Death of a Cure

by Steven H Jackson

  The tactical situation was pretty straightforward, and the best course of action was counterattacking immediately — a move the amateurs would find incredulous given their current frame of mind. Right now, Montgomery was confident that she was in control and, more importantly, she believed that I would have agreed with her. By the time she figured out that I didn’t share her conviction, it would be too late for Treece to shoot me. I knew this, and Marilena knew it as well. The reason she was still slowly moving toward Wilson was she planned to take him down when I went after Treece and his target pistol. She was still ten feet from Wilson, who had stood next to a fireplace. He reached for a fireplace poker from a stand and hefted it. I guess he believed the poker to be a better weapon than either the brush or the shovel. That answered my question about whether or not he was armed with a gun.

  The reason I hadn’t acted was that I wanted answers. This was selfish on my part. Maybe it made me as much an amateur as Montgomery, my unnecessary need to know, as it added risk to Marilena and to April. But as long as Montgomery believed she had the upper hand, I could get her to talk. That would be easy. I probably couldn’t prevent it. Her only words so far, about me being obtuse, had tagged her as an amateur. When the time comes to pull out a gun and point it at someone, a pro doesn’t play games, just puts the weapon to use and kills. Montgomery wasn’t a pro, and lacking that, she had a different plan. She was dying to tell me how smart she was. Even if she planned to kill us, which she undoubtedly did, she would first satiate a need to gloat and enjoy the moment to be relived over and over again.

  The second indication that no matter what they thought of themselves, they were no match for anyone experienced in this type of gunplay, was that they should have selected a gun with some real stopping power. Treece held a Ruger Competition Mark II. He probably didn’t know that it was a gun used mostly in target ranges — the round was small, a .22 caliber, and inexpensive. I looked at the gun a little more, making them think that I was fixated on the source of their control. I had to be appear to be concerned, worried about the weapon pointed at me, when most likely, the only way that gun would fire would be by accident. I wanted them confident, no accidents. The gun was very clean, but it didn’t shine from any oily reflection. My only real surprise would be if the pistol had ever been fired. It sure hadn’t been maintained. I wondered if they had loaded it correctly. The magazine that holds the small rounds is prone to feed jams when new and requires some extra attention. Getting shot at by Treece was probably not an issue. Even if he intentionally got one off, hitting me was iffy. I was close and would be moving fast. Getting hit by the small caliber bullet would probably not be fatal. There was always the chance of what pilots call the “Golden BB,” that lucky round that hits some small and vital component bringing the aircraft down. A round through my eye and into my brain, no matter how small the caliber, would most likely be fatal — a Golden BB. But unless he got really lucky, I could absorb several body shots and still kill him. I knew these things while Treece and Montgomery did not. I had shot people — they hadn’t. I had removed lead from battlefield casualties — they hadn’t.

  The third and most telling indication of Montgomery and company’s amateur status was the absolutely amazing fact that they hadn’t immediately checked Marilena or me for weapons. I had never let on to Montgomery, Wilson, or Treece that I was anything other than a military doctor, and in their world, docs didn’t carry. But they knew that Marilena was an FBI agent and must have known that an agent has a gun. A pro would have checked us both, very carefully, and April too, just to be sure.

  As I predicted, it didn’t take long for Montgomery to take the stage, “I still have the same problem that I thought I had fixed when I killed your brother.” Her words, her tone, and her look let me know that she enjoyed telling me that she had killed Ron. “The cure that ends my little empire didn’t disappear with him. It was passed to you. But no further, I think. And that is good news.” She smiled as she spoke, a cat playing with her meal before killing it.

  “You killed him?” I asked quietly ignoring her other comments and with just enough intentionally added emotion, implied sadness, to make her think she was hurting me.

  “It was easy. He was such a coward. Backing up to the window and almost falling through it himself. He even closed his eyes. All I had to do was push, just a little, and out he went. It just came to me. A suicide solved all my problems.” She paused for a moment, “You’re his brother. I half expected you to shut your eyes the moment Jonathan pointed the gun at you.”

  “Maybe I’m too tired to care. One disappointment too many.” I let my shoulders drop, doing all I could to assume a defeated posture.

  “The condemned man should know all of his mistakes. Would you like to know the rest of them before I have you killed?” True to form, she was enjoying the drama way too much to let it end quickly.

  “How did you get Canfield and Townsend to do your dirty work?”

