by Ian Smith
“Fuck you, Doc.”
“Ah, the eternal ingrate.”
No sooner had Sterling hung up the phone than he dialed the unmatched number. He wasn't sure what he'd say to whoever answered it, but he'd grown so good at lying lately it didn't matter. Voice mail picked up immediately. Sterling was astonished when he heard the recording. He looked down at the time Strahan said the call went out. It was only seconds after Wilson's first call home. Kay had placed a call to Wallace A. Mortimer III.
49
Sterling had worked out almost everything. Wilson stumbles upon the blackbirds on one of his night scouts. He doesn't grow suspicious until he starts finding groups of carcasses, and that's when he enlists the help of his mentor, Yuri Mandryka. Wilson knows that Mandryka can be trusted to keep things quiet and even to help figure out what killed the birds. Somehow Heidi and Wilson meet and begin a friendship, with her expressing an interest in the environment and wildlife. She accompanies Wilson on some of his scouts and he confides what he has found on the Potter farm.
Heidi and Wilson begin to have an affair, and at some point she decides to take him to meet Kanti, who has also found dead blackbirds on his property.
Mandryka knows that Wilson is writing a case report on the birds, but it's unlikely that Heidi and Kanti are initially aware of his intentions to publish his findings. Kanti does, however, know that Wilson put a call in to an agency in Washington and was waiting for a response.
Mortimer's Sunny Fields Company is behind the poisoning of the birds for obvious reasons. The heavily wooded mountains of Vermont are a perfect place to test a new avicide out of sight of the watchful eyes of the Fish and Wildlife Service. Mortimer enlists the help of his old college roommate, Allistor Guyton, at the Department of Agriculture, parent of APHIS. Not surprisingly, APHIS decides to push the Blackbird Project despite protests from environmentalists and wildlife experts.
Then comes the night of the big party and the perfect opportunity to kill Wilson. Kay is home nursing a virus and preparing Wilson's favorite meal. Wilson leaves the president's mansion and starts driving home. Wilson places his first call to Kay at a little after seven and tells her that he's on his way. Kay calls Mortimer, who answers his cell and walks around to the side of the house to take the call. Mortimer calls the two men in the truck, who are already in position on River Road. He informs them that Wilson will be coming over the bridge soon. They pretend to have truck problems when Wilson passes, and once he stops, they chase him into the woods and brutally murder him.
Heidi is next on the list. She knows all the players, but most important, she knows about the birds. Heidi confronts Mortimer, which results in a payoff of half a million dollars. Somehow Serena Mortimer finds out about Heidi and the extortion, which explains the animosity the two women had for each other. Heidi is a liability in every way. The same guys who kill Wilson also kill her, dumping her remains behind the Grand Union once the store has closed.
Now there are still three people alive who know about the blackbirds—Mandryka, Kanti, and Bigfoot. Sterling finally convinces Mandryka to duck out of town for a few days until everything blows over. It's no coincidence that as he's heading up to his cabin, a truck runs him off the road and into a ditch, the driver leaving him for dead. Mandryka describes the same truck that Miles Borwind had seen after he closed the store. The killer, not knowing that Mandryka has survived, assumes two people are left—Kanti and Bigfoot. They haven't been killed already, but they are next on the list. Sterling turned to a fresh page and wrote the questions that still lingered. Why did Kay call Mortimer on his cell after Wilson called her? How did his own face get on that last e-mail that Harry sent? And what did Wilson do with the blackbird papers?
Sterling dialed Sean Kelton's home number. Sean's wife answered the phone.
“Is Sean home?”
“No, he's not. May I ask who's calling?”
“Professor Nelson from the biology department. I wanted to ask him about a grant proposal my lab is working on. Do you know when he might be home?”
“Not for a couple of hours. At least.”
“That long, huh?”
“Yeah, he's over at the medical school library pulling some research papers. But if you want to leave your number, I can have him give you a call when he gets home. He should be back before eleven.”
