Critical Judgment (1996)

by Michael Palmer

  Abby glanced at her watch. Assuming Kelly wasn't going to be MedFlighted out until five or six in the morning, she had several safe hours to find out if Lew's house held the answers. Without hesitating she raced to the kitchen door and snapped her elbow through the glass. Then, tensed and ready to flee, she reached in and slowly opened the door. No alarm went off. If there was one that sounded at the police station, she was cooked. But she doubted there was. She wanted to call the hospital and speak with Lew in the ER or ICU just to be certain he would be there for a while. But if, as he feared, his calls were monitored, she would be delivering herself into Quinn's hands.

  Not at all certain of what she was looking for, she started in the basement, a damp, confined space, cluttered with tools, boxes, and gardening implements. After just a few minutes of rummaging around, she gave up. If Lew's secrets were hidden down there, she was never going to find them.

  She went back up to the first floor and pulled open the drawers and cabinets in the kitchen, sensing this wasn't the spot either. Next, she bypassed the dining room and headed to the den--the room where the Alliance meeting had been held. In the hallway she stopped, drawn, as she had been the first time she saw them, to the dozen or more framed photographs of a country ... and a woman. Paraguay, Lew had said. Paraguay and his late wife. During the many hours Abby had spent with him, he had not spoken at all of her or, for that matter, of his native land. But Abby remembered clearly his deep sadness when responding to her question about the photos that first night. Paraguay ...

  Something about the country began reverberating in her mind. She studied the bronze-skinned, dark-eyed beauty. There was an alluring gentleness to her and a striking intelligence in her eyes.

  The woman in the picture is ... was ... my wife. She's dead.

  That was all Lew said that night. In fact, that was all he had ever said.

  She's dead....

  Abby opened a few cupboards in the paneled den. She was nervous about using a lamp or the overhead light, for fear that the police would be making a return trip. Using her flashlight, she skimmed over shelves of books, many of them older or more modern classics in Spanish, and a great number of them books on ecology and the environment.

  Paraguay ...

  What was it about that country? She pulled out one of the books in Spanish, a novel by the Nobel laureate, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, the author of one of her favorite books, One Hundred Years of Solitude. The volume in Lew's collection was one she had meant to read but had never gotten around to. El amor en los tiempos del colera. Love in the Time of Cholera. There was an elegant bookplate pasted on the first page--a pair of dragons coiled about an open book. Ex Libris Dr. Luis Maria Galatin, the ornate printing read.

  Luis ...

  Abby slid the book back in place. Dr. Luis Maria Galatin was Lew. She felt certain of it. She checked the time and decided to give up on the den and try the upstairs. She would give herself another twenty minutes or so. If she hadn't found anything by then, her plan was to get to a pay phone and try calling Ezra Black. But unless she could find something more, she would be telling Black only part of the story--and not the part that had much to do with his son.

  She tiptoed up the narrow farmhouse staircase as if there were someone home and found herself on a short corridor with two braided rugs on the floor. There were four closed walnut-stained doors off the hallway. The first one she chose to open, just to the right of the stairs, was Lew's bedroom--walnut four-poster bed, dresser, TV, free-standing bookcase, closet.

  Possible, she thought. Especially the closet.

  She decided to check the other rooms and then return to the bedroom. The second door she opened was to Lew's bathroom, and the third to a neatly kept guest room with two single beds. The fourth door, at the end of the hallway to the left, was locked. Instantly, Abby was dizzied by a massive adrenaline rush. This room was what she had been searching for. Behind it were the answers she had been missing. She tested the door with her shoulder, then with a sharp, thrusting kick from the sole of her sneaker. No chance. Finally she remembered seeing a crowbar hooked over a nail on the basement wall. She hurried down there and returned with the tool and a hammer.

