The First Victim lbadm-6

by Ridley Pearson

  She had a bus to ride.

  CHAPTER 52

  Fall was a time of dying, the annual ritual of transition from summer’s lush wealth to winter’s bleak bankruptcy. Volunteer Park sat poised behind an affluent neighborhood’s three-story colonial homes. The park housed the Asian art museum and a stone water tower. At night it played host to hard-core drug use. All walks of society appreciated a good view.

  Boldt met his wife in the museum’s parking lot from where the hill spilled down and away from them toward the intrusion of high-rises and the gray-green wash of the Sound. Late afternoon, the first day of September, it was busy with in-line skaters and baby strollers. Boldt smelled fall in the air. It brought a pang of anxiety. He didn’t need any more change right now. Liz’s invitation to meet away from downtown implied trouble. She knew it was more difficult for him, especially midday.

  ‘‘Everything okay?’’ he asked.

  She made every effort to return the weight savaged by the chemotherapy, but all these months later, she still looked the same-a piece of dried fruit, the juice of life sucked out. He loved her, appreciated her, and yet did not accept her as fully healthy in part because of her appearance, in part a resistance to the idea of sharing management of the family with her. Her sickness had put Boldt in charge of the kids, the schedule, even the meals and menus. And though he welcomed the relief from his duties, he also felt a bit like a dictator, unwilling to recognize the democracy.

  ‘‘Where are you?’’ she asked accusingly.

  ‘‘I’m here.’’

  ‘‘You were off somewhere else.’’

  ‘‘I’m right here, Liz.’’

  ‘‘You’re slipping back into it, you know? The twelve-hour days. The leaving before they’re up and coming home after they’re asleep.’’

  She had brought him to Volunteer Park to lecture him on old habits dying hard?

  ‘‘I’m working on stuff,’’ he confessed. ‘‘Trying to work things out.’’

  ‘‘Living with my being healthy,’’ she stated. ‘‘It’s hard for you.’’

  ‘‘I’m working stuff out,’’ he repeated.

  She took his hand. Hers was icy. There was never any warmth in any of her extremities, as if she’d just gone for a swim in a cold lake.

  ‘‘Dr. Woods’ office called,’’ she said.

  Boldt swooned. The world seemed to slow to a stop, all sound replaced by a whining in his ears, his vision shrinking. He managed only a guttural, ‘‘What?’’

  ‘‘The tests. My annual. There’s evidently a newer, more sensitive test they can run. They want me to book an appointment. You’re a part of that decision.’’

  ‘‘I appreciate that,’’ he said.

  She stared out at the water.

  ‘‘It’s not that I don’t respect your faith. It’s that I don’t understand it.’’

  She explained, ‘‘They say they want me in for an early flu shot. They say they’re worried about me getting the flu. But I know Katherine. It’s about the tests.’’

  ‘‘Which is it? Flu shots or the tests?’’ Something teased his thoughts: the container victims had been exposed to a flu. Could he use that now?

  ‘‘They mentioned both. The excuse to get me in there is the flu shots.’’

  ‘‘It’s your decision, Liz: You want to skip the tests,’’ he said, ‘‘I’m with you.’’ But he wasn’t with her; he felt distracted.

  She offered, ‘‘You have to be fully behind this. I need-’’

  ‘‘My faith?’’

  She smiled. ‘‘I don’t expect miracles.’’

  CHAPTER 53

  Boldt caught Dixon in the middle of an autopsy. An eighty-fiveyear-old widow had fallen off a ladder while changing a light bulb and had broken her neck. The law required Dixon to cut her up and take his samples, and though typically an assistant would have handled such a case, the late summer vacation schedule put the burden on the boss. He went about it with all the enthusiasm of a parking lot cashier.

  The room smelled foul despite the ventilation system. Boldt hated the taste it left in his mouth.

  ‘‘Flu shots?’’ Dixon asked.

  Boldt said, ‘‘What if the illegals aren’t the only ones sick? These Hilltop women were raped-that’s close contact. What if the skin irritation on Jane Doe was from industrial detergent, as in a car wash?’’

