Fatal

by Michael Palmer

  There was a small, round conference table at one end of the office. Matt helped Nikki into the chair that was facing away from Keller.

  “Nikki, I’m really sorry about this—sick and sorry.”

  “You think it had to do with Grimes?” she sobbed.

  “I’m going to try to figure that out, but yes, yes I do.”

  He chose not to question her again about what she might have said to Grimes either at the memorial service or in the cabin.

  “I—I want to help you,” she said.

  “In a little bit. Nik, can you sit here while I look around?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good. Just keep your hands in your lap. I know there’s a logical explanation for your prints being in this building, but I’d rather not have them be the only employee’s fresh prints in this office.”

  “I understand. Matt, they tortured him.”

  Matt paced around the desk and scanned the rest of the office. No gun, no knife, no finger. He squatted down and examined Keller’s contused, distorted face. His nose had certainly been shattered, and there was probably a fracture of the orbit bone above his left eye.

  Earlier in the evening they had again discussed calling in the police and had voted unanimously against it for the time being.

  “Nikki,” Matt asked, “can you estimate when he was murdered?”

  “I would need to examine him to be really accurate, but from what I saw I would guess a couple of hours ago.”

  “So we can wait to call the police.”

  “And maybe do it from a pay phone.”

  “In that case,” Matt said, “come back to the bike with me.”

  “Don’t you want to look around and try to find out why they did this?”

  “Oh, I do. But there’s something in my saddlebag I want to get first, on the chance they’re still around.”

  Minutes later, with Matt cradling Larry’s snub-nosed revolver, the two of them began a systematic search of the building.

  “Assuming this has to do with Kathy,” he asked, “what do you think they could have wanted?”

  “I don’t know. Let’s start with our files. They’re in a locked room right behind the autopsy suite.” Covering her fingertip with her shirt, Nikki punched in her code on a keypad and they entered the long, narrow file room. “The charts on the shelves are arranged by case number,” she said as she crossed to a narrow six-drawer cabinet. “This card file is alphabetical.”

  “And?”

  “I can’t find her card. There are seven Katherine Wilsons, but none is the right one.”

  “Look,” Matt said, pointing to a dark smear on the corner of the long table in the center of the room.

  Nikki peered at the stain. “They had Joe in here.”

  She flipped through the cards again, then took out all the Wilsons and set them on the table. Matt went through them, and shook his head.

  “Nada.”

  “We have the cards backed up.”

  Nikki sat down at a computer terminal and after a few maneuvers wrote down a number.

  Kathy Wilson’s chart was missing, too, and with it, all the autopsy data.

  “Do you use a transcription service for your dictations?”

  Nikki was already back at the terminal.

  “We have our own in-house. The record’s been deleted from the database. They thought of everything except the backup chart list. Joe somehow managed not to tell them about that. Let’s go down to Histology. It’s right below the autopsy suite.”

  They carefully closed the file room and entered the large, open autopsy suite with three stainless-steel tables. The center table was occupied. A copper-skinned man, garbed in work boots and stained chino overalls, lay peacefully, thumbs hooked under his suspenders, staring unseeingly up at the drop ceiling. There was a thick smear of clotted blood and tissue where his left eye had been. Beneath the gore, they were certain, was a bullet hole.

  “Oh, Christ,” Nikki said, turning away.

  “The maintenance man?”

  She nodded. “Santiago.”

  “Cute touch hooking his thumbs in like that.”

  “The stairs to Histology are over there.”

  To the surprise of neither, the slides for Kathy Wilson and all unsectioned tissue specimens were gone.

  “Nothing,” Nikki said after she had checked the last possible place where any of Kathy’s tissue might be.

  “Two men died so someone could be certain of that.”

  “Matt,” Nikki blurted out, “let’s get out of here. I want to go to my place right now.”

  “I’m not sure that’s wise.”

  “I don’t care. You’ve got a gun. If you’re not comfortable using it, I promise you I just became totally ready. I want to go home. I want to sit down and have a cup of tea in my own chair and figure out what to do next.”

  “Okay, okay. Show me the way.”

  “Thanks.”

  “And Nikki?”

  “Yes?”

  “I’m really sick about Joe.”

  “I know you are.”

  In silence, through largely empty streets, they rode the few miles to South Boston and parked a block away from Nikki’s apartment. Matt secured the revolver in his belt and pulled his shirt over it, keeping his hand in touch with the grip. Warily, they made their way along the colorful row of tightly packed duplexes and triplexes, keeping an eye out for movement in any of the cars parked along the street.

  “How are we going to get in?” he asked.

  “We keep a spare key wedged in a little magnet box behind the drainpipe. Kathy started losing hers all the time.”

  The key was right where she expected it to be. Cautiously, they made their way up to the second floor. Matt slipped the gun out and held it ready as Nikki slid the key in the lock, turned it silently, and eased the door open.

  “Oh, no.”

