by Simon Wood
His blunted tool tumbled from his trembling hand. The cold had ahold of him, and he shook violently from head to toe. His fingers were claws, no longer able to grip anything his hands commanded. He glimpsed his reflected image in the polished surface of the freezer. It was distorted, not just by the warped imperfections of the aluminum sheeting, but by the cold. His sweat had frozen to his face, and frost dusted his hair and eyebrows. Tiny icicles hung from his bangs. He was a wretched figure.
It was a mercy when the light went out, plunging him into darkness. The freezer’s florescent lighting was on a timer. Terry had used up the generous fifteen-minute time limit since opening the door. Fifteen minutes was a luxury for the simple task of putting away samples, but locked inside, the time allowance was a pittance. His only light source now was a dim glow coming off the luminescent numerals on his wristwatch. But he didn’t need his watch to tell him the significance of the lights going out. He’d reached the halfway point of succumbing to the cold. In another fifteen minutes, his core body temperature would drop below the point of no return. At least it wouldn’t hurt when the time came. Hyperthermia was kind in that respect. It was a quiet and painless death.
He scrabbled in the dark for his lost crowbar. He found the strewn trays, the racks, the floor, but not his makeshift tool. Not that he was sure he was touching what he thought he was. His hands were sensing muffled versions of the objects, as if they were wrapped in a blanket. The worst part was that he was no longer detecting the cold itself. His hands should have been screaming at him, but they weren’t. Everything felt soda-can cold.
He gave up on finding his makeshift crowbar and searched instead for the broken rack and a new crowbar. He managed to tear off another runner. He tried again to bust open the lock, but in the dark, he had no idea what he was hitting. Arthritic with cold, he gave up.
Shaking so badly he couldn’t control his limbs, he collapsed to his knees. He needed to keep warm. Palsied hands felt for his discarded lab coat and found it. It was frozen to the floor. He tore his coat from the floor and slipped the stiff material around his shoulders. Eventually, it softened to mold to his shape. He let his jaw go slack to prevent his teeth from bashing together.
He tried to keep warm by walking in place, but it wasn’t working. His footfalls sent screaming jolts of agony through his bones into his groin, forcing him to stop. He wanted to sit, but he couldn’t. The cold would get to him that little bit quicker. Eventually, he lacked the energy to remain upright and he sank slowly to his knees, hugging himself to keep what remaining body heat he had.
Time either sped past or crept by. It was impossible to tell. He felt he’d spent as much time in the dark as he had in the light, but he couldn’t be sure. He tried checking his watch, but the humidity inside the casing had frozen and glazed over the face. Not that he could read his watch anyway; his ability to focus his gaze was intermittent.
At some point, he’d stopped shivering. He couldn’t remember when. He felt neither cold nor warm, just uncomfortable in his own skin, and unbelievably tired. He wondered if the freezer was broken and was warming up, but he knew he was deluding himself. He knew shivering was the body’s way of heating itself. When the body stopped shivering, it was time to worry. Hypothermia was setting in. Or was it exposure? He couldn’t remember if they were the same thing or completely different. His brain was shutting down. He could feel his intelligence slipping away.
He had to keep his mind active. He couldn’t let it hibernate, so he tried to remember his times tables. He managed his twos okay. His threes were a struggle. His fours were a disaster.
“Six fours are twenty…twenty…er. Dammit, six fours are twenty-six. No. Not twenty-six, twenty-four. Bollocks to the times tables.”
He was wasting his time. He couldn’t think straight. All he was doing was giving himself a headache. He had to think about something he cared about, like Sarah. He let his mind drift to Sarah and what he was going to say to her when he saw her again. He wanted to tell her how much he loved her and what she meant to him. He wanted to say, “I don’t care how dangerous the story is, I just want to be by your side every step of the way.” If she needed protecting, then he would be her protector. He’d promised to be that in his wedding vows, hadn’t he? A hazy memory seeped in. They’d joked about it at the time, but it wasn’t funny anymore. She needed a protector, and he wanted to live up to his vow.
