The Moonpool cr-3

by P. T. Deutermann

  Price took me back downtown, where I retrieved my Suburban and went to check in at the riverside Hilton. Allie’s car had been towed away from the gas station, and I didn’t think it would be worth my while to go see a convenience store bathroom. I decided to call an old friend who had moved to Wilmington, former park ranger and current college professor Mary Ellen Goode. First I had to find her number, so I called the University of North Carolina at Wilmington, known locally as the U, and tried to get her office number. I’d forgotten how much academics, for all their fervently professed individualism, love their bureaucracy. I think I could have driven out there and asked any passing student quicker than it took for a succession of politically correct office persons to finally, grudgingly, part with a phone number and an extension. Which got me voice mail, naturally, but it was Mary Ellen’s lovely voice and it was good to hear. She called back a half hour later.

  “Cam,” she said. “What a nice surprise. Are we in danger?”

  I chuckled at that. We had met in the Great Smokies National Park during the cat dancers case, and again when I’d helped her sort out an especially nasty assault on one of the park’s ranger probationers. We’d clicked, and pretty hard, but my penchant for attracting violent encounters with violent people had finally overwhelmed her natural sensitivity. Her question was not entirely frivolous.

  “Not this time,” I said. “I’m in town on business, but there shouldn’t be any major explosions, leaping panthers, or gunfire for at least, oh, hell, a couple hours or so. How about a drink?”

  “I’d love to,” she said. “I’ve got one more seminar. Where are you staying?”

  I told her the Hilton, and she said she’d meet me at seven in the riverfront lounge.

  Even closing in on the big four-oh, Mary Ellen Goode could still light up a room when she arrived. That’s how I’d remembered her-the lady who lit up the room. Big bright smile, softly pretty face, and an aura of vulnerable femininity that made every male in range want to protect her, or at least lay on hands. But then I took a second look as she crossed to my table. Maybe it was the tight white skirt enclosing shimmering legs good enough to dent the low buzz of conversation in the lounge. Or that direct, lips-parted smile as she arrived at my table and gave me a second to take in the glorious package before I got a big hug. I tried hard not to grin like a schoolboy who’s just scored the head cheerleader’s prom ticket. I think I failed. I assumed she’d gone home to attend to powder and paintwork, because if this was how she looked in the classroom, none of the boys there were going to remember anything at all about environmental science.

  Drinks ordered and appreciated, my biggest apprehension was that, once I told her what I was really doing in Wilmington, her enthusiasm at seeing me again would drain right out of those bright blue eyes and the evening would be a bust.

  So I lied.

  I told her I was in town meeting with the local authorities to make sure our company had all the proper licenses to work in this part of the state should we ever have to. Then I quickly asked her how she liked academia in comparison to being the chief environmental scientist up in the Great Smoky Mountains. She got a wistful look in her eye.

  “I can’t deny that I miss it-the mountains, the park, I mean. And most of the rangers.”

  “Most of the rangers. Ever hear from Ranger Bob?”

  It was an inside joke, and she smiled shyly. “I do believe Ranger Bob got in over his head,” she said, and I laughed out loud. “But at least he made a run,” she continued. “Most of the men I’ve met in academia are-different.”

  “Those who can, do…” I began-and then realized I was slinging that nasty little adage at her, too, now that she had gone back to the ivory tower. Except she’d already proved herself more than once on the “doing” side of that equation, and she knew that I knew that. Had she said “most” of the men?

  “Well, sort of, at least for the men who went off to college and basically never left. One encounters the occasional ego who equates a big intellect with genuine manliness. You can tell because they talk too much.”

  That’s my girl, I thought. Of course, I had the advantage of never having been encumbered with an oversized intellect, myself.

  “No hits at all?”

  She smiled again. “There’s one guy I’ve been seeing. He’s an oceanic engineer.” She saw my confusion. “That’s a mix of environmental science and undersea engineering,” she said. “He keeps construction companies from running afoul of the various EPAs. How about you-anyone?”

