Pale Death

by Aimée Thurlo

  Lee scooted the chair back, got down on the floor, and looked at the bottom of the desk drawer. A piece of tape was stuck there and written on it in ink, a number.

  With a satisfied smile Lee tried the sequence on the safe’s combination dial. When the safe failed to open, Lee tried it again, reversing the direction he’d spun the dial at the beginning. No good. Finally he reversed the number sequence and tried it one more time. The safe unlocked, and he opened the door.

  “Got the safe!” Lee told Diane, then poked his head out from behind the partition that defined one of the three workstations in the office.

  “Great. Maybe we can finally put a face to Stewart’s name. There’ve got to be visual records somewhere. I’ll tell you one thing, Lee. Based upon what I’ve already seen in Lynette’s files, these people were using a vampire as a guinea pig. I’d have never thought Lynette could do something like that.”

  “Maybe they convinced themselves that the end justifies the means … a monumental discovery in medicine in exchange for a life. Spin can be placed on almost every shady operation, especially a government project. Or maybe their motive was the old-fashioned garden-variety type. That Mercedes of hers in the parking lot must have cost a bundle,” Lee reminded her.

  “Yeah, well. She paid the ultimate price for it.” Diane looked away, avoiding his gaze.

  Five minutes later, with the access codes to Prescott’s encrypted files from the safe, along with the CDs where he’d stored them, they were able to identify and play back visual recordings of Stewart—listed only as Patient Beta in the records. Lee stared at the “before” images on the computer screen. The “after” ones always showed Stewart in varying levels of sunburn, some very painful-looking.

  There was no audio track, but it was obvious that Stewart had often been in agony. In some recordings he’d been screaming—in others he had shown no reaction other than contempt or anger.

  “The man is a lean, mean Arnold Schwarzenegger type—the Arnie after he shed his bodybuilder image. Pale skin, with light, almost spooky eyes. Dangerous, as if he was nursing his hatred and biding his time. A hunter with infinite patience.”

  Diane was close behind, peeking over his shoulder. It felt good to be working with her again, even on something as serious as this case.

  “I see what you mean about the resemblance, Lee. Being that pale, he must have been avoiding the sun for years. Does your skin continue to get lighter the longer you’re a vampire?”

  “Being a Navajo, I’m not that familiar with deep tans—though I can darken even more, of course. I think it all depends on your genetic makeup. How pale you can become without a tan.”

  Diane smiled. “We’ll have to figure out who Stewart really is. If he hasn’t been a vampire for too many years he should have a file somewhere in a database or government agency, even though he doesn’t seem to have a fingerprint record. And they called him Stewart for a reason. That might be his first or last name. Maybe we’ll get lucky after going through these files.” She motioned toward a stack of twenty-seven CDs.

  Selecting two of the images of Stewart’s face, Lee printed them out on the office’s color laser printer, then faxed them to the county sheriff and every municipal police force within two hundred miles. Diane sent copies to her Albuquerque FBI office as well, with instructions to disseminate the photo and run the image through any recognition programs that might provide a hit. They still didn’t have a positive ID on the man, though it was probably somewhere here in the records.

  “Well, Stewart’s a vampire, at least we know that. I wonder how he ended up in this place? We need to uncover what agency is behind this piece-of-crap operation,” Lee said to Diane.

  “I’ll need to find out who pays the bills.”

  She remained silent for a moment, and Lee, seeing she was struggling to keep her emotions under control, looked back at the computer monitor.

  “I should call Lynette’s parents,” she finally said. “The sheriff’s department has already asked one of their people to notify them about her death, but I want to speak with them too, and see if they can give me any information that’ll help. I sure wish I had time to do this personally instead of over the phone, though.”

  “Did she have a boyfriend? Or girlfriend? Maybe they could tell us something?”

  “I don’t think she was having a serious relationship with anyone. She lived alone, and has been married to her career since college. Last time we spoke—her last birthday, I think—Lynette told me she wanted to get herself established in her field, then find herself a good man and start raising kids by the time she was thirty. She joked about being way behind schedule.”

  “People always think they’ll have time,” Lee said.

  She looked at him curiously, then cleared her throat. “Well, anyway, her paychecks had to come from somewhere. I’ll use the Bureau sources to backtrack.”

  “While you’re doing that, I’ll search the lab for the hidden camcorders. Maybe we’ll get a clue if they were recording Stewart in the lab last night before it happened.”

  Diane reached over and touched Lee’s arm. “Look for tissue samples in their laboratory storage, the refrigerator and whatever. If you find any, destroy them. I don’t want vampire blood in the hands of whoever takes over this place.”

  “I thought of that when we did a quick look earlier, and came up with a disposal method. I’ll just aim one of those all-spectrum lamps at the samples. If they happen to go toasty, then so be it.”

  Lee was back in ten minutes with three camcorders, which he’d placed in a plastic washtub to make them easy to transport. Diane looked up and he nodded. “Nothing was on the camcorders. The CDs are blank, so either they are newly replaced or else they didn’t record anything last night.”

  “Any tissue or blood samples?”

