. But maybe she had. And maybe she was involved, too. He didn’t know enough about Frannie O’Neill to rule her out. She might surprise him and be extremely dangerous.
He made a few notes along the way. He was going strictly by the book, even though he no longer had to.
Simple clothes and needs. Jeans, cowboy boots, pocket T-shirts. No evidence of much money spent on herself.
Nice taste, though. Simple, attractive, classic—about what he would have expected.
A small collection of birdhouses. Why birdhouses? Wedding photos, one of her and David kissing under a blue umbrella. A Mac Performa 575. An old model, and not expensive.
Here and there an extravagant touch: a formal black silk chiffon dress; a diamond and sapphire cocktail ring; a half ounce of Eau d’Hermès.
He thought that he’d kind of like to see her in the black chiffon dress, and smell her perfume.
No papers—scientific or otherwise. Nothing of David’s work. That was a little odd. Where were David’s papers? She wouldn’t throw them out. Or would she?
Books—a few of them spread open around the bedroom:If Wishes Were Horses: The Education of a Veterinarian; Veterinary Epidemiology; Into Thin Air; In Search of Human Beginnings; Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil. Nothing incriminating there, quite the opposite.
A touching keepsake. A model boat her husband had constructed, signed, and dated. “David’s ship—March 22, 1969.”
A child’s drawing of a girl and a happy dog stuck up on the fridge: “To Dr. Frannie. We love you. Your friends, Emily and Buster.”
He finally stuck his notebook into his back pocket, took one last look around, then got out of there before Frannie O’Neill returned. In a way, the search had turned out badly for him. He didn’t believe she was involved.
Anyway, he felt he was getting closer to something. He knew it in his gut and had from the beginning.
Why hadn’t anyone believed him?
Chapter 23
IT WAS A LITTLE PAST TEN and the woods and mountains appeared to be closed for the night, but I knew better. I was thinking about the winged girl again.
For the umpteenth time, I seriously considered calling the sheriff in Clayton, or even the Colorado State Police, but how could I? What would I say to them? “Hi. Lately I live alone up in Bear Bluff. I’m mostly of sound mind and body. But here’s the thing, I’m pretty sure I saw a little girl with wings. I was drinking a bit that night, upset over the death of a friend. C’mon up here and see for yourself. Better bring a nice big net—for me!”
I was up working late at the Inn-Patient, thinking through what I ought to do—all the possible options. I’d already talked on my cell phone to both Barb McDonough and Gillian. I had just knocked down a wild kittycat I’d brought home from one of my mercy missions in Clayton.
I was carefully shaving the wild cat’s belly before spaying her. I was concentrating on the electric clippers when I heard someone behind me say, “Hello? Hi in there?”
I jumped about ten feet in the air. I was feeling extra spooky, anyway. Birds in my belfry and that sort of thing.
“Hello? Dr. O’Neill?”
I turned toward the screen door and saw none other than Kit Harrison standing there. I gave him a look to kill, or at least badly wound and maim. “See what you made me do? Please leave now.”
He came in. He walked closer, peered down at my patient. “No. What?” he asked.
“You made me shave her nipple off.”
He winced and said he was really sorry, which was better, halfway considerate. I almost believed that he meant it because of those damn blue eyes of his. He quickly explained that the door was open, that he’d called out and I hadn’t answered.
“How serious is it?” he asked, peering at the cat.
“Well,” I said, not looking at him, “her career as a topless dancer is pretty much over.”
In fact, the injury was minor. She wasn’t going to be needing nipples anymore, anyway. I tightened kitty’s restraints, vigorously swabbed her with Betadine. Then I covered her midsection with a sterile drape with a slit for where the action was going to be happening.
“Swing that light over here,” I said to him. “Please.” Surprisingly, he did what he was told. Maybe he thought he was going to get laid. He looked like the type that often got what he wanted.
I opened the cat’s lineum alba with my scalpel, then sliced into the pelvic cavity. I took a sideways glance to see how Mr. Kit Harrison was taking the operation. He seemed okay, which disappointed me. I had hoped he would faint.
His blond hair was damp, as if it had a recent wash, and he smelled like what a g
ood, old-fashioned all-American hunk smells like—Ivory soap. No Hermès Equipage for this boy.
“So, what is it?” I asked him as I worked. “Got enough towels? Hot water? Room service okay?”
“The cabin’s fine,” he said. “I like it very much. I give it four stars, five diamonds, the highest rating.”
Pity.
He continued. “I heard there’s a good place to eat over in Clayton. Two stars at the very least.”
“Yes, there is. Probably about half the houses, if you’re ever invited for supper, which is unlikely. People around here don’t much trust city folks. And then there’s Danny’s Grill. And Villa Vittoria for pretty good pizza and pasta.”
“Come have a bite to eat with me when you’re finished here. Or I’ll bet we could even get an invite at one of those houses,” he said.
“No, thanks,” I said, wielding my scalpel, jiggling it between thumb and forefinger. “You want to do something really nice, something I’d appreciate—you can just pack up your gun and yourself, and move on.”
He cleared his throat before speaking. “It seems I’ve gotten off to a bad start with you, Dr. O’Neill. And you know… you actually don’t know a thing about me,” he said from behind my back. “You really don’t know who I am.”
I went back into the cat, treated the uterine ligament, then began stitching. Kitty was purring now, which meant she was coming to. But she would be scared and hissing up a storm.
I was a little scared myself, and I didn’t like being that way. Unbidden, a chill came over me. I had left my door open. There was a man sitting behind me, and as he had said, I didn’t know a thing about him.
I turned to face him, but the stool behind me was empty.
He’d left as silently as he’d come.
Chapter 24
MAX HAD SLEPT REALLY WELL inside the house, whoever’s house it was, the messy, careless family’s amazing, wonderful, stocked-with-goodies house. She was out on the porch at daybreak and the sky was a whole bunch of different shades of pink and red bleeding into a swatch of blue.
When the Wind Blows Page 6