  I shook my head. My last really enjoyable time with a woman had been with a seriously go-ahead lady SBI agent whom I’d hoped to entice out of the state womb and into our investigative crew. We’d ended up working the Spider Mountain case, in which Mary Ellen had also been involved. “You remember Carrie, of the SBI?”

  She gave me an impudent grin. “Unh-hunh,” she said. She was leaning back in her chair now, squaring her shoulders, sipping some wine, and doing something with her legs that made a guy at the next table slop beer down his front.

  “Stop that,” I said.

  “You were telling me about Carrie of the SBI?” she said, ignoring me but allowing that sexy smile to stay on her face.

  “Well,” I said, clearing my throat, “I offered her a job with H amp;S, but she got a better offer from the SBI. I think they were afraid that she’d sue them or something after that mess on Spider Mountain.”

  “So she did the smart thing.”

  “She did. And now I’m all alone, sad, depressed, picked on, and I don’t know what-all I’m ever gonna do.”

  “And Frick and Frack?” she asked, still looking right at me. I began to feel a little bit like that proverbial deer in the headlights. They were lovely headlights, but she appeared to be a woman with some loving in mind. I was hugely flattered, while having a tiny little problem concentrating on the conversation.

  “Fuzzy, smelly, barking too much, shedding, lazy. The usual. Frack’s getting older, slowing down a bit. Frick is Frick.”

  “They’re not with you this trip?”

  She knew I normally never went anywhere without my two shepherds. Keeping up the legend, I told her this wasn’t an operational outing, so I’d left them home this time.

  “Now I feel much safer,” she said. “No shepherds, no bad guys.” More body language, with lots of independent movement. I realized I’d finished my wine. I don’t even much like wine.

  “You need to refresh that?” She indicated my empty wineglass. Then she cocked her head. “Or is there somewhere more private? Where we could… talk?”

  I caught my breath. She was doing what nice girls are never supposed to do: looking straight into my eyes and communicating on the limbic channel. I couldn’t really find my voice, so I just nodded, slowly, and pushed back my chair. She drained her glass, stood up, and smoothed out her skirt, looking away at nothing while she did it but once again creating a cone of bumbled male conversations in the immediate vicinity. The girl was on fire, and every hetero man within range was hoping I’d just fall over and die so he might come to her rescue. What little female talent there was in the lounge was shooting daggers.

  I was so entranced I forgot to pay my tab, but, hell, they knew where I was staying.

  I’d come down to Wilmington on short notice, so the only thing available had been one of the expensive top-floor suites. We sat out on the river balcony and enjoyed some more wine. It was actually a bit cold to be sitting out there, but neither of us had seemed to notice. What I had noticed was that Mary Ellen Goode was a genuine damsel in distress. Physical distress. Horns so long she was having to go through doors sideways. I was in pretty good shape for a man of my advancing years, with daily workouts at the Triboro police gym, ten-mile runs every other evening with the shepherds, and a diet that emphasized red meat for protein and Scotch for carbs.

  She, on the other hand, led a semi-sedentary life as an assistant professor of environmental science, whose only concession to physi
cal exercise was a three-mile walk down city sidewalks to and from her apartment. And still she wore my delighted ass right out, coming at our lovemaking with an urgency and desperate need that damned near flattened me in the worst possible context of that expression. We’d approached intimacy in our previous connections, but we’d never actually gone to bed. I should have tried a whole lot harder and a whole lot sooner. I did have the sense not to talk.

  Afterward I ordered up a room service dinner for two and we went back out onto the balcony. We were wearing those terrycloth bathrobes the Hilton puts in their suites, but she had neglected to close things up. I’d been relieved when our room service waiter turned out to be a sweet young thing who was either oblivious to the layer of lust-scented ozone in the suite or else a really good actor. He hadn’t even looked twice at Mary Ellen in that loose robe. Maybe it was because he was concerned about my respiration rate.

  I’d switched to Scotch and was trying not to think about anything while Mary Ellen excused herself and went into the bathroom. Then she was back.