“That's all right,” Sterling said. “I'm probably turning in early tonight. I'll just try him tomorrow or reach him on blitzmail.”
Sterling disconnected the line, grabbed his keys, and jammed a round in his Glock before slipping it into a belt clip holster in the back waistband of his pants. Just to be sure, he also loaded the Beretta and strapped it in his right ankle holster. With his most recent discoveries he probably had enough to steer the investigation in the right direction, but he needed more than that if he was going to nail Mortimer. He needed some luck and a little help from Wilson.
The concrete fortress of the Dana Biomedical Sciences Library stood menacingly at the northern end of the circular entrance to the medical school. Unlike the undergraduate libraries, it saw little traffic. It was a library for the serious medical scientists, mostly graduate students and the occasional premed undergrad who came by to study and rub elbows with their medical idols. Sterling avoided the circular drive, instead pulling the Lexus into a small empty lot around the back. Two students sat on a picnic table bench in the shadows of the library, one playing the guitar, the other accompanying on a tinny harmonica. A golden retriever looked up at both of them with a long expression on his face as if he had a million other things he'd rather be doing.
Sterling entered through the back door and walked down the short hallway of closed offices and laboratories. Whereas the undergraduate libraries had been staffed with security guards and ID checkers, the medical school surprisingly remained open for students or the public to come and go without restrictions. Sterling moved slowly through the first floor, walking down the aisles and peering into the cubicles as if looking for a vacant desk. He had to be careful with Kelton, so a quiet approach would be critical. By now the Dartmouth Security team and Wiley's men had already warned Kelton to stay away from Sterling and to consider him armed and dangerous.
Sterling finished the sweep of the first floor and went on to the second, walking slowly around the perimeter, trying not to draw attention. The narrow aisles were crammed with students toiling under stacks of texts, taking notes on their laptops or the old-fashioned way, by hand. Sterling knew their pain, having spent the better part of his late twenties stuck in stuffy libraries reading till he couldn't keep his eyes open or writing until the pen had dug a permanent impression into the side of his middle finger. Even now he could hold his finger up to the light and turn it at an angle to remind himself of those late, listless nights when all he wanted was to find a warm bed and sleep for an entire year.
The second floor proved a bust, and as Sterling climbed another set of steps, he grew concerned that Kelton had already left or gone to another library. He had Kelton's cell phone number, but calling it might only scare him off. Right now, the element of surprise was a necessary ally.
Sterling found more of the same on the third floor as he walked along the back wall of classrooms where students were holding group study. In one room, they were taking notes from a video recording of a class lecture. Sterling heard the professor's monotone voice repeat “mesoderm,” “endoderm,” and “ectoderm.” An embryology course, Sterling thought to himself.
At the end of the hall, he looked through the door window of the last classroom, ready to climb one more flight of stairs. The room appeared to be empty. Then he saw the sweatshirt. Big Red. Cornell. For a second Sterling wondered why the Ivies were so damn stuck on colors. Why couldn't they find an animal mascot like the normal colleges? The Crimson, Big Green, Old Blue. Sterling pressed his face to the window. No one there. He backed down the hall and found a seat at an empty desk. He could see the door from where he now sat.
Sterl
ing waited a few minutes, then he heard the elevator door open and the sound of sneakers squeaking in the hallway. Then he saw that mop of burnt-orange hair. Sean Kelton, carrying a small brown bag, opened the door to the classroom and closed it behind him. Sterling got up, paused briefly to make sure no one joined him, then quickly walked to the room and entered.
When Kelton looked up and met Sterling's eyes, his already colorless cheeks went from pale to a ghostly white.
“Take it easy, Sean,” Sterling said. “I'm just here to ask you a couple of questions.”
Kelton nodded slowly, his paralyzed jaws unable to close his mouth. He was grasping his pen so tightly that the skin over his knuckles seemed like it was going to rip.
