The Anything Goes Girl (A Brenda Contay Novel Of Suspense Book 1)

by Barry Knister

◆◆◆◆◆

  They reviewed the files one last time, ate, and walked out to the parking lot. It felt good; the physical sensation of her limbs working gave Brenda an odd confidence.

  “Only now I’m starting to understand all this,” Renee said, getting out her keys. “If you have enough money, you think you can buy anything. I saw Minot’s book in the hotel gift shop last night and took it to bed. I see why people respond to him. If you believe ‘the system’ is why you aren’t a millionaire, he makes it clear who to blame. Nicely packaged in catch phrases.”

  “Maybe it doesn’t matter,” Brenda said. “Who can say Russ Minot might not make a great sound-bite president?”

  “You don’t believe that.”

  “In a way I do. How much difference does the office make now? What matters is who goes along for the ride. About that I have strong feelings.”

  “McIntosh.”

  “Among others.”

  Renee got in her car and started the engine. She buzzed down her window. “If they win, you’ll be finished in TV,” she said. “It doesn’t matter that you never studied broadcasting, you’re good, Bren. You’re a natural.”

  “So is Betsy McIntosh. But that’s not the best reason for doing something.”

  Monday morning, Brenda phoned McIntosh’s Phoenix number. The secretary answered in a reserved voice, “Miss Contay. What can I do for you?”

  “Thanks for sending along the files.” The secretary said nothing. “Is something wrong?”

  “I’m in hot water,” she said softly. “When I told Betsy you phoned, she made me tell her everything. I can’t talk about it. All I can say is, your ‘surprise’ story almost lost me my job.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “When she said to give you everything, I just assumed—”

  “My fault, I’m sorry,” Brenda said again. “I hope this doesn’t affect our arrangement.”

  “I better give you her assistant.” A number was tapped.

  “Miss Contay? Ted Lawson. Betsy asked me to get done whatever needs doing.”

  Brenda explained about Renee. “She’s coming this morning? Terrific,” he said. “We’ll get someone out there to meet her. Everyone here is anxious to get started. Betsy’s excited about this, Miss Contay. She honestly believes the GENE 2 story can set a valuable precedent. Done right, we’re sure we can put this behind us and move forward.”

  “That’s good.”

  “I have sad news, though,” he said solemnly. “Bob Ehrlich passed away last night. There’ll be a memorial service tomorrow. We do that at Neff. Your researcher may want to attend. We’ll tape it, maybe you can use the footage. He was a very conscientious, dedicated guy.”

  Brenda hung up and sat a moment, seeing Ehrlich in the hospital on Pohnpei, hearing the dialysis machine humming. Then she saw him in their one good moment. Scorched under the tarp, he was talking about his girl Laura. For two or three minutes, Bob Ehrlich had been happy.

  ◆◆◆◆◆

  At ten, a nurse came with pills and a can of Ensure, the hi-cal drink they were bringing her between meals. Brenda sat on the end of the bed and sipped. Aside from the detox ward on the fourth floor, the hospital was essentially open. It had been easy to walk away Friday night. Visitors were permitted easy access, patients took walks without supervision. Several times each night she woke, hearing snores and footsteps beyond the entry. Each time, she thought of Lindbergh. If he wanted her dead, she would be.

  As she finished the drink, someone rapped softly. A young girl stood nervously in the entry, her hands squeezed into fists.

  “Beth?”

  Vince Soublik’s sister nodded, but didn’t step forward.

  “Are you alone? Is your mother with you?”

  She shook her head. “I just got my license,” she said. “Two weeks ago. It’s the farthest I’ve gone. Mr. Poole told us about you. What I said that day—I’m sorry.”

  Brenda beckoned her in. The girl stepped forward and stared at the wheelchair.

  “I don’t need it now.”

  “You almost died,” she said. “It was on TV.”

  “The key word is ‘almost.’ Would you like to sit down?”

  Beth sat on the edge of the straight chair. Her tan had faded, her blonde hair in braids. “I just came, you know, to say I’m sorry.”

  “It’s all right. In your place, I would have felt the same.”