  Clearly impressed, Dixon said, ‘‘Not so far-fetched.’’

  ‘‘Close physical contact,’’ Boldt repeated. ‘‘You said yourself it was highly contagious. What if it spread? What if a couple guys are real sick? What if the evening news happened to report that a flu shot and an antibiotic had just come available? That both were specific to what authorities were calling the ‘container flu’?’’

  ‘‘The antibiotic wouldn’t be specific to the flu,’’ Dixon advised.

  ‘‘So they issue a retraction? The point being that we could use it as bait. We’ve seen guards on the videos. People have been around these women. Close contact. Someone has buried them. Handled them.’’

  The doctor’s gloved hands made sucking noises inside the cadaver. He said, ‘‘This is no Ebola, or something-it’s a very bad flu. It’s treatable.’’

  ‘‘But if the news plays it up, if there’s a treatment available at a clinic, if our people are at that clinic, and if it requires them to fill out a form that includes an exposure date-’’

  ‘‘That’s completely unnecessary!’’

  ‘‘But they don’t know that! The average guy doesn’t know that! I wouldn’t know that. Jill Doe was in the ground weeks ahead of Jane Doe. Jane Doe was dead before the container. The point being that if we can trick someone into naming a date ahead of the container’s arrival, then that person will have to explain his exposure.’’

  ‘‘No one would ever run such a story. It’s medically unsound. They fact check, you know? Your only hope is with the tabloids, believe me.’’

  ‘‘My hope is that this office will issue a press release,’’ Boldt stated bluntly.

  Dixon’s hands stopped, submerged in the corpse. ‘‘Well then, you just lost all hope.’’ He said firmly, ‘‘I understand what you’re going for, Lou. In a warped kind of way, it even makes sense. It’s a pretty good idea. But I cannot put this department in the position you’re asking me to. If we lose integrity and trust, if the public believes we’re willing to manipulate the truth for the good of SPD. . It just doesn’t work. We’re a team of medical professionals. Believe me, we have image problems enough without this kind of thing: ‘second-rate doctors’; ‘surgeons whose only patients are dead.’ Can’t do it, Lou.’’

  ‘‘But it might work,’’ Boldt suggested, looking for encouragement.

  ‘‘I’d give it a qualified yes-a highly qualified yes.’’ He repeated, ‘‘But it doesn’t matter. You’ll never get anyone to run the story.’’

  Boldt said, ‘‘I wouldn’t be so sure about that.’’

  CHAPTER 54

  Between the chauffeur-driven Town Cars and her own 325i, Stevie realized she had not ridden a Seattle city bus until then, surprised by the diversity of its riders and the unexpected neighborliness of its passengers. She had thought the bus system a place for poor people, the homeless and indigent, ‘‘The Unseen Minority’’ as they had been called in a feature piece on N4@5. Instead, on that Tuesday afternoon she found teenagers, college kids, moms and children, even a businessman or two. They read books, newspapers, knitted, listened to Walkmans, shared a conversation, or stared out the windows, which was what Stevie did, ever alert for landmarks that might signal the location where Melissa’s subject had disembarked. In her right hand, Stevie carried a printout from the digital video for comparison.

  The bus stops came and went. People switched seats. The doors hissed shut. The bell line buzzed the driver.

  She marked a tourist map as she went, indicating the running time of the trip. With the video time-stamped, it seemed one possible way to identify the bus st
op this man had taken.

  The bus route dragged on, her broadcast nearing. After ten more minutes, as they approached the Fremont Bridge, she realized the bus trip would have to wait. She had a meeting scheduled with Boldt to determine if they should air the clips of Mama Lu. Frustrated with the idea of giving up she nonetheless disembarked, crossed the street and rode another bus back into town. As it turned out, Boldt was waiting for her.