  Her flat was in shambles. Books were strewn everywhere, shelves stripped bare. Lamps were knocked over. Every drawer was pulled out and emptied, every cushion and framed painting thrown in the middle of the floor. Figurines and candy dishes were smashed. Mindless of the possibility that men were still in the apartment, Nikki dropped to her knees, sobbing hysterically. Matt knelt beside her and did the only thing that felt right—he kicked the door closed, set his arm around her shoulders, and let her cry.

  Fifteen minutes later they were still in the same spot. Finally, numbly, Nikki rose and shuffled into her bedroom. She emerged with a medium-sized backpack filled with clothes.

  “Let’s get out of here and out of Boston,” she said flatly. “I feel as if I’ve been raped.”

  Matt followed her out of the ransacked apartment, down the stairs, and around to the bike.

  “They’re not going to get away with this,” he said. “I promise you they aren’t.”

  “We’re going to the police,” she said firmly, turning suddenly to face him, her expression an unsettling mix of fury and bewilderment. “I’m not going to let you talk me out of doing it this time. If we had gone when I said, maybe Joe would still be alive.”

  “Nikki, that’s—”

  “Don’t tell me that’s nonsense!” she snapped. “Maybe it is and maybe it isn’t. I just want to go to the police.”

  Matt checked around quickly to see if anyone had been roused by her outburst.

  “Go now?” he said. “But—”

  “Dammit, Matt, my dear friend is dead, and Grimes killed him! I don’t care about your fucking coal mine or . . . or your theories about toxic waste, or your goddamn insane town. Joe Keller was the gentlest man on earth. Why in the hell would they do this? Why?”

  Sobbing wretchedly again, she threw her arms around him and buried her face in his chest.

  Matt held her tightly. Going to the police was asking for trouble. He still felt certain of that. Joe Keller had already been dead for a couple of hours when they found him, and those who had killed him and destroyed her apartment were not going to be any easier
to catch up with this minute than they would be after an anonymous call an hour from now. Reporting Nikki’s kidnapping would be their word against Grimes’s, and they would be exposing themselves at a time when freedom and mobility were just about the only elements on their side.

  “Look,” he said, “let’s get on the road. We’ll stop at a pay phone in a little while and call the Boston police. I hope I can talk you out of actually showing up in an FBI office or police station, but that’ll ultimately be up to you.”

  Nikki’s racking sobs gradually diminished. Finally, without a word, she mounted the Harley and waited for him to step on.

  Matt stuffed the revolver back into his jacket pocket, took his spot in front of her, and fired up the bike. If going to the police was what she needed, the police she would get. She had been through so much. He drove off, sensing her sitting rigidly behind him, staring off into the night. He was grateful she had gone into her bedroom to gather her things, grateful he had had time to pace around her living room before she returned, grateful he had happened to look over at the mantel. Somewhere in the next half hour or so, he would ease the Harley toward the soft shoulder, and when he was certain she wasn’t paying attention, he would flip what he had found on her mantel into the woods.

  And the whereabouts of Joe Keller’s missing finger would forever remain a mystery.

  CHAPTER 26

  IT WAS PAST TWO IN THE MORNING WHEN MATT and Nikki found a motel vacancy just outside of Stamford, Connecticut. Confused, bewildered, and more than a little frightened, they checked in and carried their small cache of belongings up one flight to a fairly standard, well-maintained room with a view of I-95.

  After leaving the shambles that was Nikki’s apartment, they had ridden south in light traffic through Providence and on into Connecticut. It was a somber, silent ride, made well under the speed limit. Each of them was experiencing some tension born of Nikki’s continued determination to involve themselves with the police and possibly the FBI in the face of Matt’s desire to remain as much of a mystery to Bill Grimes as possible until his business with Belinda Coal and Coke was completed. Two exits past Providence, she asked him to leave the interstate. There, at a rest stop, she called the Boston police.

  “There’s been a double murder at the medical examiner’s office on Albany Street,” she said, surprised by the composure in her voice. “Chief William Grimes, G-r-i-m-e-s, of the Belinda, West Virginia, Police Department is responsible.”

  A minute later they were back on the highway.

  “Feel better?” Matt asked over his shoulder.

  “Not much. Grimes will probably say that he doesn’t know anything, and that some nutcase he once arrested is out to cause him trouble.”

  “Once those bodies are discovered, I’m sure the police will begin to search out everyone who works in your building. It won’t take long for them to figure out that it might be you who made the call.”

  “I don’t care. I know you do, but I don’t. You and I are the only ones who can connect Grimes to Joe. It’ll be our word against his, but two M.D. degrees have to count for something. After we wake up, I want to go to the FBI to report the murders and also being kidnapped. That’s definitely a federal offense. If you want, I’ll tell them I don’t know where you are. That way you can get to Washington and meet with the guy your uncle spoke about.”

  “Do whatever you have to do,” Matt replied.

  “I’m really sorry if I end up interfering with your plans.”

  “Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.”

  “You’re angry.”

  “I’m not angry. I would have liked to have, I don’t know, solidified our position before involving the police—maybe speak to a lawyer.”

  “Sorry.”

  “Don’t apologize. You’ve been living a nightmare ever since you set foot in Belinda. You have a right to do whatever you want.”

  “And so do you,” she said.