  “I was just so mad about my brother—” She started to cry, a young girl’s hard, unguarded sobs.

  Brenda went to her and knelt, taking Beth’s hands in hers. “It’s not getting any better,” the girl said. “No better.” She freed a hand and wiped her face.

  Brenda brought her the Kleenex from the bathroom.

  “Thanks.” Beth took a tissue and blew her nose.

  Brenda gave her the box. “Don’t thank me yet. I’m going to ask you a favor.”

  “Does it have to do with Vince?”

  “Yes.”

  “You want to do a story.”

  “Yes, but no Lightning Rod. No motorcycle. I’m going to do it anyway, but I want your blessing. Your brother had no accident. He wasn’t sick, or crazy. He was poisoned. Used. His friend out there wants to tell what happened. So does his wife.”

  The girl looked up. “Nauko? They got married?”

  “She’s going to have his baby.”

  “When?”

  “I think in February.”

  “That’s so wonderful!” Beth began crying again, pounding her small knees with her fists.

  Nurse Patterson came through the entry. “Good morning, I think your—” She saw Beth Soublik and stopped, then looked to Brenda. “Oh. Is there… no, I understand.” She glanced again at the girl and stepped out.

  Brenda turned to Beth, listening as Patterson crept back with care in her ripple-soled nurse’s shoes. Until that moment, she had not disliked Patterson, but there she was. Spying, listening.

  Alert now, Beth sat wide-eyed, waiting to hear about the baby. Brenda motioned with her head to the open entry.

  “So, that’s the plan,” she said. “I’ll keep W-DIG thinking I’m coming back, right up to the time I move to News 2. It’ll be more dramatic that way. Generate more viewer interest. News 2 will announce the move just before my first story with them is aired. We have a great new format. This time I use a boat. ‘Heavy Weather,’ it’s called. What do you think?”

  Beth frowned, looked to the entry and back. Brenda winked, and the girl nodded, understanding. “It’s great,” she said. “Heavy weather is what you went through on the ship.”

  Good girl. “Right. Let’s go down to the canteen for a Coke, I’ll tell you all about it.”

  Nurse Patterson got her cue and squeaked off down the hall. They listened until she was gone. “She’s spying on me for my station,” Brenda said. “Now she has something juicy to tell them.”

  “Your own station’s spying on you?” Beth shook her head. “That’s gross.”

  “So, do I have it? Your blessing?”

  “Yes.”

  “We’ll go down for a Coke, just as we said. I’ll tell you what I know.”

  “When Mom hears about the baby, she’ll be totally happy.”

  ◆◆◆◆◆

  As staff came and went with lunch trays, Brenda told her story to Beth Soublik. Whether or not it ever got told to others, Vince’s family deserved to know. The girl didn’t touch her Coke. The cash register rang methodically as she sat, grave-faced under fluorescent lights.

  When Brenda finished, the girl sat a long moment, narrow shoulders hunched. “They killed him,” she said finally. “That syrup stuff. He wrote about it. He got there, a stranger and all. They had this party for him, Vince called it a kama dip. He had seltzer bottles that made carbonated water. Someone told him about it in training.”

  “On Molokai,” Brenda said. “Near a research site owned by GENE 2.”

  “They knew where he was going.”

  “They knew.”
<
br />   “He wrote us all about it,” Beth said. “One afternoon, someone came to his tent. This guy gave him the idea, told him where to order the syrup. He said he’d been in the Peace Corps. He said he made soda that way for kids in the Philippines.”

  Beth was clearly anxious to get back to her family. Brenda walked the girl to the corridor. Beth offered her hand and they shook.

  “You get them,” she said, squeezing hard.

  “There’s something else.”

  “Sure, anything.”

  “Vince’s letters. I want to see them. Make copies and ask your folks to put the originals in a safe deposit box. Put the copies in an envelope and bring them to my apartment building in Southfield. Give them to the security guard in the lobby. Tell him they’re just for me, no one else.”

  “Like for instance that nurse,” Beth said. “They’re evidence, aren’t they?”

  An elevator opened down the hall. Dr. Haffner stepped out and started toward them, lab coat flapping.