  CHAPTER 55

  Brian Coughlie felt obsessed with her. Aware that following the botched attack in her apartment, the police or the other security were more than likely to keep her under protection, Coughlie nonetheless assigned two of his own INS agents to also watch her from a distance, to report not only her every movement but who else was keeping tabs. When his people reported her boarding a city bus Coughlie became perplexed. Try as he did, he couldn’t make sense of her riding public transportation out to Fremont Bridge and then back into the city again. Was it something she had gleaned from one of the videos? A tip from an informer from the hotline? What? Worse: How did he stop her?

  He had gone without sleep, compensating for this additional fatigue through a liberal dose of amphetamines and as much espresso as he could force down. He lived broadcast to broadcast, terrified at what she might come up with next, debating his options and not liking any of them. To watch her broadcasts felt to him like professional leprosy: watching the slow rotting of his own career as bits and chunks sloughed off.

  Two days more. His focus remained this last shipment of illegals yet to arrive, although he felt plagued by the police’s recent discovery of three more buried bodies in Hilltop Cemetery and what those cadavers might reveal to the experts. Rodriguez was a liability-his solutions only created additional problems.

  More terrifying to him personally was that his request for police to share this Hilltop information had gone without any acknowledgment or reciprocity. LaMoia hadn’t even returned the call. What was that about?

  He couldn’t pick up and run even if he’d wanted to; it wasn’t the police he was worried about, but the Chinese ‘‘businessmen’’ who owned him. A person didn’t run from such people, not ever. You stood and faced the music. You implicated others in the failure; you framed people if necessary.

  The more he thought about it all, the sharper the pain behind his eyes, the drier his tongue. He had work to do. If he got this next shipment in without incidence, he felt reasonably confident he could wrestle control back from SPD and contain the damage.

  The success of the next shipment was everything.

  CHAPTER 56

  Stevie McNeal sat up straight in her anchor chair facing the three robotic cameras, a barrage of lights pouring color and heat down onto her.

  At Boldt’s request, she prepared herself to lie, to use her anchor chair for her own good, to willfully manipulate her trusting public in an effort to rescue her Little Sister. It was professional suicide if it ever came out, but she felt bound to pursue anything that increased Melissa’s chances. Anything.

  She would break from the prepared text of the news hour and read from her own cards. There would be hell to pay, especially if the station managers ever found out she had known in advance that the information was inaccurate, a construct of a police department desperate for a break. In the next few seconds she was going to put her entire career on the line. She wouldn’t find work in a fourth-tier city if this ever came out.

  Her director’s voice came through the earpiece she wore. ‘‘You okay, Stevie?’’

  She raised her hand to signal him, though she did not open her eyes, her full concentration on Melissa and putting her needs first.

  Surprisingly, she thought of her father, alone and unloved in some veteran’s hospital, courtesy of the federal government. Melissa had mentioned his poor health. Stevie blamed her father for her years in New York, for feeding her to a skirt-chasing producer whose idea of educating the fresh recruits was getting their clothes off. She hadn’t spoken to her father since her departure from New York-her ending the affair had also ended her network career. But faced with compromising her career, she suddenly thought of him and how she would be letting him down, would be damaging the McNeal name, and she realized he still held power over her, even off wherever he was, battling whatever it was. She could break the communication but not the connection.

  Five.. four.. three.. two.. She opened her eyes. The floor director’s finger pointed ominously at her. She felt cold despite the glare of lights.

  Good evening. You’re live, with News Four at Five. I’m Stevie McNeal.

  She broke from the prepared text.

  Local health authorities announced just moments ago that the flu-like virus that may have been responsible for the deaths of several illegal aliens including three found dead in a shipping container last month is a far more serious threat to local health than previously imagined.

  Corwin stood up from behind the console in the soundproofed booth and waved frantically at her, pointing to the thin pink sheet of text he held in his hand, the yellow copy of which lay before her on the anchor desk, and the text to which scrolled on the prompting screen below the camera lens. She saw him only peripherally, her attention primarily directed to the cards but divided between the cards and the camera with the red light, his angry voice carrying through her flesh-colored earpiece and attempting to distract her as she continued to read her cards. But Stevie McNeal was a pro: She never broke her cadence.

