Dead Air (Sammy Greene Thriller)

by Deborah Shlian

  “What chemicals?”

  “Brian kept a supply of acetone around to clean his equipment. One of the firemen found the remains of an open canister in the debris.” He shook his head. “Ah don’t know how many times ah told Brian to keep those caps on tight. One smoldering ash from his blasted cigarette is it all it would take to light the place up.”

  Sammy was about to suggest someone else could have opened the canister, but decided Larry was no more interested in her suspicions than Reed. Without proof. The tape. “By the way, you won’t mind my finishing the Sergio and Conrad stories once we’re back on the air, will you?”

  “Something new you didn’t cover?” Larry asked warily.

  “Just the friends and family angle. I’ve still got a few more people to contact when I go to New York.”

  “New York?”

  “Yeah,” Sammy replied, formulating her plan as she spoke. “I want to talk to Sergio’s doctor. Give me a little background as to why he was so depressed. And I’ll try to see the wife of Professor Nakamura.”

  “Nakamura? How come? Wasn’t there talk about him killing himself because of some stress reaction from World War Two?”

  “Uh-huh. He was Conrad’s mentor. Anyway, I think we should do a follow-up show on suicide, especially from a multicultural perspective,” she explained. “As long as we’re off the air for a while and I’m finished midterms, I might as well take the opportunity to fly down and get the interviews.”

  “Okay, but it’s on your nickel,” Larry said. “All our petty cash went up in smoke. Literally.”

  “No problem,” Sammy said. “I’ve got a ticket I’ve been saving all semester. There’s something personal I’ve been meaning to do. I guess this is as good a time as any.”

  • • •

  A few hours later Sammy was back in her apartment, wondering if she really was up to the trip. Her last visit back to Manhattan was so long ago — almost three years. After her grandmother died, there was no reason to return. Without family there, the city was no longer home.

  Sammy had spent the summer between her freshman and sophomore year in Los Angeles with her father and his young wife in an unsuccessful attempt to mend their severed relationship. Sammy admitted the rift had been as much her fault as Jeffrey Greene’s, but somehow she still couldn’t forgive him for abandoning her as a child. She’d understand, her father had said at the airport, when she had a family of her own. Unlikely, Sammy thought. Her family goals, she swore, would be responsibility and commitment. Last summer she’d stayed on campus taking extra courses in American Lit. This summer — she didn’t know.

  Sammy looked at her watch. Almost nine. Perhaps it was not too late to call. She picked up the notepaper where she’d jotted down the address and phone number Karen Conrad had left on her machine. With a twinge of hesitation, she began to dial.

  “Plaza Hotel.”

  “Uh, room fourteen thirty-six, please. Mrs. Mimiko Nakamura.” Sammy drummed her fingers on the table as she waited for the connection.

  “Yes? Hello?” The voice on the other end was soft and tremulous with a mild Japanese accent.

  “Mrs. Nakamura? Karen Conrad gave me your number.”

  There was a moment’s pause. “Yes?”

  “I wanted to know if I might talk with you.” Sammy explained that she worked for the campus radio station. “I’m doing a story on Professor Conrad.”

  Mrs. Nakamura’s voice barely rose above a whisper. “So terrible, what happened to Barton. I just heard. A fine man.”

  “Yes, I know. I’m sorry. I’m planning to be in Manhattan tomorrow, and I wondered if I could stop by your hotel?” Sammy said nothing about her own belief that Conrad was murdered or her sense that somehow his death might be connected with Dr. Nakamura’s. She’d wait until she met with Mimiko Nakamura face-to-face.

  “Of course. Would one o’clock be all right?”

  “Sounds good.” Sammy jotted down the time on her notepad. “I’ll see you then.”

  The call had been easier than expected. She hoped Mrs. Nakamura would be as open to her questions tomorrow. Reviewing her plans for the trip, Sammy realized she already had a full schedule: Dr. Ortiz at ten, Mrs. Nakamura at one. Her personal visit would have to wait until late afternoon.

  She picked up the phone again and checked with the airlines. If she left on the first flight out of St. Charlesbury and caught an evening commuter back, she could accomplish all her tasks and still return to campus before ten. Maybe Reed would even meet her at the airport.