  “Correct.” Brenda looked back to the girl. “His letters are postmarked, written on his typewriter. They prove how Vince got the idea.” Beth turned to go, young and vulnerable. “Hold on a second.”

  Haffner reached them, and Brenda introduced Beth Soublik. “She just got her license,” she said. “She drove all the way from Detroit, her first time on a freeway.”

  “It was easy,” Beth said.

  “Yes, but I’d feel better if you didn’t drive home alone.” She looked at Haffner.

  “Really, I wasn’t nervous,” Beth told him.

  “I’m sure you weren’t, but Brenda here is worried,” he said, smiling and understanding. “Panic attacks are common with people recovering from the kind of physical and emotional trauma she’s been through. I’d appreciate your letting me send someone with you. For Brenda.”

  “Well, if you say so.”

  “Just wait upstairs in the lobby.”

  Beth shrugged, turned away and walked down the hall.

  “Thank you, Doctor.” Brenda waved. “Patterson isn’t the only one interested in me.”

  “I guessed that,” he said. “I’ll call the State Police, they’ll send a trooper to follow her home. We’ve asked them before.”

  As the girl stepped into the elevator, Haffner led Brenda to an empty table in the canteen. “First, the good news,” he said. “Everything in your blood work is clean. The university said they can’t be absolutely certain, but they’re confident. The other matter’s a bit tricky. I just spoke with your mother.”

  “Oh no—”

  He handed her a slip of paper. “That’s how to reach her ship. Someone seems to have talked to her. She asked me to certify you.”

  Brenda looked up from the paper. “As in commit me? Declare me nuts?”

  “Yes.”

  “She can’t, she has to sign—”

  Haffner held up a hand. “Michigan law says otherwise. Next of kin can commit in this kind of circumstance. When it’s not possible to sign. Whoever spoke to your mother must know this.”

  She felt betrayed and angry. “There’s nothing wrong with my head,” she said.

  “I know that.”

  “So don’t certify me.”

  “Let me finish. As your mother in some detail just made clear, you’ve had previous psychiatric treatment. Problems when young, then in college. It’s for me to decide whether you’re non compos mentis or not, but your past treatment record raises problems for us.”

  “What are you telling me?”

  “I’m going to certify you for forty-eight hours,” Haffner said. “All it will mean is that you can’t leave the building. At that point, you can sign yourself out. From what I’ve seen in the last two days, I’d advise you to stay. But that will be your decision.”

  Brenda smiled at him. He would follow the letter of the law, no more. “What if she renews the order Wednesday?”

  “That’s hard to tell,” he said. “I might have the flu. Or play golf. You know us doctors.”

  ◆◆◆◆◆

  “Mother? It’s me.”

  “Oh my God, sweetheart—”

  “Before you start, mother, I’m fine. The Times got it all wrong. I’m doing aerobics.”

  “Brenda, Brenda, sweetheart, you were starving. You almost died. A call, a telegram—is that too much to ask? This terrible thing happens, you let me hear it from a total stranger.”

  “Who told you?”

  “Jane something, a number. So sick you might hurt yourself. You think this Jane-something doesn’t know your brother’s a law student? They know, honey, believe me. They’re scared, and they should be. We’ll sue. Mr. Feldman told me everything.”

  “Who’s Feldman?”

  “Never mind, sweetheart, a nice English boy. Jewish but English. Someone like you never in your whole life had a regular date with. He couldn’t find me till after we left, otherwise I’d be on a plane this minute.”

  Someone with an east-end London accent had boarded the ship. GENE would be JANE.

  “Don’t hang up, Brenda. No one is out to get you, honey, they’re trying to help—”

  “He played you a tape, didn’t he?”

  Reva wasn’t listening. “Oh, honey, this was bound to happen, something like this. The motorcycle, those meshuggah stories you do. You lied about those too, when I saw—”

  Brenda shut up and let her mother talk. After learning what her secretary had done, Betsy McIntosh must have gotten nervous, changing her mind and strategy. Caution now required that Brenda Contay be isolated. A stooge had been sent to England.

  “—did I ever complain? You want to go all the way to Michigan for school and leave your family? Fine. TV cowgirl on a motorcycle, what can I do?”