  News Four at Five has learned that this contagion, which produces flu-like symptoms of high fever, congestion and can result in bronchial infection, stomach cramps and diarrhea, is also believed responsible for the deaths of the Jane Doe and three other corpses found improperly buried at Hilltop Cemetery in the past week. There are unconfirmed rumors that the virus is spreading rapidly through the detainee population at the INS facility at Fort Nolan.

  Health officials, responding to the public’s needs, have established a free inoculation program at New Care Health Clinic across from Harborview Medical Center. Any persons having confirmed direct contact with anyone known to be carrying this virus are strongly encouraged to seek immunization and/or a series of specially created antibiotics at New Care between the hours of twelve and one P.M. and eight and ten P.M, daily, until further notice or the limited supply runs out. Health care officials stress the severity of the problem, the systemic nature of the contagion and the importance of this preventive treatment program. For further information, interested viewers can call this toll-free number twenty-four hours a day.

  She read the 888 number that Boldt had provided her, a number that ran directly to the fifth floor of the Public Safety building and had both caller-ID and trap-and-trace functions enabled.

  ‘‘In other news. .’’ She returned to the top of the prepared broadcast. As she read from her sheet the TelePrompTer scrolled backward and caught up with her. Corwin would have to edit during the first break and cut a story or shorten weather or sports to accommodate Stevie’s unexpected announcement. He would never drop an ad-the station had its priorities set.

  An amazing sense of relief pulsed through her. Any effort to save Melissa was worth the price. Boldt’s trap was properly set. She had joined forces with the police and they with her, and she thought that if anything, this was a lesson for both sides. She wondered if she had a year to keep her anchor chair, or a week, or a day. Truthfully, she didn’t care. If Melissa came home because of this one sixty-second manipulation of the truth. .

  Then, in what she considered a moment of brilliance, as she finished reading the lead story and the camera bearing the red light switched to Billy-Bob Cutler, she stood from her anchor chair, stripped off the microphone and earpiece, distracting but not interrupting her co-anchor, and marched off the set. When she turned not toward her dressing room and the bathroom there but toward the studio exit, the floor director rushed away from the set and caught up.

  ‘‘Ms. McNeal?’’ she hissed, stopping Stevie and turning her. ‘‘Anyth
ing wrong?’’

  Jimmy Corwin’s lean frame appeared through the door to the control booth and froze, understanding her intentions from the expression on her face. Surprisingly, he spoke calmly. ‘‘If this story is sound, then why not include it in the script?’’ Corwin was a newsman. Corwin knew before making a single phone call. ‘‘Who’s your contact on this?’’

  Stevie met eyes with him. ‘‘Billy-Bob will have to take my remaining segments. He’ll do fine.’’

  ‘‘Mr. Cutler? The whole broadcast?’’ the floor director inquired.

  Corwin said, ‘‘Tell me this story is going to check out. What the hell is going on here?’’

  She liked Corwin. She hated to do this to him-to the station. She took a deep breath and said, ‘‘I have a bus to catch.’’

  CHAPTER 57

  "I need you. Pronto. She split the station early. I’m in trouble here.’’ Coughlie had paged Rodriguez to call him back, taking a huge risk by using his cellphone but seeing no way around it. The call had been returned nearly instantly. He heard the barroom noise in the background and knew that Rodriguez was in some happy hour haunt watching News Four at Five. They both had made a regular diet of it.

  He followed the BMW toward downtown, wondering what she was up to. First the story about a flu vaccine, then the sudden departure. He knew how Rodriguez would react to that lead story. He had to involve the man in McNeal’s surveillance in order to keep him from going to that health clinic. Coming from her mouth as it had, the story had sounded plausible, even legitimate, but for a variety of reasons Coughlie was deeply suspicious: The INS would have been told if Fort Nolan’s population was at any kind of health risk. It was a glitch in her story that he couldn’t see past. Fearing some kind of trap, some kind of sting, he needed to keep Rodriguez clear of the clinic. The guy had been pretty damn sick for the last several weeks, had buried women who had died with similar symptoms and had repeatedly complained about his health. Coughlie feared that the man would take the bait. If Rodriguez had any love, it was for any kind of medication.