  Even with the crowbar, the solid oak door yielded reluctantly. And by the time it finally crunched free, wood fragments from it and the jamb were scattered on the floor. Abby snapped on her flash. Then silently, slowly, she eased open the door. She was standing in a room cluttered with stacks of newspapers, scrapbooks, boxes of correspondence and other papers, books about Paraguay, and old Paraguayan picture calendars. The two windows of the room were boarded over and covered with large tourist-office posters of Paraguay. On the floor by the wall opposite where Abby was standing, was a posterboard-mounted, two-foot-high color photo of Lew's late wife. In the photo--a head and shoulders shot against a verdant background--she was even more stunning than she was in the pictures downstairs--almost mystically alluring. The notion of the woman's life being cut short brought a sharp pang.

  Even though the room faced the back of the house, Abby checked to ensure that the plywood on which the window posters were mounted would, indeed, keep any light from being seen outside. Then she flicked on the overhead. Except for the windows and a large, ornate crucifix, the walls of the room were bare. Most of the yellowing newspapers were from Asuncion and San Juan Bautista. In one corner of the room, leaning against the wall, were two full newspaper pages, each one framed in dark wood and kept under glass. The pages were both page one from the Asuncion paper, Diario Hoy--almost nine years ago and three months apart.

  Abby's Spanish was adequate enough to translate most of the two-headline articles. She sat down, braced herself against a wall, and propped the heavy frame containing the older page on her lap. The main article described a lethal mudslide that had destroyed a neighborhood on the outskirts of the town of San Ignacio, twenty kilometers from the city of San Juan Bautista, killing at least eighty people. Included in the article was an angry quote from a physician whose clinic was destroyed and whose wife lost her life in the disaster. The physician's name was Luis Maria Galatin.

  ... "This horrible tragedy should never have happened," Galatin said. "And it is clear who bears the responsibility for it. For years the Colstar Mining Company has been raping the mountainside with no regard for the ground cover or forests. For years authorities have turned their backs as they opened their wallets."

  It was only then Abby remembered what George Oleander had said about an incident in South America. Terrorists had blown up a huge Colstar refinery, killing a number of Colstar employees. The attack was almost the coup de grace for the company, and eventually led to the deal with Senator Corman and the military.

  Ironic, she thought. The death of Colstar in Paraguay had essentially led to the creation of the underground laboratory and to the survival and renaissance of Patience, California.

  The second, more recent, Diario Hoy page only confirmed what Abby already knew. A band of terrorists had blown up the Colstar refinery, killing three security guards and two night-shift workers, and injuring dozens of others, some seriously. A nationwide manhunt was under way for the man believed to be the leader of the terrorists, Dr. Luis Maria Galatin, and a reward was being offered by Colstar International for information leading to his capture. The picture of Galatin, without a mustache and a decade younger, was Lew, yet it wasn't. Somewhere along the line, a cosmetic surgical genius had altered his nose and jaw and narrowed the corners of his eyes, creating a striking ruggedness in a face that had once been quite boyish--borderline pretty.

  Abby studied the photo for several minutes as one missing piece after another clicked into place. Having been through the licensing and credentialing process herself, she knew it wouldn't have been that hard for a man with Galatin's intelligence and resourcefulness to become Dr. Lew Alvarez--especially having been educated and trained in California. But she also knew that no alias was impenetrable. The last thing Luis Galatin would ever want to do was to call mu
ch attention to himself.

  Which was why he had needed her.

  Lewis Alvarez got on the medical staff at Patience Regional Hospital. But he must have quickly realized that he couldn't simply march up the hill and blow up this plant as well. Too big, too inaccessible, too closely guarded. Alvarez knew that he couldn't physically destroy the Colstar factory as he had done in San Juan Bautista, so he set about to find a weakness he could exploit--a soft underbelly. And Mark Corman, Lyle Quinn, and all the rest who had sold out the people of the valley provided Lew with just that in the form of dozens of NIWWs.

  You just misinterpreted the data, Lew, Abby thought. With all those tons of cadmium being trucked into the place, who wouldn't have? Cadmium toxicity seemed so logical that there was no reason to search for an alternative explanation. Once he recognized that a pattern was there, all that stood between Lew and a paralyzing, possibly fatal, series of suits and shutdowns, was the proof.