  “How was your trip, Mom?”

  “Don’t change the subject.”

  “What change? We’re talking travel.”

  “Always the jokes, Brenda. Never mind I’m crazy myself, from you. But I know you’re sick. Through the jokes I can hear it. I can’t even think about it, it breaks my heart.”

  “Okay, mother, I have to go now, have a nice day.” Brenda hung up, imagining her brother getting his own call in the next few minutes. She hoped he had his neck brace on.

  That afternoon, Jerry began phoning every fifteen minutes. Brenda refused his calls, and finally the PBX operator stopped putting him through to the floor nurse. By now, Renee would be in Phoenix.

  All day and the next, Brenda worked with the Mercygrove physical therapist. She slept late. Plodding on the treadmill, she saw her boat shoes and Nauko’s pretty, splay-toed feet. Side by side, they were scuffing through sand on the pink beach, headed for the lab, the black dog bounding ahead.

  Late Tuesday morning, Renee phoned from Phoenix.

  “They put me in a room full of documents,” she said. “Twenty boxes.”

  “Don’t complain. At least you aren’t certified.” Brenda explained what had happened.

  “They have people all over,” Renee said. “Think of it. You’re all alone, but they’re still worried about you.”

  “Tell me some news.”

  “They held a memorial service for Bob Ehrlich at nine this morning. His mother was there. His girlfriend from Washington. They ran it like a testimonial.”

  “Can you talk?”

  “I’m at a pay phone. Listen, Bren. I think they plan to say Ehrlich never revealed the facts of the cancer experiment. Either to Cal Moser, or to Vince. That way, Ehrlich’s the one who concealed what was being done. If the company can sell the idea it was Ehrlich’s job to brief Calvin and Vince, they’re covered.”

  Economy of means. Conservation of resources. What better way to make use of a dead Marine?

  “When can I leave?” Renee asked.

  “Are they intimidating you? Are you scared?”

  “It isn’t that. I’m being very well treated. First thing when I got here, I asked to talk to the director of research. He says Pirim is one of ten offshore projects negot
iated with various governments. He said they’re all under review now, because of what happened. I think the actual facts of this are known to very few people. The research guy told me he raised ethical concerns about the offshore projects. Upper management overruled him. Everyone I’m talking to appears to believe this tell-all initiative is a great idea. They seem to believe it.”

  “Leave Thursday,” Brenda said. “Fly non-stop to the Upper Peninsula. I’ll feel better.”

  ◆◆◆◆◆

  Later that day, Brenda finally talked to Jerry.

  “It’s not right,” the producer said, sounding hurt. “All the good things that have come your way from this station.”

  “What’s the problem, Jer?”

  “The problem is News 2,” he said. “Don’t do this, Brenda. We know everything.”

  “I see.”

  “Plus, the station manager’s at a conference in Atlanta. You picked a nice time to stab me in the back.”

  “Where’d you get this idea?”

  “Word gets around,” he said.

  “Just one question,” she said. “Is Jennifer Patterson calling you personally, or is word ‘getting around’ through Lindbergh?”

  Jerry sighed. “Brenda, what choice did I have? You wouldn’t talk to us, we were worried. He came to me and said Neff was very concerned about you. He said he had someone who could keep us informed. Of course I said yes. He’s been here, he told us how mad you are. Absotively I don’t blame you, but please try—”

  “I don’t know, Jer. I suppose we need to talk. Maybe we can fix things before the boss gets back from Atlanta.”

  “I’ll leave now,” he said. “I’ll be there in an hour.”

  “Don’t bother. I’ll see you this afternoon at W-DIG. You shouldn’t drive with a knife in your back.”

  At two, she went up to see Haffner. Patterson was at her desk in the outer office, typing at her terminal. There was something pathetic about her now. An ordinary person “suborned” by TV was giving aid and comfort to people she knew nothing about.

  Brenda entered the office and closed the door behind her. Haffner took off his glasses and blew on the lenses. “The physical therapist tells me you’ve made good progress,” he said. “You’ve regained about half the weight you lost. Your chemistry’s good. How do the eyes feel?”