  “Yeah. There were fifty blood and tissue samples in storage. All but ten turned to ash when I aimed the lamp at them. The unaffected ones, according to their labels, came from the staff.”

  “Probably the ‘controls’ in their nasty little experiments,” Diane said. Then her cell phone rang. She spoke for about three minutes, then ended the call.

  “Lee, we’ve got a positive ID on the suspect—Patient Beta. His name is Stewart Tanner. One of our agents out of the Albuquerque office recognized the photo we sent. Tanner dropped out of sight about seven or so months ago. Gossip was that he’d supposedly decided on the spur of the moment to take an around-the-world trip. Nobody has seen him since then.”

  “How did the Bureau guy know him?”

  “Tanner owned the Night Owl restaurant in Albuquerque. He was the master chef there as well, and the place specialized in game animal cuisine. He was popular among the late-night dining crowd. That’s how the agent came to know of him. Then, about six months ago, Tanner suddenly failed to show up for work. A relative—cousin, supposedly—took over the restaurant, claiming that Tanner had become bored and gone back to his true love, hunting and adventuring. His disappearance didn’t cause any stir—he wasn’t married and didn’t have any kids or close relatives, so that was that,” Diane added.

  “Well, he didn’t volunteer to become a prisoner, so some event must have brought him to the attention of whatever agency is funding this lab. And they must have had enough influence to do something to the guy that is obviously illegal—not to mention unconscionable,” Lee said.

  “If a government agency, big or small, knows about the existence of vampires, and is willing and capable of doing something like this to them, then your life is in real danger, Lee.”

  “Tell me something I don’t know. And if the people here drove Tanner insane and turned him into a killer, anyone out there who knows about night walkers but not about the months of pure torture Tanner endured is going to conclude we’re all a menace to society. Just more reason to believe I’m really screwed. And there’s something that’s been bugging me about the designation, Patient Beta,” Lee added.

  “There must have be
en a Patient Alpha?”

  “Exactly. But I’ve haven’t found any mention of other guinea pigs, have you?”

  “No, at least not yet. But we’ll have to keep our eyes open. Maybe there’s another lab like this somewhere else.”

  “That’s what worries me,” Lee said. “By the way, how’d it go with Lynette’s parents?”

  Diane summarized the conversation. Lynette’s mother was heartbroken, having already learned about the death of her daughter, and it took a while for Diane to learn that Lynette had mentioned that she worked for OSHA and was doing research on improving safety standards for outdoor workers. Something about skin cancer, her mother thought.

  “Not a bad cover story, Diane,” Lee concluded when she was done. “It does offer an explanation why a dermatologist might be working out here, and everyone knows that New Mexico is a high-risk state because of the altitude and solar radiation.”

  “There’s got to be a file in here somewhere that will tell us what happened and how this operation and any others got started. We live in a bureaucracy,” Diane said, pointing out the obvious. “The paperwork’s in here somewhere.”

  “There’s a lot of ‘somewhere’ here.” Lee waved toward the stack of CDs, each of which could contain thousands of pages. “Plus, we still have another computer to check out, and every file in this file cabinet. At least there’s only the one office.”

  She nodded, then looked down at her watch. “It’s already past one, but I’m not in the mood to eat anything right now. Let’s skip lunch and keep searching. The truth has got to be here somewhere.”

  “Look everywhere. Meanwhile, think outside the box. If I were working here I’d be in a constant state of paranoia. I’d know that if anything went wrong—like what happened here last night—and I happened to survive, my ass would still be on the line. I’d be keeping my own set of records, just to ensure I wouldn’t be left to take the blame alone. Someone was responsible for initiating this project, and my guess is that it wasn’t the doctors who were working here. We need to follow the trail back to the beginning and find out who the real boss is.”

  “Once I’m sure the families of the victims have been notified, I’m going to have deputies interview everyone that might have come in contact with the victims. Let’s find out what Prescott and the others, including the security guards, were telling their families about their work here. I’ve already got agents in Albuquerque checking Tanner, his friends and coworkers, and that relative of his.”

  “Sounds thorough enough.” Lee sat back. “If I had been Prescott, I wouldn’t have kept my trump card here. He could have been denied access to the building if things got sticky, or it could have been found and taken from him.”

  “Maybe he has it stashed at home—or in his car. No, forget the car, that’s too easily stolen. How about a safety deposit box?” Diane offered.

  “Too predictable, and access is limited to bank hours. If Prescott was smart he’d have settled on home, or somewhere close by his home. I’d also doubt he’d leave it with a relative who might decide to take a look, or be vulnerable to outside pressure.”

  “So let’s lock up this place, get the Navajo police to keep everyone out, and go search Prescott’s home. I’ve got the address—it’s in Farmington. Prescott lived alone, but Cooper, the OMI man, should have left his keys in the FPD evidence room.”

  “Don’t go signing them out, not right now,” Lee said with a hint of a smile. “We’ll manage.”

  “Now that’s a scary concept. Next time I’m hooked up to a polygraph, my career is over.” Diane shook her head.

  “You don’t have to ask, see, or tell. If there’s anything illegal to do, I’ll do it when your back is turned.”