  She laughed again, “That was easy. By now that imbecile O’Dale has told you about Margaret’s little secret and the fact that Sylvia was blackmailing her. It took him long enough to discover it. Margaret’s hidden past proved useful to me because I controlled Sylvia, and I could use Margaret through her. Margaret never knew that most of what Sylvia made her do was actually for me.” She was on a roll, and I didn’t stop her. “I actually put Margaret up for our Core Values Award to solidify her position with the society. Kind of ironic, don’t you think, a baby killer exemplifying our core values? And speaking of Margaret, it was time to remove her, and you were such a help.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Margaret was getting out of control. She really was disturbed. Still, I needed Sylvia to send her to Boston. She had a friend there, a former coworker, who knew that your family had invested in SynapTherapies. I was concerned that Ron may have shared his data with them. Margaret met with her contact outside of the office. She was not well liked there. In fact, her mentor, the man who hired her, disliked her so much that he had instructed everyone at the firm to avoid her. She did find out that Ron had not spoken with SynapTherapies, and that was a relief. Sylvia also told her to follow you, and if the opportunity presented itself, to finish what she had attempted with the cab in Manhattan. Her death, even accidental as she fled from you, not only got rid of her as a growing problem but pointed the finger at her as a suspect in your brother’s death in case the police ever gave up on the suicide theory.”

  “What did you have on Canfield?”

  “She was stealing from the society. I set her up. I put her in a place where the internal safeguards appeared to be lax enough that she could divert donor money into her own pocket. She took the bait.”

  “I don’t understand how that helped you?”

  “I let her go on stealing donor money for several months, all the while being observed and videotaped by Jonathan, I called her in to my office. I showed her the evidence. At first she panicked — that was fun to watch. She thought I was going to fire her and press charges. Imagine her relief when I explained an alternative plan. I made it possible for her to take even more money, some for her but much more for me. I made her pay me in cash. All of the paper trail had her name on it, so she couldn’t do to me what I was doing to her. Not that it ever became an issue. She was happy with the arrangement. She got more than enough money to pay for her lifestyle, which included the drugs she planted at Margaret’s.”

  “Sorry you lost such a valuable confederate,” I said with just a little sarcasm.

  Not wanting me to win even a small victory, Montgomery shook her head and blinked her eyes as if preparing to lecture a small boy. “You are so naive when it comes to the base-level human condition. Getting someone to take Sylvia’s place is easy. I already have him in mind. Your brother had a subordinate who is very pliable, and I’ve learned that he likes to gamble. Allowing him to supplement his income will be as easy as it was with Sylvia. I’ve already proven that the steps are easy: fir
st you tempt, then you catch, then you own. I am already looking forward to our meeting after he spends a few months believing with total certainty that he will never get caught!”

  “Why did Canfield tell me that Townsend had killed Ron?”

  “Because I told Sylvia that I believed she did. That she had lost control over her. I told Margaret that I believed that Sylvia had killed him. If this were ever to move from a suicide to a murder, I wanted the police to have both of them pointing their fingers at each other. Pretty smooth, eh?”

  I didn’t think it was smooth at all. Her logic proved again that she was an amateur. O’Dale and his guys would have asked both women why they thought the other was the murderer, and eventually they would implicate Montgomery as the source of their suspicions. Her ploy, however, had caused Canfield to tell me in her last moments that Townsend had killed Ron. She hadn’t had the time to tell me that Montgomery had told her that and I had erroneously assumed that it was just the two thieves falling out. Who knew who was lying? And, I had mistakenly bought into a scenario limited to Canfield and Townsend.

  “How did you get in the office building without showing up on the RFID security system?”

  “Simple. I went in with Mark who had a tag. The silly thing clicked, and the guards assumed it had recorded both of us. We went out the same way. Kept me off of your precious list and let you chase everyone else.”

  “Why do you put up with Standish?”

  “That fat pig,” she said disgustedly. “He controls the board, at least for a while, and I work for them. Soon that will change. In the meantime, I have to put up with his slobbering, lecherous behavior. Although leading him on and letting him think that someday he could have me was kind of fun. The fact that that human fat factory could ever believe that I was interested in him defied any logic. I mean look at him and then look at me. Really. Well, no matter, that will end soon enough and so will he.”

  “How did Canfield find out where April was hiding?”

  “You told us.”

  “I did?” How could that have been? Then it hit me. Outside the elevator with Omar getting the restaurant recommendation. Treece had asked the address where we needed to get to later in the evening. He had passed it along to Montgomery, who told Canfield.”

  “Why was it so important to find April? How did you even know about her?” I asked.

  Montgomery laughed and said, “You men can be so easy — especially a church mouse like your late brother. I was hoping to get some leverage over him. The owner of this house helped me out. He forced Ron to go to a strip club one evening. He watched him connect with one of the dancers, but true to form, the great Dr. Briggs never took advantage of the situation, at least not that we could tell in all the time we had them under observation. How altruistic making her go back to college. What a sap!” Montgomery never acknowledged April as the subject of her words. April was beneath her. “Then, we had to make sure that his little project girl wasn’t holding another copy of the research data. All of this is rather obvious, isn’t it?” She looked at me, her face continued to display pleasure, but her eyes revealed annoyance. She was annoyed not to be facing a better opponent. I was a little annoyed by that myself.

  She didn’t disappoint me when she said, “You are more unaware than I thought. Eliminating the three of you will wrap this up nicely.”

  “I really need to hear you say it. To tell me that you killed my brother, that you have prevented a cure to a horrible disease, the focus of your organization, one that your own sister has, just for money.”

