Fallout

by Mark Ethridge

  Josh hurried back to the car, frustrated by the festival crowds leisurely crossing the street and blocking his path. He did a quick U-turn and headed for the office and a landline.

  Cocktail hour had arrived and stayed. Despite the rain, a surprising number of early arrivals roamed the town, many wearing red commemorative River Days rain ponchos (ten dollars) and carrying commemorative Old Fashioned River Days mugs of beer (eight dollars). Vehicle traffic, slowed even more than usual by the weather, had reached gridlock. Josh choked the steering wheel and his blood pressure spiked. When a wheelchair van stopped to unload a group of geriatrics from the Hillcrest Manor Retirement Home, trapping the Volvo between a tour bus and a horse and buggy, he could take it no longer. He leaned on his horn for a full five seconds before leaning out the window and screaming, “Move! I need to find my daughter!”

  “Relax, Davey Crockett! Have a beer,” the man in the buggy shouted back. General laugher. Then from a woman, “If you’ll pay her college tuition, you can have mine!” More laughter.

  By the time he reached the office Josh was half-fearing he might drop from a stroke. Trailed by Furbee and a half-dozen staffers, he raced into his office and dialed Allison. He put the call on speaker and raised his hand for silence. “Katie’s missing,” he said so everyone could hear. “She wasn’t on the bus. The camp director thinks she might have run away. I don’t believe it. That’s just not like her. Allison, those strings you have with the state police? Now’s the time to pull them.”

  “Congressman Dorn could scramble the FBI,” Furbee suggested, snatching up a phone book. “He’s at the Sternwheeler.” She read the hotel’s number.

  Josh dialed and was immediately placed on hold. He paced, stretching the phone cord to its limit—two steps one way and two steps back. Finally, a clerk answered. Josh blurted his name and position with the newspaper and demanded to speak with Congressman Dorn.

  Josh heard clicking and the distant sound of a player piano.

  “I’m sorry, sir. His phone is on ‘Do Not Disturb’. Would you like to leave a message?’

  “This is an emergency. I need to talk to him now.”

  “I’m sorry but when it’s on D-N-D, I can’t get through.”

  “THEN SEND SOMEONE TO HIS DAMN ROOM!” Josh mouthed “Sorry,” to Furbee. He sucked in a calming breath and tried again with the clerk. “I understand you’re overwhelmed with everyone checking in. But I need the congressman now. Can you at least give me his room number? I’ll come down and see him myself.”

  Josh listened, his frustration building to outright fury. “Right,” he snarled. “You don’t give out that information.” He slammed the handset into the cradle.

  His hands were shaking. No, not just his hands. His whole body shook with rage-fueled palsy. Never could he remember being so angry. Even his long-time employees eyed him silently and warily, unspeaking as though fearing that breaking the silence might trigger another outburst of the boss’s wrath.

  Only Allison’s fortuitous arrival a moment later snapped him out of it. Drained of anger, Josh felt unsteady on his feet, as though his legs had turned to rubber.

  “Any troopers in the area are deployed for River Days. But the dispatcher told me they can’t really do anything until someone’s been missing twenty-hour hours anyway,” Allison said.

  “Dorn’s our best hope,” Josh said. “Let’s go.”

  Chapter Fifty-Six

  Allison extracted a blue-domed light from the glove box and stuck it on the dash of the Wagoneer. “Strictly for emergencies,” she said. The Jeep exited the News’s parking lot in a rooster tail of gravel and burning rubber.

  Josh checked his cell phone display every few seconds as though willing it to ring. Alerted by the emergency flasher, sedans, campers and station wagons veered obligingly to either side ahead of them, the parting of a red sea of brake lights. Josh caught glimpses of the people inside, adults up front, children in back, faces pressed against the window, straining to see. He scanned each face as if one might be that of his daughter. He envied the parents, their children safe, seat-belted just feet away.

  He closed his eyes and tried to conjure Katie. He visualized her in places he knew—on the soccer field, at the park, in her room, in Winston. She was somewhere.

  Outside town, traffic slowed to stop and go. Josh pounded the dash. “Of all the days. . . .”