“I’ll be your knight in shining armor, Sarah,” he said to four blank walls skulking in the darkness. “That’s if I can get out of here.” He laughed at his own ludicrous promise. “I’ll protect you as soon as you break me out of here.”
His laugh turned into a sob. He knew he wasn’t getting out. He would die in the freezer never knowing why Sarah had gone into hiding, and knowing his killer would get away with murder. He detested the idea of losing. It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t right. A flush of anger rushed through him, but its heat was insufficient to the melt the cold that had eaten into him. He tried to shift his frozen joints, but he couldn’t untangle himself from his crouched position.
He resigned himself to his demise. That last attempt to stand and save himself had drained him. Sleep was consuming him, but it was more than sleep—it was death. Death surprised him, though. He’d expected darkness without end or context. Instead, light flooded his vision. For a fraction of a second, he saw the freezer’s interior and the damage he’d created trying to escape, but those sights evaporated as the harsh and intrusive light blanked out everything. He slammed his eyes shut, but the intense light was bright enough to burn through his eyelids until all he could see was pure white. He screamed for it to go away and slapped his hands over his face.
Hands grabbed him and yanked him over. They dragged him, but Terry tried to wrestle himself free. He didn’t want to go. It wasn’t his time.
“Jesus Christ, Terry! What the hell are you doing?”
“Leave me alone,” he demanded and kicked out again.
“Terry, stop it. I’ve got to get you out of here.”
The voice was lying. He knew it.
The hands had the better of him now. His attempts to save himself were pointless. He just didn’t have the strength.
“Sarah!” he screamed. “Sarah, wait for me.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Terry awoke in a hospital swaddled in blankets and shivering. A headache threatened to split his head in two. He pressed the call button.
Light filtered through the window, so he guessed it was morning. He’d first awakened late the night before and was lucid enough to get the lowdown on his condition, then he descended back to the land of Nod. His extremities had suffered frostbite. Red-and-white blotches peppered his hands, feet, and face. His fingers were the worst affected. Frank from security had pulled him free of the freezer. Luckily, there was no serious damage done. He just needed time to thaw. The duty nurse, a slender African American woman in her forties, came into his room.
“Mr. Sheffield, you’re awake.” She smiled with motherly love.
“Yeah, I’ve decided the career move to replace Jack Frost wasn’t for me.”
She laughed. “I’m glad to hear it. How do you feel?”
“I’ve got a bugger of an ice-cream headache.”
“I’ll get you some Tylenol.” She adjusted the blinds to let the day in. “You’ve got someone waiting. You up to a visitor?”
His thoughts rushed to Sarah. She would have panicked when he had missed their meeting last night. Maybe the silver lining in last night’s freezer debacle was that it had brought her out of hiding.
Straightening, he said, “Yes. Please.”
“Good. I’ll be back in a second.”
His heart sank when Frank appeared at the door a minute later. He wondered if Sarah even knew what had happened to him.
“Hey, Terry, good to see you up and around, man. You scared me last night.”
“Frank, I hope you haven’t been waiting all night.”
“No. My shift
finished an hour ago, and I thought I’d drop by to see how you’re doing.”
“That’s really nice of you.”
“Terry, I’m glad to see you’re okay.” He offered a hand and Terry took it. “You scared the crap out of me. I thought you were dead.”
Terry smiled. “I would have been, if it hadn’t been for you. I’m glad you were there. Sit down. Tell me what happened.”
Frank dragged over a chair and sat at Terry’s bedside. “I thought you could tell me.”
“I was putting my plates in the freezer and the door closed behind me.”
“You know they have that wedge there for a reason.”
“I know. I used it.”
“You didn’t. It was in its usual position.”
Terry squeezed out a grin. He didn’t want to show his fear. He knew the wedge had been removed and he had a damned good idea who had done it.
“What made you open the freezer?” Terry asked.