  “Yes, I’m sorry to disappoint you that there’s no more to it than that. I need money. I like money. More than the pittance that my position pays which is considerably less than I am worth.” I thought about her three hundred fifty thousand dollar salary and the honoraria bringing in another quarter mil. She again let out another small, superior laugh and then said, “You must know by now. Surely you’ve figured it out. Especially since I’ve told you about the personal financial improvement plan that Sylvia and I — well, Sylvia, Jonathan, Mark and I — have been on. Money. I like it and need lots of it. Curing CID would have ended a lifestyle that I wasn’t willing to give up.”

  “But, your own sister?”

  Alison immediately interrupted me, “My sister never had CID.” She turned and looked at the unknown woman who had followed her into the room. “This is my sister, Caitlin.”

  The younger woman certainly looked healthy enough. Tall and slim with long brown hair, she only favored Montgomery in the face. She had the same duplicitous smile.

  “Someday, someone will find this out,” I said.

  “I doubt that. Caitlin and Mark are going away. A beautiful island in the South Pacific. They are well funded due to our little endeavor and will live very nicely. And, I think they like this idea, as they have grown very fond of each other. Very fond.”

  This gave me the excuse to look over at Wilson. He was smiling while brandishing the fireplace poker. I looked at him and tried not to let my face telegraph my certain knowledge that Montgomery wouldn’t let him or her sister exist as a liability. Looking back at her, I could see it on her face as for the first time she couldn’t hold eye contact with me. Her sister and Wilson would soon die.

  Montgomery spoke again. With regained authority she said, “Enough of this. We are all going to take a ride on the boat behind the house. You know, that nice big one, the one that I promised to take you out on to go fishing. Unfortunately for you, my plans have changed. Let’s go. Jonathan, watch them!”

  I let out a small sigh, capitulation communicated. I stepped meekly forward as if to follow Montgomery out of the room. I knew that I couldn’t get to my gun without being noticed so I had to get in close. Walking past Treece, I coughed once twisting slightly to face him and raised my left hand as if to cover my mouth. He bought my subterfuge. He lived in a civilized world and people cover their mouths when they cough — I guess even those heading to their execution. My world lacks such civility. Simultaneously, I slammed my left hand down deflecting the gun barrel to the floor while the open palm of my right hand rammed up and into his face. I drove the heel of my hand with everything I had into his nose actually lifting his body off of the ground. I felt the cartilage break and be driven into the frontal lobe of his brain. Treece died instantly.

  Grabbing the gun before he fell, I turned toward Marilena and Wilson. Waiting for me to make my move, she had rushed him the moment I struck. I watched him stiff-arm her away, almost knocking her down. Before she could react, and as I was about halfway to them, he swung the poker down on her, striking her left collarbone. I heard it crack and she fell to her knees and then the floor. Wilson’s focus had been on her, and he never saw me coming at him. I dropped Treece’s probably useless gun so I could grab his arm that had cocked back with the poker. He was going to take another swing at Marilena. I stopped his arm just before it could start forward again. Twisting him around so his back was to me, I pulled the poker with both hands across in front of him at neck level and yanked back hard smashing the iron rod sideways against his neck. While choking from the assault on his trachea, he tried unsuccessfully to get his hands under the poker to stop me. As Marilena rolled over in pain and looked up at me, I let one hand go from the iron rod and grabbed the back of his neck. I swept a leg under him and pushed his head down to the floor while his feet were flying upwards as hard and as fast as I could. I never let go. I let my knees buckle and followed him all the way to the hard tile floor. His forehead made a very satisfactory cracking sound and due to the angle of his head with the rest of his body and the force that I had used to cause his cranium to floor connection, his neck snapped just above the shoulders. Just like it was supposed to.

  Quickly standing up, I turned back to Montgomery. Her sister ran from the room. She had witnessed two brutal deaths and didn’t want to be the third. Montgomery, however, was standing her ground as she fumbled in her pocket and pulled out a small frame aluminum revolver. I
t was either a Colt or a Smith and Wesson, a .38 and unlike the larger but less deadly gun that Treece had used, this one could do some damage. Having her produce a pistol was not a total surprise, but I did have to deal with it now before she could point it at me and pull the trigger. I was ten feet from her and needed to buy some time to get my gun out. I still had the poker in my left hand. I quickly transferred it to my right hand, just as quickly wound up like a baseball pitcher and threw it at her as hard as I could.

  I wasn’t going to need my gun. The pointed end of the poker hit her mid torso and fully penetrated her body. She dropped the revolver and slumped, twisting to the floor as I ran to her. The tip of the poker was visible where it had exited her back. She grabbed the poker shaft in front of her for just a moment. She felt her own blood, warm to the touch, and she screamed. I knelt next to her, not a surgeon with skills that she desperately needed, but a brother of a great man that she had murdered in cold blood. I grabbed her head and looked into her eyes. Weeks of anger had welled into hatred. My control was slipping away from me for the first time in my life. I wanted her to see me, to see her executioner.

  “You murdered my brother! Now you’re going to hell!”