  “Hold on.” Allison shifted to four-wheel drive and revved the Wagoneer up the curb and into Riverfront Park. Blue light flashing, they tore past startled tourists, detoured deftly around the pageant stage, and turned onto a midway lined by souvenir trailers on one side and food booths on the other.

  Josh felt the back of the Wagoneer begin to slide. Working the pedals like an expert and steering into the skid, Allison straightened the vehicle just in time to avoid taking out a substantial portion of the Old Fashioned River Days art fair, including a half-dozen booths packed with handcrafted stoneware.

  She bounced back onto the street not far from the hotel. They parked on the sidewalk and set off for the Sternwheeler. Josh’s leg ached. He realized he’d been hammering down a non-existent brake pedal during the Wagoneer’s long slide.

  In keeping with the hotel’s name, the Sternwheeler’s lobby was made to look like a riverboat. Curtains, carpets, wallpaper and stained glass competed in an eye-popping collision of color-rich patterns. Columns outside the Paddle Wheel dining room had been painted to look like ornate, filigreed smokestacks. A portrait of the author marked the entrance to the opulent Samuel Clemens piano lounge where drinks were named for the characters in his Mark Twain novels. An order for a Becky Thatcher brought a Cosmopolitan. A painting of a very modest reclining nude—said to be the mistress of the original owner—hung above the bar. The bellhops wore mustaches, white broad-rimmed gamblers’ hats and string ties.

  A gaggle of tourists queued up at the reception desk waiting to speak with one of two clerks dressed as dance hall girls.

  “Get in line in case we need to talk to a real person,” Josh told Allison.

  The house phone was a candlestick model. Josh picked up the earpiece and was connected to the hotel operator.

  “Congressman Dorn’s room, please.”

  “I’m sorry that line is busy. Would you like to leave a message?”

  “No, just his room number please. I’m in the hotel.”

  “I’m sorry. We can’t give out that information.”

  Josh slammed the earpiece back on the cradle so hard it drew the attention of one of the bellmen. “Careful, sir!” he admonished. “That’s an antique.”

  Allison had advanced only a step or two nearer the reception desk. “We need to bust the line,” Josh said. “Your white coat is in the car. They’d tell a doctor, wouldn’t they?”

  “You exaggerate my clout. We need someone they’ll give the number to no question.”

  She saw a faded red Sunbird pull into a hotel’s loading zone.

  “You have cash?” she asked.

  “Some. Maybe eighty dollars.”

  “C’mon.”

  Josh followed her outside. He understood when he spotted an antenna windsock and a magnetic Angelina’s Pizza sign affixed to the driver’s door. The young delivery woman had just gotten out. Allison asked, “How would you like to make a really big tip?”

  The driver, who was shorter than Allison but of almost identical build, wore a uniform of a white tee-shirt shirt and cap displaying the Angelina’s Pizza logo. She regarded them with a mixture of suspicion and possibility. “What do you have in mind?”

  “Come with me,” said Allison. “I’ll explain.”

  Five minutes later, the delivery girl exited the lobby dressed in Allison’s clothes. Allison followed a minute later wearing the delivery girl’s jeans, t-shirt and cap. The delivery girl gave her a pizza.

  Allison entered the lobby like a
waiter with a tray of entrees. With no objection from the guests standing in line, she set the pizza box on the front of the desk and told the clerk, “Got a delivery but I can’t read the room number. Name’s Dorn.”

  The receptionist motioned her closer and whispered, “Room twenty-two.”

  Brain addled by alcohol and arousal, U.S. Congressman and Senate frontrunner Harry Dorn thought for quite some time that the banging echoing through his hotel room came from the bed’s headboard, not, as he now perceived, from the door.

  He cursed the efficiency of the Sternwheeler staff. It seemed just minutes since he’d ordered first, from room service, a bottle of scotch, then, seconds later, some fries and a hot fudge sundae. He’d not expected such prompt delivery. “Don’t go anywhere,” he told the girl beneath him. “One minute. I’ll be back as good as ever.” He rolled out of bed and grabbed a towel and his wallet. His towel hid his nudity but not his erection which thrust against the cloth. Those blue pills were a marvel!