  “Ready?” she asked brightly, interrupting my mental drift.

  I cowered behind my napkin and tried not to squeak. “Ready?”

  “I am so glad you called,” she said, that bright stare back in play. “But it’s been a long dry spell, and, well, you know. Night’s young, yes?”

  “Oh, yes,” I said. Not exactly a squeak, but not entirely authoritative, either. Bad guys would not have been impressed.

  She gave me a mock look of impatience. “This is a Hilton-the bathtub in there is a hot tub.”

  I hadn’t noticed. I’d been distracted. Now she was slipping out of that useless robe, and I was even more distracted. The cold air did amazing things to her superstructure. I waited for sounds of ships colliding out there on the Cape Fear River.

  “Tub will take five more minutes,” she announced. “Why don’t you get us some champagne.”

  With that she pranced across the balcony and into the living room, heading in the direction of the bathroom. I sat back in my chair and wondered if I could get oxygen with that.

  The new and much improved Mary Ellen decamped the next morning at eight, still smiling. I thought about getting up and going for a walk around the tourist district. Getting up I could manage. Walking was out of the question. I went back to sleep instead. A phone call from Bernie Price woke me up around ten.

  “We have developments,” he said.

  “Developments are good,” I said, wiggling my toes to make sure they’d still work.

  “Not always,” he said mysteriously. “I’ll be down to get you in twenty minutes.”

  “Make it thirty,” I said.

  “What-you hungover?”

  “No, just a long night.”

  “Lucky you.” He laughed.

  “You have no idea,” I said.

  This time he drove us to the New Hanover County medical examiner’s offices. The ME himself was not available, and since he hadn’t been willing to tell Price what the developments were over the telephone, we remained in the mushroom mode while they rustled up a substitute.

  Price had given me a long once-over when I got into his unmarked Crown Vic. “Mmm-hnnh” was all he said.

  “Jealousy doesn’t become you,” I replied.

  “Good thing we’re not walking to the lab,” he said.

  “I can walk just fine,” I said.

  “You squeak pretty good, too.”

  We finally met with one of the assistant medical examiners, a visibly agitated, middle-aged black woman wearing a doctor’s white coat and radiating a disapproving attitude. She swept us into a tiny conference room and asked Price to close the door.

  “Who’s this?” she asked him, pointing at me with her chin.

  “Closest thing to next of kin and also the DOA’s employer,” Price said. “He’s a retired police lieutenant. What’s the big deal here?”

  The doctor thought about it for a moment, looked me over belligerently, but then apparently consented to my remaining in the room.

  “The big deal,” she said, “is that your College Road DOA turned out to be highly radioactive.”

  I saw Price frown, as if he were confused. “Radioactive” is a term cops sometimes use to describe another cop who has sufficiently pissed off the brass that all the other cops begin keeping their distance. Then I realized she meant literally radioactive.

  It turned out that they’d sent Allie’s remains to the state autopsy facilities in Jacksonville, where the requisite cutting and gutting had been duly conducted. When the remains were rolled by the nuclear medicine office on their way to cold storage, three separate radiation monitors had gone off simultaneously. The people in the nuclear meds office had started tearing the place up looking for the problem when the monitors suddenly went silent again-which implied that the highly radioactive something had gone by and was no longer in range.

  They caught up with the morgue attendant in the hallway and had him roll his draped gurney back down the corridor. All the alarms went off again. When they explained what that meant to the attendant, the attendant went off. He’d abandoned said gurney and beat feet down the hall, at which point the entire facility had gone to general quarters. The feds had been summoned, and there were lots of questions flying around and apparently lots more inbound.

  “You said they did the autopsy,” Price said calmly. Being the good bureaucrat that he was, Jacksonville being in a state of pandemonium wasn’t necessarily his problem. “Do they have an opinion?”

  “An opinion?” she repeated, almost shouting. “Yeah, they have an opinion, Detective. Severe radiation poisoning. She apparently drank something that was highly radioactive.”