  She dialed his number, hoping to speak with him, but reached his answering machine. “Hi, it’s me,” she began. “I’ve decided to fly down to New York tomorrow for the day. Larry asked me to finish my story on Sergio and Conrad and there are a couple of people I’m interviewing, so I’ll be running around. But I’ll call you sometime between meetings. Hopefully we can get together tomorrow night. Oh, and Reed?” she stopped for a moment, considering whether to add that she loved him. No question that she cared about him, that she enjoyed his company, but love? “Uh, Reed?” Beep. Saved by the bell . The machine allowed only a two-minute message.

  Just before falling into bed, Sammy made one last call. She asked Dr. Osborne’s service to tell him she was going out of town and had to cancel their session in the morning. She would reschedule sometime next week.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  FRIDAY

  7:00 A.M.

  With the contrariness typical of New England in late fall, the weather had changed once again. The passenger compartment of the seven a.m. commuter from St. Charlesbury to Boston alternately filled with streaks of light and sudden blackness as it tossed and dipped, teased by a huge, low-lying nimbus cloud that seemed to resent the trespass of the twin-engine Cessna. One of a mere half dozen travelers rocking in the plane’s cocoon, Sammy stared through beads of water marching across her window, anxiously listening to the straining engines that labored against the winds. She had no particular fear of flying. Still, she gratefully exhaled twenty minutes later, after the plane made a skittish touchdown at Logan Airport and rolled to a bumpy stop.

  With only minutes to catch the six thirty shuttle to La Guardia, Sammy raced for her gate. She’d dressed up for the city in a green wool sheath dress and black leather pumps. It was the first time in months that she’d worn high heels, and she almost tripped several times as she navigated through the terminal’s rush-hour crowd. Arriving, breathless, she handed the flight attendant her ticket and edged her way to the one empty seat on the 737.

  Seat 24D was on the aisle next to a balding, middle-aged executive who reluctantly stowed his laptop computer for the upcoming takeoff. “Can’t abide by talkers, I’ll tell you right now.” No sooner was the seat belt light turned off than the man had his shirtsleeves rolled up and was asking for a large cup of coffee. He switched on his laptop and began typing, stopping only to thank the flight attendant for the beverage. That was the last comment Sammy’s seatmate made during the forty-minute trip.

  Sammy didn’t mind. She needed quiet time to think. Retrieving her spiral notebook and a ballpoint pen from her purse, she tried to review the incredible events of the past week by creating a list of what she already knew and what facts were missing.

  #1: Friday — Conrad warning something going on at

  the university, Sergio’s suicide (Palmer’s patient)

  #2: Saturday — Conrad found dead: suicide or murder?

  Brown envelope — Nakamura’s gun

  Sammy considered the facts pointing to suicide. Conrad had a history of depression, exacerbated by drinking. That was true. Then there was the medical examiner’s conclusion favoring a self-inflicted fatal gunshot. Reed had explained that the paraffin test proved Conrad shot the gun with his left hand. Sammy had observed the professor writing on the chalkboard with his left hand. And, of course, there was the suicide note and no sign of a break-in or struggle. So, wasn’t suicide the obvious cause of death?

  The note coul
d have been typed by anyone, she countered. It would be easy to place Conrad’s hand on the paper to create prints — after his death. The tape recording proved Conrad had at least one other visitor that night. Who? And what was he after? And where was that brown envelope? What was so important that Conrad had labeled it CONFIDENTIAL? No one seemed to know or care. Also against the suicide theory were Karen Conrad’s own doubts. For Sammy, Pappajohn’s remark yesterday about withholding evidence created even more suspicion. “Evidence” meant an investigation. If he bought the suicide theory, why investigate?

  What evidence did she have to prove murder? Not much. Certainly nothing substantial. Still, Sammy trusted her instinct, and it told her that Conrad’s was not a self-inflicted death. Leaning back in her seat, Sammy reflected on the other suicides and what she’d discovered about them, starting a separate list on a new page.