  On the other side of the door, a voice called out, “Congressman Dorn! Congressman Dorn!” Room Service. Prompt. He appreciated the man’s eagerness if not—just now—his timing.

  Dorn eased the door open to the length of the security chain. A wild-eyed man loomed inches away. Dorn moved to shut the door.

  Josh stopped it with his foot. “Wait, please!” he shouted. “It’s Josh Gibbs.”

  Dorn regarded him with a bloodshot, Cyclopsian eye.

  “It’s an emergency,” Josh pleaded. “My daughter. Please. I need your help!”

  “Tomorrow,” Dorn slurred. His breath reeked of whisky.

  Josh wasn’t about to be put off. He needed help locating Katie and Dorn was his best chance. His threw his weight against the door.

  The chain ripped from its anchor. Dorn was thrown to the carpet, leaving his towel behind. The crazy man in the coonskin cap and a pizza delivery girl landed on top of him. Dorn was naked beneath them.

  “What do you think you’re doing?” Dorn yelled. “Get the hell off me!”

  “Somebody owes me three hundred dollars,” the girl said, pulling on her jeans.

  Allison untangled herself. She was aghast. The girl could not have been more than fifteen.

  Josh rolled off the congressman and helped him from the floor. Part of him wanted to slug the scumbag. He shut it down. Allison could play the white knight. He was here for Katie. “Katie’s disappeared, maybe kidnapped. I need help now.”

  Dorn retrieved the towel and tried to look as dignified as circumstances permitted. He’d been in tough spots before but nothing like this. His options, he understood, were limited.

  “Mr. Gibbs, your daughter shouldn’t suffer for another stupid decision, mine or yours. No stories about this or the plant and I’ll expedite this with the FBI. Agreed?”

  Josh swallowed hard and nodded. “Deal. Provided they actually do something.”

  Before they left, Allison pulled the camera belonging to the Winston News from her purse and snapped a photo of Dorn and the girl. “You’re trash,” she told him.

  She took the girl with her. “Where’s my three hundred dollars?” the girl wailed.

  Dorn locked the door, turned the deadbolt and, hands trembling, reattached the chain to the splintered doorframe. He’d bought time, but that was all. No way was he calling the FBI. Even if a federal crime were involved the last thing he needed was a bunch of investigators in town asking questions. He felt drained. His life was over: The Carbon Forward money. Dead. The Senate. Dead. His marriage. Dead. The only thing very much alive was the possibility of prison. Unless Josh and Allison could be stopped.

  Dorn hated what he had to do next but he was out of options. He opened his phone and entered the digits with numbed fingers. Bludhorn answered on the second ring. “Vince,” Dorn blurted. “I need your help.”

  Chapter Fifty-Seven

  Josh accepted three hundred dollars from the ATM in the Sternwheeler lobby and handed it to the girl—the second time, he mused, that he had given money to a prostitute for no sexual services in return.

  The girl left. Josh tried Katie. Voice mail again. He settled into a couch in the lobby, his head spinning as he tried to make sense of everything that had happened. The scene with Dorn had been deeply disturbing. Josh couldn’t look at the girl without thinking that she was almost the same age as his daughter, that somewhere she had a father, a man just like him. His heart ached for them both. But then, he thought bitterly, at least the girl wasn’t missing. There was no pain greater than loss.

  “Do you think that it’s possible Katie just ran away?” Allison plopped down beside him, still wearing her pizza delivery hat. Josh removed it. She fluffed her hair.

  “Always possible. But I tend to agree with what you said earlier. She’s a pretty grounded young woman.”

  “But kidnapping? Who would—” He stopped. He remembered the cat. “You don’t think Bludhorn . . .”

  It fact, her very first thought when Katie went missing was that Bludhorn was responsible, that Katie’s disappearance was orchestrated by the same dark forces that had perpetrated a nuclear disaster, attempted to blackmail her with an embarrassing DVD and turned the town against them both. But she had said nothing to Josh at the time. There was no reason to panic him without evidence. “He’s capable,” she acknowledged. She could see Josh pale. “He did bring back Hippocrates unharmed.”