  “So do I,” Matt replied, just before accelerating up the entry ramp and back onto the interstate.

  So do I.

  Nikki showered and dressed for bed in the bathroom. Matt had changed into sweats by the time she emerged. He was reading a hostelry magazine in the armchair beside the small writing desk, as far away from the bed as possible.

  “You coming in?” she asked unemotionally.

  “Soon, maybe,” he responded in the same tone. “I’m a little wired from the ride and all that’s happened. Will the lamp bother you?”

  “Not really.”

  “Good.”

  There were differences between Ginny and this woman, Matt was thinking, but not when it came to digging in. God, but he wanted to take her in his arms right now. Instead he stayed in the chair, flipping pages one moment, staring sightlessly at a bland photo of some snow-covered mountain inn the next.

  Nikki rolled onto her side, facing away from him, but he could tell by her breathing and posture that she wasn’t asleep.

  “You sleeping?” he asked finally.

  “No.”

  “This has been a really hideous night.”

  “Yeah. Joe was such a wonderful man.”

  Several silent minutes passed.

  “You know,” he said finally, “in case you couldn’t tell when I didn’t even know how to pronounce the word, I don’t know an awful lot about prion disease. If you’re up to it, since we’re both still too awake to drift off, I was wondering if you might be able to share some of what you know from your reading and that guy’s presentation you went to.”

  Nikki slowly rolled over to face him and propped her cheek on one hand.

  “You mean Stanley Prusiner?”

  “Yeah, him.”

  “Is this a ploy because things are a little tense between us right now?”

  “No . . . Well, I mean, yes . . . I mean I really don’t know anything but the basics about prions, so I wouldn’t exactly call it a ploy. More of a fact-finding mission.”

  “You going to stay over there?”

  “I don’t want to.”

  “And I don’t want you to.”

  “So, what am I doing over here?” He sat down beside her. “Tell you what. How about I work some of that tension out of your shoulders while you enlighten me on spongiform encephalopathy?”

  “I think Stanley would like that.” She turned onto her stomach as he began to knead at the considerable tightness radiating from the base of her neck. “Mmmmm. Just a little softer. Oh, that’s it, that’s perfect. Okay, let’s see, you already know that prions are little particles of protein that have the ability to reproduce themselves. No DNA, no RNA, yet they can reproduce. Amazing.”

  “That’s pretty much the sum total of my knowledge.”

  “You’re slowing down. You want to learn about this stuff or not? Much better. Okay. Prions are present normally in humans and possibly in every other organism with a nervous system. PrPC is the abbreviation for these normal prions. Some people and animals are unfortunate enough to have a mutation occur in one or more of their PrPC prions. The result is a gradual buildup of a toxic prion known as PrPSc. The brain and nervous system unknowingly adopt this imposter prion. Then the normal nervous tissue slowly comes apart, and the host organism dies.”

  “Humans and cows.”

  “And minks, and deer, and cats, and even monkeys. I suspect that the more we look, the more spongiform diseases we’ll find. And prions may be at the center of some other neurodegenerative diseases, as well, such as Alzheimer’s.”

  “My mother’s disease,” Matt said.

  “Yes. That made me so sad this morning when you told me about her.”

  “Most of the time I think she’s handling it better than those around her.”

  “Well, it’s still too early to know, but possibly she has a prion-mediated disease. Are you getting tired doing that?”

  “Nope.”

  “In that case, a little farther out toward the shoulders, please. Nice. That’s it. Oh, doggies, that fe
els good.”

  “So, is mutation the only way to get prion disease?”

  “No. Any means that gets the germs into the body will do the trick. The prions that cause Mad Cow disease or kuru are eaten. Patients receiving corneal transplants from someone infected with spongiform disease can get it that way. I would suspect that other routes of administration would do it as well.”

  “And there is a long delay before symptoms develop?”

  “Maybe decades. So far there have only been a hundred or so cases of Mad Cow disease in Great Britain, despite the tons of beef that those people ingested before the condition was recognized and warnings were sounded. That could mean there are thousands of cases still brewing. But I don’t think so.”

  “What do you think?”

  “The arms. I think you should work on the upper arms. You’re very good at this.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Are you like all those guys who say they love giving back rubs, then after a girl starts dating them, it turns out the first back rub is all they really enjoy giving? From then on it’s do me, do me.”

  “Maybe. That’s for me to know and you to find out. So, don’t leave me hanging. Why do you think there won’t be thousands of cases of BSE in humans?”

  “Partly because there haven’t been thousands—tens of thousands—already. It seems to me that only a very small percentage of those who are exposed to PrPSc prions get infected. How could it be otherwise?”

  “Why is that?”

  “Why do you think that is?”

  “Genetic factors?”

  “Quite possibly. As with most diseases, we really don’t have any idea why one person exposed to a germ gets sick and the person standing right next to them during the exposure doesn’t. A little harder, Doc. Perfect. You tell me bad luck, and I’ll tell you that right now for most infectious diseases, that’s as good an explanation as any. I believe that those who develop spongiform disease are either lacking some sort of protective gene or else have a gene that in essence invites the altered prions in.”