  #3: Nakamura — 3 years ago;

  Conrad, Sergio–November, 1995

  Two suicides in two days. Wait a second. Sammy sat forward. At Conrad’s home last Saturday, didn’t the paramedic tell Pappajohn there’d been three suicides that month? He couldn’t have meant Dr. Nakamura. Then who? Sammy put a star by number #3. Once the plane landed, she’d stop by a pay phone and call Reed. Maybe he could find out for her.

  She continued her summary of the week’s events.

  #4: Sunday — Taft sermon — Katie Miller, Luther Abbott there

  #5: Monday — attempted hit-and-run, man with mustache

  #6: Tuesday — pictures stolen — man with mustache

  #7: Wednesday — Nitshi bombing — Katie Miller dead, fire at station — Brian dead — tape, Luther Abbott missing (Palmer’s patient)

  Next to Luther’s name she added — bitten by monkey

  #8: Thursday: Lucy Peters reported missing (Palmer’s patient)

  Then she studied the list. Four deaths. Two, maybe three, suicides. Two missing students. One bombing. One fire. One almost hit-and-run.

  A week filled with violence and death.

  A jigsaw puzzle of fact and supposition.

  Were there really any unifying themes here? Or was her imagination working overtime?

  She studied the list, trying out her theory about Taft and a possible vendetta against Nitshi. Yesterday’s meeting with the Reverend convinced her she was on the right track. She added “Nitshi” next to each person on her list receiving grants from the conglomerate: Palmer, Conrad, and Nakamura. Grants sponsoring work that, however obscure, had some relationship to AIDS. Now, if you assumed the Reverend was mad and out to get anyone doing AIDS-related research, then maybe Taft did have Nakamura and Conrad killed. Two murders made to look like suicide.

  But what about Sergio? Sammy had no reason to believe he hadn’t killed himself. She crossed his name off her list for the moment.

  Katie Miller and Luther Abbott were directly involved with Taft. That fit.

  Lucy Peters was another possible red herring — although she and Sergio were both Palmer’s patients. Sammy underlined Palmer’s name. Was Taft so diabolical that he targeted the doctor’s patients to somehow discredit Palmer? If you believed the Reverend could bomb the Nitshi ceremonies and murder Nakamura and Conrad, anything seemed possible — including setting fire to the studio. Taft must have learned that a tape existed — a tape to prove he was a murderer. A tape that Brian died for.

  Sammy circled the word “tape” over and over, wondering how Taft knew.

  The flight attendant’s announcement over the loudspeaker interrupted Sammy’s train of thought. “Ladies and Gentlemen, please fasten your seat belts. We’ll be on the ground in five minutes.”

  Sammy’s neighbor shut off his computer. Ping!

  The sound reminded her of the engineer’s words on her answer phone: I figured out that ping at the end of the tape. It’s the sound of a computer being turned off.

  Being turned off.

  Wait a second. She remembered turning the Macintosh off and on at Conrad’s home. She’d reached behind to —

  That was it!

  Behind the computer.

  Not the way Conrad did it. His secretary said he always used the floor switch. If Conrad had turned it off that night, the back switch would never have worked for her.

  But it did.

  Which could only mean one thing: someone else had turned it off.

  And if someone else turned it off, it had to be after Conrad died.

  The implication stunned her. Her instincts had been right all along. Finally, real evidence that someone had killed the professor. Except for one thing. Without that tape, who would believe her?

  The plane began its descent into La Guardia as Sammy considered. Through the window she could see that the rain had all but stopped, a few random droplets sliding down the glass like tears.

  Tears for whom? Sammy wondered. For Barton Conrad? For Yitashi Nakamura? For Brian McKernan? For Sammy herself?

  Without that tape, no one would believe her. She’d have to prove the killing some other way. But how?

  “You gonna stay here all day?”

  “Excuse me?” Sammy’s seatmate stood over her, his laptop clutched in one hand, his briefcase in the other. The plane was already on the ground and had just taxied up to the gate.

  “Sorry.” Quickly, she stuffed her list back in her purse, gathered her raincoat and handbag, and joined the line heading for the exit.

  “I’m sorry, Dr. Wyndham doesn’t answer his page.”