  She set the framed pages back in their place and rummaged through a small box of correspondence--perhaps thirty pieces from all over the world, most of them in Spanish. One most definitely wasn't. It was a handwritten letter, undated, on the stationery of David Brooks, M.D.

  Lew--

  I am writing this letter in hopes that you will read it, reread it, and do what is right. When you first invited me over and presented your series of unusual cases, along with your theory of a cadmium spill or persistent leak from Colstar, I was most intrigued. Indeed, I have worked on behalf of environmental causes all my life. I agreed to join you and the others in the Alliance because I believed there were serious health issues involved. I still do. There are far too many unusual cases to be coincidental.

  But as much as I respect you, I cannot ally myself with a man who I know has willfully taken human lives, regardless of the justification of the act. While I was at the recent ER meetings in New York City, I decided to spend some time doing research on the company that we had both decided was an enemy of the environment and of the people....

  Brooks's letter went on to describe his almost accidental deduction of Alvarez's identity and the crime for which he was an international fugitive. From what Abby had been told by many, her predecessor was as gentle and kind as he was principled. Abby set the letter back in the box. There was no mention of the underground lab, no hint that Brooks had discovered anything that might cost him his life--anything, that is, except Lew Alvarez's real identity.

  Abby felt sick. Alvarez had used David Brooks just as he was using her now. And when Brooks became a direct threat, Luis Maria Galatin simply eliminated him. There was no way she could expect a kinder fate.

  Abby knew that there was no one in Patience whom she could trust. Being caught by the police was a death sentence. Even escaping to San Francisco would probably do her no good. Lyle Quinn was as ruthless as Alvarez. His treatment of Kelly Franklin made that quite clear. In addition, he possessed almost limitless resources. The moment Abby surfaced with her unsubstantiated story, something was certain to happen to her--a suicide or fatal accident. Or perhaps she would simply vanish. It was doubtful Quinn would even have to bother permanently sealing off the trapdoor in the MRI room floor or the tunnel. A little time off, a little expert PR work, and they would probably be back in business.

  No, trying to run wasn't the answer. Her best bet continued to be Ezra Black. She was in the process of proving that his son's "suicide" death was, for all intents, murder. That was really her only tangible bargaining chip. Even though Black certainly knew about the Colstar testing program, and somewhere along the line had probably even authorized it, there had to be limits. Black impressed her as a tough businessman, but not a monster. He had a conscience. Every fiber of Abby's intuition told her so.

  The Colstar program hadn't directly resulted in the deaths of Peggy Wheaton, Gus Schumacher and his victims, and Black's son. But it had spawned the man who was responsible. Surely, Ezra Black would be able to see that. But before she called him, there was one final piece that remained unaccounted for.

  Abby found it in a shoe box held shut with a rubber band, and containing several vials of a grayish-white powder from a chemical supply house in the Midwest. "Cadmium sulfide," the labels read. Beneath the vials was the list--dates, names, and amounts of those whom Alvarez had infused with intravenous cadmium under the guise of dosing them with prophylactic antibiotics. There were nine subjects in all, including the five Abby already knew about. The doses Alvarez had chosen varied somewhat, but Josh, Willie Cardoza, Angela Cristoforo, Ethan Black, and Gustav Schumacher had received by far the largest amounts.

  Intravenous cadmium. Toxicity by inhalation, or ingestion, or even through the skin had been extensively studied and reported. But she was certain that nowhere would there be any data on intravenous injection. Lew Alvarez had injected those ER patients with absolutely no knowledge of the consequences. And the truth was, he didn't care. As long as Abby Dolan pushed the right buttons, Colstar would be exposed for poisoning its employees and others in the valley. And that was what mattered.

  Abby hurried to the kitchen and found a box of kitchen-sized white plastic garbage bags. She put one bag inside another for strength, then returned to the upstairs room and placed the cadmium, the letters, and some of the newspaper articles inside. What she had ought to be enough to interest Black. If she sensed he couldn't be trusted to hear her out and make some sort of deal, she would try her luck in San Francisco--provided, of course, that she could find some way out of the valley.