  “Literally radioactive?” I asked.

  “There’s a damn echo in here,” she snorted. “Whatever it was, it was hot enough to burn the bejesus out of her innards. Mouth, esophagus, trachea, heart, lungs, stomach-the works. First-class case of radiation poisoning. The lab people up there are beside themselves, and, of course, the whole damn world wants to know where it came from.”

  “Beats me,” Price said equably. “But I guess we do have ourselves a homicide.”

  I thought she was going to brain him, so I intervened. I explained what Allie had been doing in Wilmington, and that there was no plausible link between a pending divorce case and radiation poisoning.

  “That all makes sense to me,” she said, “but inquiring federal minds are going to explore that notion in some detail. So I’d recommend you stick around here in Wilmington, Mr. Ex-police-lieutenant. And now I need to speak to the detective sergeant here in private, if you please.”

  Price came out a few minutes later and shook his head. He put his finger to his lips until we were in the elevator. “Full-scale Lebanese goat-grab spooling up in the ME circles,” he said as we rode down. “Jacksonville is yelling at New Hanover for sending up a radioactive DOA, and New Hanover is yelling back that they had no way of knowing, et cetera, et cetera. You sure you’ve told me everything you know about this?”

  “All I know is that Allie is dead. How she came in contact with radiation is beyond me. So now what?”

  “The state chief medical examiner’s called in the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The NRC has called the Bureau. The federal host is inbound, as we speak.”

  We went out to his car and climbed in. He sighed and looked around the peaceful parking lot, which we both knew wasn’t going to stay that way much longer.

  “She give you any details?” I asked. “Like radioactive what?”

  Price said no. She had told him they wouldn’t know the “what” until a lab very different from the state facility reviewed the case and the corpse. “She mostly wanted to vent, and I was the nearest cop. We’re the ones who sent the body to New Hanover, so somehow, this is all our fault.”

  “That sounds familiar,” I said. What the fuck, Allie, I thought again. I’d felt like washing my own hands on the way out.

  “So where do th
ey sell radioactive fluids in beautiful downtown Wilmington, North Carolina?” I asked as we drove out of the lot and headed back to the city police building.

  “We’ve got the Helios nuclear power plant over next door in Brunswick County,” Price said. “Did your legal lovebirds have any connection to the nuke industry?”

  “Hell, I don’t know,” I said. “All lawyers look alike to me, and, besides, Allie wasn’t taking pictures of them at work.”

  Price’s cell phone rang as we stopped for a red light. He picked up, listened for a minute, grunted an okay, and hung up. “They’re he-e-e-re,” he chanted. “Boss wants me back downtown ASAP. You really want to dance in this cow pie?”

  “No way,” I said. “Gave that shit up when I retired.”

  “Retirement’s starting to look real good.” Price sighed longingly.

  Ten minutes later, he pulled into the parking lot. “I’ll let you out here, if that’s okay. You stayin’ overnight?”

  I grinned at him. “As in, don’t leave town, there, stranger?”

  Price shrugged. “Naw, not really. The federal suits will want to talk to you at some point, but otherwise…”

  “Yeah, sure,” I said, immediately thinking of Mary Ellen Goode. “I’ll stay over another night. Anything I can do to help, you holler. They going to be able to keep this out of the media?”

  Price shook his head. “Probably not,” he predicted. “Specially if somebody ties that radiation shit to the power plant over in Brunswick County. Which would be a real surprise-those folks have damned good security, and the guy who runs it is downright scary. What’s your cell number?”

  I gave it to him, and he promised to stay in touch.

  Two hours later, the phone at my bedside rang. I picked up. It was Bernie Price again.

  “Lieutenant Richter?” Price said, speaking formally, which told me immediately he was probably calling from a room full of feds and other undesirables.

  “Having fun yet, Bernie?” I asked.

  “Not at all, sir,” Price said, without an audible hint of humor. “Would you be available to meet with two special agents from the FBI this afternoon?”