“I know you've probably heard a lot of bad things about me the last couple of days, but they're all lies,” Sterling said. “I did not kill my brother or Heidi Vorscht or anyone else for that matter. I'm being set up, Sean, and the real killer is out there. Do you understand what I'm saying?”
Kelton nodded his head up and down, seemingly incapable of producing words.
“Now you can still help me catch the killer before anyone else gets hurt.” Kelton gave another trancelike nod. “I need you to tell me how the mail gets delivered to the lab.”
Kelton's face wrinkled into a frown, merging the freckles across his forehead into a straight line. “The mail?”
“That's right. I need to know how mail is delivered to Wilson's lab.”
“It's not,” Kelton said, his voice dry. “We pick it up from the mail room.”
“Every day?”
Kelton nodded. “Twice a day. Once in the morning and once in the afternoon.”
“Where's the mail room?”
“Hinman, over in the Hopkins Center.”
“Is it open this time of night?”
“The student boxes are always open, but the lab doesn't have a box. We have to pick it up from the counter.”
Sterling thought for a minute. It was about ten o'clock. The counter would definitely be closed by now. But there had to be a door somewhere. If he couldn't pick the lock, maybe he could borrow his old friend Otto Winter from the troubleshooter's office. There was probably a smoother plan, but he needed to get into that mail center tonight.
“When's the last time someone went to pick up Wilson's mail?”
Kelton shook his orange mess from side to side. “It's probably been weeks. The lab hasn't been opened since . . .”
“I understand,” Sterling said. Neither one of them wanted to hear the words again. “I'm not sure what you're thinking right now, Sean, but I need you to be rational. If I were the killer, I wouldn't be sitting here talking to you so civilly.”
Sterling pulled out his gun and waved it so Kelton could get the full effect.
“I could've shot you a long time ago and been well on my way out of town. You have to believe that.”
Kelton's eyes were fixed hypnotically on the shiny black gun.
“So I need you to do me a big favor and keep this conversation we've had between us. Don't even tell your wife that you saw me here tonight.” Sterling returned the gun to his holster, breaking Kelton's trance. “There are some big and important people caught up in all of this and you can't trust anyone. Understand?”
“Yeah.”
“Wilson thanks you,” Sterling said. He startled Kelton by taking his hand and shaking it. Then he was out and down the back stairs.
50
The front entrance of the Hop was a blur of students, even at this late hour. A small pack of dogs chased each other in circles. Two Dartmouth Security cruisers idled in front of the building and Sterling thought he recognized one of the officers but couldn't be sure in the darkness. He drove far enough that they couldn't see him, then jumped out of the Lexus and walked through one of the open doors on the side of the building. Two men were delivering what looked like boxes of paper.
A student pointed Sterling downstairs to the basement, where he found a series of bright, deserted corridors. He made two right turns before entering a dark, open area with several walls of small combination mailboxes. The lights burned on as he walked near the mailboxes and activated the motion sensors. Sterling approached the center, where the walls converged into a vortex. A sign giving the counter hours had been posted on the double doors.
A quick look at the doors and Sterling knew he was in luck. This type of lock was the easiest to pick because of the small strip of open space between the doors. Any kind of laminated or hard plastic card would do the trick.
Sterling had it within seconds and immediately began his search for Wilson's mail. The office was in shambles, with mail circulars and envelope bundles scattered everywhere. A mound of oversized boxes had been stacked along the entire back wall with return addresses as far away as China and New Zealand. Looking at the laundry tubs stuffed with postcards and envelopes, he better appreciated the unsung miracles of the U.S. Postal Service.
Sterling next raided a series of wall cabinets, expecting to find more mail, but instead discovering shelves of tape, markers, rubber bands, and other supplies. He stopped suddenly. It sounded like someone was outside. He crept close to the door and listened. A few minutes passed and there was only silence. He went back to his search, raking through the tall laundry tubs, hoping to spot Wilson's name.