  “Well, we got Dorn’s help,” Josh noted. He had no second thoughts about suppressing a story in order to aid the recovery of his daughter. If it ever came out, people would understand. It was no different from a prisoner of war signing a false confession to save his own skin.

  “I wouldn’t count on Dorn,” Allison said. She hated to be so discouraging. She understood the decision to kill a story in exchange for Dorn’s assistance. But Josh deserved the truth. The congressman was an unprincipled, alcoholic, lying, pedophile whose only interests were sick sexual gratification and reelection. Politicians like him were why kids like Katie couldn’t get decent health coverage. He was in the same class of abuser as Darryl Dunn and her ex-husband. “I don’t trust him for a minute. That’s why I took the photo. It’s insurance in case he doesn’t come through.”

  “So what now? I can’t just sit here and do nothing.”

  Allison felt the same way. Katie was missing. Winston was facing a public health catastrophe. They had to turn to someone, someone who would sound the alarm. State and federal officials had been no help. “What about Chief Holt?”

  “I think he’s in on it. He has to be. He works for the plant. Plus, how else would he know that we were out there?”

  “Same question we had before,” Allison said. “Is he one of the good guys or the bad? We don’t know. But he’s our last, best hope.”

  Josh’s cell phone beeped with voice mail. He seethed. He had never understood how a call went to voice mail when his phone hadn’t even indicated a call coming in. He pounded in the code and held the phone to his ear. His heart leapt when he heard Katie’s voice—“Daddy”—followed by a burst of static that sounded familiar but which he could not identify.

  “Where are you?” he shouted to the recording. But that was the entire message. The call had been dropped or the phone had died.

  “She’s alive,” he gasped with audible relief. He dialed Katie back. The call went to voice mail.

  He tried over and over with the same result. Katie was alive. But now what? What had happened? Where was she? Just because she was okay now didn’t mean she was out of danger. He was ready to try anything. “Let’s find the chief,” he said.

  “Where do you think he is?”

  “Cop shop’s right around the corner. If he isn’t there himself, someone will know where to find him.”

  Chapter Fifty-Eight

  Josh cut sharply around a cadre of Civil War soldiers ambling from the Sternwheeler bar. All
ison trailed him like a halfback following blockers. They bee-lined for the police station three blocks away. The door was locked. Josh knocked, cupped his hands and squinted through the window. “I don’t think anyone’s home.”

  Allison noticed a cup from the Java Joynt on a railing. Checked boxes on the side identified it as coffee with a double-shot of espresso. It was still warm. Had Vince just been here or was she just being paranoid?

  She dialed the department, heard the phone ring inside and left a message about the cesium-saturated lake at Betheltown. She needed Holt to understand that the threat from the lagoon was far greater than the people at the plant realized. She hoped he was on their side and checking messages. She hung up. “Where would he be?”

  “Riding herd on the festival.”

  “We haven’t seen him,” Allison pointed out.

  “Maybe he worked the 10k this morning and went home. We should check.”

  The Wagoneer sat where they left it.

  Allison threaded the car through the crowds to Holt’s apartment building, a drab converted motel. “Blinds are drawn,” she observed. “Squad car’s not in the lot.”

  “That’s his only ride,” Josh said. “So he isn’t here, either.”

  “Where’s that leave us?”

  Josh wished he knew. He was running out of options. He tried Katie again. No luck. It was hopeless.

  “Maybe he’s at the plant,” Allison suggested.

  Josh thought it was possible—especially given the plant’s recently heightened security—but was reluctant to risk a trip. “I need to be here if something develops. Anyway, it’s a long shot.”

  “But it’s our only shot.”

  Allison took Josh’s silence as assent. She steered away from the river, in the opposite direction from the flood of cars, vans and campers converging on Winston. A few minutes later, they were climbing the hills toward Holt’s outpost.

  Josh was glad he’d gone along. It felt better to be doing something instead of nothing.