“I was doing my rounds; when I got to the lab, all the lights were out, but I’d seen your car out in the lot. I switched the lab lights on, and I saw your computer was on and your backpack was there; I was just going to go back to reception to put a call out for you when I heard a thud from the freezer. I opened the door and there you were babbling away, kicking and screaming. For a second, I didn’t think you wanted to leave.”
Terry nodded, taking in Frank’s account. “There was nothing blocking the door?”
“Nah,” Frank said, shaking his head.
“Who was last out of the lab?”
“Frosty, I think.” Frank grinned. “Hey, maybe that should be your nickname now.”
The nurse returned with a clear plastic cup, four pills, and a smile. She poured a glass of water from a pitcher on the nightstand and handed the water and pills to Terry.
Frank stood and returned his chair to the corner. “I’d better go and let you get some rest.”
“That’s a good idea,” the nurse said.
Terry gulped the Tylenol. “Thanks for dropping by, Frank.”
“Anytime. I don’t wanna lose the only Englishman I know.”
Terry waited for Frank to leave. “Do you know when I can go?” he asked the nurse.
“When your body says it’s time.”
“When’s that?”
She studied him with an examining eye. Terry smiled in the hope it would reduce his convalescence time. It didn’t.
“When the doctor says,” she said and walked out.
The second the nurse left, he phoned Oscar. He told him about being locked in the freezer and more awkwardly, about his promise to meet Sarah. He knew the reaction he’d get from his friend.
“Why didn’t you tell me she’d called again?” Oscar asked in a soulful tone. “I could have met you there or even picked you up at Genavax, and this wouldn’t have happened.”
“I didn’t call you because she asked me not to tell anyone.”
Terry felt Oscar’s frown from the other end of the line “Look, I need you to do something for me,” Terry said.
“Sure, what is it?” Oscar said unenthusiastically.
“Go to my house. There’s a spare key under the plant pot.” It was something he’d set up to prevent being locked out of his house again. “Check my answering machine to see if she called.”
“Sure,” Oscar said and hung up.
Three hours later, Oscar strolled in with a paper sack full of oranges. “Hey there, freezer burn.”
“Ha, ha. I bet you worked on that the whole ride over.”
He grinned. “I did.”
“Well done, micro-amusing,” Terry said.
Oscar perched himself on the edge of the bed and wiggled one of Terry’s feet, which were hidden under the bedclothes.
“They do have chairs,” Terry suggested.
“Nah.” Oscar bounced on the bed. “This is much more comfy.”
Terry fingered the oranges in the sack.
“I thought about bringing flowers, but then…” Oscar screwed up his face. “I didn’t want people thinking we were…you know.”
“Oh, yeah, I wouldn’t want people thinking we were, you know.”
“So I thought: fruit.”
“I thought that was what you didn’t want people to think…you know.”
“You’re a funny man. Anyway, I thought fruit, and you like oranges, so I got you oranges.”
Terry frowned. “I like orange juice.”
“Then get someone to squeeze them for you.”
“Did you check my messages?”
Oscar’s grin slipped. “She hasn’t called.” Then he qualified his statement to put a more positive spin on it. “Not saying she hasn’t, but she hasn’t left a message. And if she’s as spooked as you say she is, I doubt she would risk a message.”
Terry dropped his gaze to examine the weave on the blanket.
“You know you can’t keep protecting her,” Oscar said.
Terry nodded. “I know. I told her that Holman knows that she’s not missing anymore.”
“What did she say?”
“Not a lot. It was all I could do to keep her on the line. She doesn’t want to talk to me until everything is safe.”
“She give you any clue as to what this is all about?”
Terry shook his head. “That’s what she was going to tell me when we met.”
“And you don’t have her number, I suppose?”
Terry shook his head again.
“You’re gonna have to wait until she calls again. There’s nothing else you can do.”
Terry knew Oscar was right. He hoped he hadn’t blown his chance and she would call back.