  Thanks to Graham DeShield, she had Ezra Black's number at Feather Ridge. Now, all she needed was a phone that wasn't tapped and a car. Then, suddenly, she thought about Alvarez's truck. She always kept a spare set of keys to the Mazda in a kitchen drawer. If there were keys for the truck somewhere in the house, she had both the transportation and the phone.

  After a brief search of the den and a more extensive search of the kitchen, she gave up. Then it occurred to her that although she couldn't start the truck, she could certainly bludgeon her way inside it. And inside it were two things she needed very much at this point--the cellular phone and the rifle that had been fired at her.

  She raced upstairs and grabbed the hammer she had used to break into the locked room. Then she put her rain slicker on black side out, cautiously left the house, and jogged painfully toward the barn. She had just reached the side door when she sensed someone nearby.

  "Freeze! Right there! Drop the hammer!" the hoarse, almost inhuman voice barked out.

  Abby did as she was told and turned slowly. Bracing himself against the corner of the barn, the muzzle of his gun pointed shakily at the center of her chest, was Josh.

  CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

  Through the fine rain, illuminated from the side by the back-door light, Josh was an apparition. Abby recoiled a step from the man with whom she had shared her life and her bed for two years. This was not the fire-eyed demon of her nightmare--far from it. Josh's face was drawn and ashen, his eyes little more than black hollows in his skull. His speech was strained and halting. The gun he was pointing at her--some kind of military weapon--seemed too heavy for him. The barrel would shake, then drift. Then he would regain control and fix it once again at the center of her chest.

  "Josh, I ... I've been really worried about you."

  "I can take care of myself."

  He was no more than ten feet away. Abby strained to get a sense of his anger--of the danger she was in.

  "Why are you pointing that at me?" she said finally. "Did you come here to kill me?"

  "Yes ... no ... I mean, I don't know."

  She spoke slowly, evenly, wary of saying anything that might set him off.

  "Did you find Bricker and the others?"

  "Yes."

  "And did you ... ?"

  She held her breath.

  "Kill them? I should have.... They were right there.... Bricker and Gentry.... Both of them ... I should have blown them to hell."

  Abby felt a flood of relief. />
  "But you didn't?"

  "No. I ... I shot up the ceiling of the garage and some cars, and then took off.... Abby, why didn't you just let me do it? ... Bricker deserved to die.... He stole my life."

  Abby took a tentative step toward him. Seeing him this way, she felt a consuming sorrow--and an unbridled fury at Lew Alvarez.

  "You did the right thing, Josh."

  Once again the muzzle of the gun sagged toward the ground. This time Josh made no effort to pull it back up. Abby turned her flashlight on, handed it to him, and motioned to the barn door.

  "Come in where it's dry so we can talk," she said. "I've been worried sick about you."

  He hesitated, then followed her inside. His clothes--sneakers, jeans, and a dark sweatshirt--were soaked through. Abby could appreciate now that he had the frightened, bewildered, wild-eyed look she had seen any number of times in patients who were dying. He stood five feet away from her, braced against the wall, holding the gun now with both hands. It was almost impossible to connect him with the loose, graceful man she had watched holding his own in playground basketball games with youths half his age.

  "You should have let me kill them," he said again.

  "I'm glad you didn't. How did you find me here?"

  He squinted at her, then released the gun with one hand and rubbed at his eyes. Abby sensed she could have simply reached out and taken the weapon from him. Instead, she stood her ground and waited.

  "I drove past the house.... The police are there.... Two cruisers. They're looking for me."

  "Maybe so, but they're also looking for me. And if they catch me, they may kill me. How did you know about this place? Have you been here before?"

  "Once.... Where's Alvarez?"

  "Josh, why don't you sit down before you fall down?"

  "Shut up! ... Where's Alvarez?"

  "At the hospital."

  "Everything would have been all right ... if you had just let me kill Bricker."