Then he noticed the shelves under the front counter. Two rows of plastic U.S. Postal Service bins had been lined up along its length. Sterling's heart kicked into high gear as he pulled the bins out one by one and inspected their contents. So far so good—most of the mail had been marked for the administrative offices and department heads, which meant Wilson's mail would likely be there. And it was. Wilson's name had been written in heavy marker. The bin had been stuffed with so much mail that it barely fit underneath the bottom shelf. He slid it out into the center of the room and cleared a large circle of floor space before turning the bin on its side.
Small letters, scientific journals, sports memorabilia magazines—they all fell into a collapsing heap. There must have been a couple of hundred pieces of mail, but Sterling was looking for a specific package. He put the small envelopes and magazines off to the side, then methodically inspected the packages and larger envelopes.
That's when he found it.
Kelton had said it. And Professor was very specific about how he wanted us to deliver our drafts. When we were done, we would copy a version onto a diskette and leave that on his desk along with a printed version. We'd also e-mail him a copy. Then as a final precaution, we'd go to the post office and mail him a copy. Never demand of others what you don't demand of yourself. Wilson had followed the same routine and sent a copy of the paper to himself.
Sterling just stood there, unable to move his eyes past the title: “The Blackbird Papers.”
“You did it, Wilson,” he whispered. He pushed the other mail aside and took a seat in the middle of the floor.
The manuscript read more like a mystery novel than it did a scientific case report. Wilson began by detailing one of his morning nature scouts when he discovered the carcasses of two blackbirds. He was drawn to the birds because the death seemed fresh, and unlike the other dead animals he had found in the woods, these bodies were intact, untouched by scavengers, almost as if predators had purposely avoided the feast. For the next several pages, Wilson enumerated the birds he discovered, the times he found them, and their various stages of decomposition.
Wilson then dedicated an entire section to Mandryka's laboratory work and the conclusion they had drawn that too many birds had died for it to be a mere coincidence. They searched for an environmental cause, which they isolated in blood samples taken from the dead birds. Bufalin toxin was the active ingredient, but it had been combined with a novel protein that caused the entire molecule to degrade and disappear from the blood, leaving only a chemical trace if caught in time.
Then Sterling read something he hadn't heard before. Wilson reported on a series of suspicious deaths that he ha
d reviewed in the Dartmouth-Hitchcock medical records. Over the last two years, ten people in the Upper Valley had died from “suspicious natural causes.” Only a handful of those cases had actually reached the county medical examiner's table, but a finding that either the ME had ignored or thought insignificant was that each of the corpses had an enlarged heart. The most alarming case was an otherwise healthy twenty-one-year-old woman who worked as a hiking guide. She woke up one morning, got into the shower, and dropped dead. Her body was found two days later with the water still running. Her heart, just like the others, not only showed enlargement, but a damaged electrical system, similar to what Mandryka had discovered in the blackbirds. Wilson dug even further and found that all of the “suspicious death” victims lived on property that shared the same water system running through the back of the Potter farm. The toxin had contaminated their well water.
Wilson had saved the best for last. He explained how during one of his night scouts he stumbled on an empty metal canister buried underneath a heap of fallen branches and dead leaves. On the bottom of the concave cylinder, he found the company's stamp: Sunny Fields Company. Wilson had contacted a chemist friend at Harvard and asked him to examine the canister and see if he could analyze the liquid residue. The tests confirmed what he had already expected. Highly concentrated bufalin toxin.
Sterling read the acknowledgments and paused over the name Yuri Mandryka. He placed the manuscript back in the envelope, slid it inside his jacket, and turned off the lights before closing the door. He picked up his cell phone and dialed FBI headquarters and asked to be connected to the cell phone of Agent Lonnie Brusco. A few moments later and the phone was ringing.
“Brusco.”
“In before forty-eight hours,” Sterling said.
“Are you ready?”
“All the pieces are in place.” Sterling started walking down the dark hall, but didn't notice the motion sensors hadn't activated the lights.