  By the time they’d locked up the lab, returned to the riverside crime scene to retrieve their vehicles, and touched bases with the Navajo officers assigned to watch the facility, it was late afternoon. Taking Diane’s Bureau car and leaving Lee’s black-and-white at the lab, they drove east.

  Diane’s hunger finally caught up with her, so en route to Farmington they stopped in Kirtland at a fast food place and stocked up on green chile cheeseburgers, french fries, and large colas. By the time they reached Prescott’s home, a large ranch-style home on the western outskirts of Farmington and up the La Plata highway, they’d already eaten their lunch/dinner.

  “I swear, since I met you, Lee, I’ve been eating like a pig. At least it hasn’t started to show … or has it?” Diane stepped out of the car and looked down at her hips.

  “I’ve never seen you look more … fit,” Lee said, coming around to her side of the car, then walking toward the wooden gate that granted access into the big yard. The lawn was so green it looked artificial, and well manicured.

  “Wise choice of words.” Diane opened the gate and walked up the flagstone path. “Big house for one man. Must have four bedrooms and a den.”

  “Lots of places to hide a computer disk or a notebook,” Lee said. “And if he stashed his secrets under one of those flagstones, we have, what, fifty to look under?”

  “Let’s check the house first. Maybe he picked an easy spot, like with the safe combination you discovered.” Diane glanced down the graveled lane, noting that the closest house was several hundred yards away. There were horses in a pasture just on the other side of a tall fence, grazing on the tall grass closest to the wire.

  Following her gaze, he shook his head. “Nobody is going to see us, Diane, unless they have a friggin’ telescope. Don’t start getting paranoid.”

  “I’ve been paranoid for years. It’s what keeps me alive.”

  “Come to think of it, after what they did to Tanner, maybe paranoia’s a good thing.” He stopped, visualizing the lab images of the vampire for the fiftieth time in the last hour, then saw Diane watching him closely.

  “We’ll make sure it never happens to you,” she said somberly, reaching out to touch his arm.

  “Thanks.” He placed his hand over hers, then awkwardly removed it again. “Wanna go up onto the front porch for a moment? I’m going to see if the back door is unlocked.”

  “That’s okay, Lee. Go ahead and pick the lock. It’s for the public good, and SAC Logan doesn’t have to know I’ve actually become very skilled at avoiding questions I don’t want to answer.”

  “Don’t let him hear you saying that,” Lee teased. “Lieutenant Richardson already knows I’m a sneaky guy, so he never asks for details he suspects he won’t want to hear.”

  “Just pick the damned lock,” Diane grumbled, grabbing his sleeve and pulling him around the flagstone path to the back of the house.

  They put on latex gloves, then searched in all the likely hiding places first. They checked under drawers, inside the refrigerator, boxes in the back of the closets, and in plain sight among diskettes and DVDs beside an inexpensive entertainment center and small desktop computer, but couldn’t find any lab-related files. Everything had a commercial label and looked genuine.

  Diane was checking under the furniture, and Lee was searching for stash places behind outlets and heating registers, when Lee had a moment of inspiration. He walked back over to the CDs and DVDs in the small rack, and began going through, reading the labels again.

  “Hey, Diane?”

  She walked back into the living room from the hall. “Find something?”

  “Maybe.” He turned on the television set, then picked up the remote, trying to figure out how to turn on the DVD player.

  “Nothing to do, so you decide to watch a movie?” She walked over to see what he was really doing.

  “I was thinking. Dr. Prescott had some good movie selections here. Good oldies, like The Great Escape, Indiana Jones, and a few new ones like Master and Commander and the Lord of the Rings trilogy.”

  “So?”

  “If you broke in and wanted to steal them, which ones wouldn’t you take.” Lee held up a DVD, hiding the label.

  “You’re serious.”

  “Absolutely.” Lee st
uck the DVD into the player, thumbed a button on the remote, but got nothing but a blue screen. “Doesn’t work, just as I suspected.” He held up the laser disk, and she could see the label.

  “Golf Legends of the PGA.” Diane chuckled. “Call me disappointed.”

  “We didn’t find any golf clubs in the house. Maybe it’s not really a DVD.” He booted up the computer, inserted the laser disk into the CD drive, and several seconds later they were looking at scanned documents from the research lab.

  On the typed documents, which were directed to Dr. Prescott, the laboratory employees were told that their establishment, listed under two cover agency levels, was a classified medical research operation and that they could be arrested if they ever spoke to anyone who hadn’t already been cleared by the director about their work.

  The facility had been created solely to study a unique individual, Stewart Tanner, who’d demonstrated an unusual immunity to disease and infections, the ability to heal and regenerate damaged tissue, and who was, at the same time, highly vulnerable to natural sunlight and certain wavelengths of radiation.

  The lab was tasked to quantify Tanner’s physical and biochemical nature, conduct experiments to determine the nature of his extraordinary healing capacity, and to try and isolate those elements in his body chemistry responsible for his unique abilities.

  The doctors were being asked to find a way to make Tanner resistant to damaging radiation so that the elements responsible for his healing abilities could be used to manufacture the ultimate medication without making the patient vulnerable to sunlight as well. The name given the funded research was, fittingly, Project Lazarus.