“She’ll call,” Oscar said.
“What makes you say that?”
“She’ll be scared. Worried that they’ve gotten to you.”
“They nearly did.”
“So she’ll keep trying until she hears otherwise.”
Oscar dug out an orange from the paper sack. He gnawed off a chunk of the peel, spat the rind into his hand, then dropped it on the bed before proceeding to gnaw off another piece.
“You’re a class act, do you know that?” Terry said.
“What?”
“You’ve been divorced too long.” Terry tossed him the saucer that his water jug sat on. “Put your mess on that.”
“Thanks, Mom,” Oscar said, doing as he was told. “So this freezer thing, you sure you didn’t forget to use the wedge?”
“Someone tried to kill me. There’s no way I would go into that freezer without propping that door open. It’s a death trap. I have no idea how Genavax is allowed to get away with such a feeble safety device.”
“They won’t now. Cal/OSHA will be involved.”
Oscar broke open his orange and tore off a segment. Juice sprayed everywhere, some of it landing on his pants, but most of it splashed the covers.
“It’s going to smell like a fruit stand in here.”
“Don’t be such a girl. It’s only a bit of juice.” Oscar popped the orange segment into his mouth. He spoke while chewing. “You gonna tell Holman what happened?”
“No. I’m quite happy for everyone to think it was an accident.” He tossed a box of Kleenex at Oscar to clean his face. “I can’t take you anywhere.”
“Thanks.” Oscar wiped his chin. “Why do you want people thinking it was an accident?”
“Genavax did this to me. I want to see what its next move is.”
Oscar pointed an orange segment at Terry. “Probably to do a better job of things next time.”
Terry shrugged.
“Do you think Genavax killed those five women?”
It was a question Terry had been recycling for several days, but he hadn’t been able to make any kind of connection other than Myda Perez. The other four women didn’t seem to have any connection to Genavax. Terry had discarded the idea, but the attempt on his life changed things.
“I don’t know,” Terry said. “I can’t make heads or tai
ls of it.”
Oscar chewed and swallowed. He hadn’t given the slice of orange the requisite thirty-two chews before swallowing, judging by the strangled look on his face. “Okay, this is a wild one, but what if Genavax didn’t try to off you in that freezer? You’ve got to admit it, it’s pretty stupid to try to whack someone in your own backyard. Have you considered someone else?”
A name sprang to mind.
“Tom Degrasse.”
“The TV guy?”
Terry nodded. He went on to explain the meal he’d had with the television reporter at Rendezvous and the queasy feeling he’d been left with.
“So he and Sarah had a thing, but it’s over,” Oscar said, unimpressed. “I don’t think that makes him a killer.”
“You’re missing the point. His attitude was strange.”
“It’s never easy meeting the guy who’s replaced you in the bedroom.”
“It’s not that. I don’t think he’s over it.”
“Okay, he’s still hung up on Sarah. So what? I’ve never gotten over the fact Farrah Fawcett married Lee Majors.”
“Well, he was the Six Million Dollar Man.”
“In body parts, not cash.”
“This doesn’t sound like a recent thing. How old were you when Farrah broke your heart?”
“That was in seventy-six—bicentennial year,” he said, staring at the ceiling. “I was fourteen.”
Terry grinned.
“Moving swiftly along, now you know which woman broke my heart. What makes you think Sarah dumping Tom Degrasse turned him into a serial murderer?”
“Maybe it had something to do with that story that busted them apart.”
Oscar wiped his hands on another Kleenex. “The Oakland port authority bust?”
“Yeah. Think about it. Sarah was a whistle-blower, just like Alicia Hyams and the other women on her list. Tom Degrasse might be teaching her a lesson.”
“Some lesson.” Oscar dumped the remaining orange segments onto the saucer and wiped his mouth before pushing the saucer away. “Okay, let’s say Genavax didn’t try to kill you, but Tom Degrasse did. Could he have gotten into the building last night?”