  Sammy had been on hold for almost five minutes. “Can I leave a message?” she asked, her tone brusque.

  “One moment.” The Ellsford General operator connected her with the resident voice mail. All medical students, interns, and residents on hospital call used it, so it wasn’t private, but Sammy had no choice.

  “This is Sammy Greene. I’m calling Reed Wyndham. Reed, I need some information on a third suicide on campus this month. Name, date, where, and why if you can.” She checked her watch. “It’s eight-thirty now. I’ll check back. If you get the information, leave a message on my machine. Thanks.”

  Sammy hung up and turned to walk toward the terminal exit, unaware that the Asian man speaking Japanese into the telephone beside hers had just relayed her entire message to his boss.

  Dr. Palmer stared at the laboratory analyses, letting the full impact of the results sink in. Since his first study subject had died, the doctor had been desperately searching for an explanation. He’d checked and rechecked each batch for contaminants, certain that by strategically deleting key viral genes, he’d eliminated any risk. But now he understood. The problem was not his genetically engineered vaccine. It never had been. The revelation came crashing in on him with the force of a tidal wave.

  He turned back to the first page of the report, reading it through once more just to be sure. The virus isolated from Luther Abbott was the same HIV strain he’d originally used to inoculate the macaques, the same strain he’d used to painstakingly develop his AIDS vaccine. That was no surprise. What was completely unexpected was the fact that tissue samples from Subject #12 and Sergio Pinez were not the same.

  The significance was almost too much to accept and yet the report left no room for doubt.

  A different HIV strain!

  The thought chilled him. The virus infecting these two subjects had somehow mutated!

  And if it was different in these two, how many others, including Lucy Peters, might be incubating this new strain? The strain that seemed so rapidly fatal, so resistant to treatment. And to his vaccine.

  Palmer’s mouth grew dry. He felt an incessant drumming in his temples. Horrified, he could no longer avoid the real possibility that his work to save lives had created even more death.

  9:40 A.M.

  One of the delights of Spanish Harlem is La Marqueta on Park Avenue between 110th and 116th Streets. Sammy grabbed a breakfast burrito at the indoor-outdoor food market before hurrying to her ten o’clock appointment on Lexington.

  Dr. Ortiz’s office wa
s on the second floor of a graffiti-decorated building. The first floor contained a liquor store whose few windows had been bricked in long before. An ad for cerveza $5.99/6-pack was hung on the front door. Sammy peeked into the shop. Only one wall sported shelves with sandwiches, boxed goods, and nonalcoholic beverages. It was at the far end of the large shopping area, past a gauntlet of wine, beer, and hard spirits. Clever marketing . Sammy walked up to the checkout clerk and asked, “How do I get upstairs?”

  Without looking up from his girlie magazine, he mumbled, “Around the side.”

  “Thanks.” Sammy walked out to search for the entrance to the doctor’s office. She finally found the door, its broken panes of glass repaired with cardboard patches. One flight up, she heard the cries and shouts of children, and used them to guide her to a tiny crowded waiting area. Sammy stepped over a few toddlers and nodded to their young mothers and several seniors seated on uncomfortable looking bridge chairs lined up against the walls.

  Behind a makeshift counter, Sammy spotted a gray-haired man dressed in a white lab coat as wrinkled as Reed’s. He was probably close to seventy, she guessed, his face full of creases caused by years of worry over families who had more problems than money. Still, José Ortiz had a warm smile, and if the schedule posted on the front entrance was accurate, apparently enough energy to see an army of patients nine hours a day, six days a week.

  “Dr. Ortiz? I’m Sammy Greene. I called —”

  “Come.” The general practitioner pointed to a side door. “I only have a few minutes,” he apologized. He ushered her into an empty exam room. “I’m afraid I don’t have a real office anymore. I needed all the space for patients.”

  He pointed to a counter attached to the wall. “Actually it’s more efficient. I can see my patient, write my notes, and go on to the next case without breaking stride.” He motioned to Sammy to take a seat on the exam table while he leaned against the wall. “Mr. Pinez said you were a close friend of Sergio’s — from the university.”