Days of Night

by Jonathan Stone

  Before things got tough.

  Really, really tough.

  4.

  They’ve given him his own room. A bed, a dresser. A small desk and chair. Shared lavatory and shower down the hall. It’s like a boarding-school dorm room at the bottom of the world. Many of the permanent staff share a room, but his guest status earns him his own quarters.

  Unpacking had taken just ten minutes. Stack of thermal underwear, bib overalls, snow pants, gloves, boots. Everything had been specified in e-mails from McMurdo administration; there were few choices.

  He’s impressed that there are electrical outlets. Amazing, really.

  Now, he turns on the little desk light. Efficient, multidirectional.

  He spreads out the names in front of him. One hundred fifty-seven names.

  The list is broken into function, department. An attempt by Hobbes to make life a little easier for him. Or Hobbes the scientist, offering up taxonomy, the botanist’s sorting of the fauna, dividing the species into genus and phylum.

  Under medical personnel, there’s Dr. James Calloway. And his nurse assistant, Anita Sorenson.

  Under executive administrative staff, of course, there’s Hobbes. Stanford. Simmons and Bramlett.

  Under communications support staff, there’s Daniel Pritchard and Patrick Dolan. He already knows from the reports they’re the ones who discovered and brought Lazo-Wasum’s body straight to Calloway and Sorenson in the infirmary.

  One hundred fifty-seven names.

  Just names still.

  With no faces yet, no stories yet.

  It’s a finite list, after all. No one slipped in or out of McMurdo by kayak or tractor sled or aircraft. No one came over from one of the other international science stations—too tough to make it over in winter—and no one was able to travel in or out during the weeks surrounding the murder. It’s a more finite list, a more finite starting group, than most in typical police work. You’d think that would make it easier. His instincts tell him that won’t be the case.

  He’s like a teacher at the beginning of the semester, with a very large lecture class, just names, and he will fill them out slowly, with their grades, little red- and blue-coded marks, with their “aptitudes” and attitudes. Getting to know the class and the classroom.

  Or like a tournament director—the starting draw is in front of him—and the competitors will be gradually, steadily, or quickly eliminated, the draw will continually narrow, until there are just a few left standing, and their skills will be closely scrutinized, their play will be closely observed, until there is a “winner.”

  A couple dozen people on this list, he already knows, are no longer here. Part of his job will be tracking them down, wherever they are now working and residing, interviewing them, checking them out, checking them off. The perpetrator could easily have been one of these itinerant, transient part-timers, committing the crime and then getting far away from it. But his instincts are already telling him otherwise—that if it is indeed a poisoning, it is more likely an insider or insiders, someone who has plenty of ongoing experience with McMurdo’s routines, procedures, and materials, who knows how to pull it off undetected and how to stay hidden.

  Somewhere among these names is the truth. Somewhere on this list a story, an explanation, a terrible truth or series of truths.

  It’s a strange feeling to know the answer is already there, somewhere on the spreadsheet in front of him.

  In his thirty years of police work, he’s never had the experience of the answer being handed to him—and he just has to find it.

  It’s a larger sense of responsibility. Because it’s already in his hands—literally.

  A spreadsheet. Science. He smiles. He feels like a provisional member of Antarctica’s scientific community.

  Though he senses already, with those thirty years of experience, that it won’t all be science. Because science hasn’t delivered the answers yet, there will be art—intuition, instinct—involved.

  Despite DNA, toxicology, autopsy, it is rarely all science.

  The word will spread quickly—probably has already—about who he is and why he’s here. It’s like a small town, he senses. A small town of specialists and scientists at the far end of the earth, but a small town nonetheless, with the typical small-town virtues, he’s sure (friendliness, camaraderie, watching out for neighbors), and small-town vices (pettiness, grudges, secrets).

  He sets aside the spreadsheet, the autopsy and toxicology reports, looks again around the dormitory room. Spare. Unadorned with anything personal, of course.

  A bed. A dresser. A small desk and chair.

  A motel room really, at the end of the world.

  A room that requires, he can’t help but notice, no adjustment at all for him.

  Because he can’t help but notice that it’s no different, in look and feel, from where he’s been living. Or how he’s been living.

  He reaches up in his bunk, turns out the light, lies in the dark—strange and familiar—and slips into sleep.

  5.

  Dr. Calloway is trim, extremely handsome, early forties, seemingly straightforward, immediately cooperative, and will prove largely useless.

  Heller knows it right off, because he senses right away that Calloway is a short-timer. He is doing his two-year stint as the doc-for-hire and will be happily gone and replaced at the end of this season.

  Calloway gives him an impromptu tour of the infirmary before they talk. The infirmary is small but extremely well equipped. The most up-to-date EKG and diagnostic devices, ER-level monitors for vital signs, the latest in medicated patches and chemical treatments for frostbite and other extreme-temperature issues. Drug supply ample and triple locked. “I follow all the protocols carefully.”

  He motions Heller to sit at the only place available, the rolling stool at Calloway’s small corner desk. Calloway sits on the examining table. How appropriate, Heller thinks. Both of them smile at the minor awkwardness.

  “I’ve been a doctor on several expeditions to Everest and up K2, so I was well qualified for service here. But medical work on those trips is exciting, pulse-pounding sometimes, while here, it’s mostly babysitting. This is a glorified school nurse’s office. I’m heading back to the mainland at the end of the season. This isn’t for me.”

  “Can you take me through what happened last June?”

  Calloway smiles. “You mean on the night in question.” He’s enjoying meeting a detective. A change in routine.

  Heller nods. “Yes, on the night in question.”

  “Sure.” He shakes his head in frustration. “The one exciting, out-of-the-ordinary thing that comes my way all winter, and it was immediately apparent to me that I wasn’t equipped to handle it.”

  Heller nods, waits for him to explain.

  “Sandy . . . uh, Mr. Lazo-Wasum . . . was rushed in here by Pat Dolan and Dan Pritchard, the comm team. Dan radioed ahead on a walkie and told me they were coming, told me they stumbled on him unresponsive on the ground when they went out for dawn comm and weather check.”

  “What’s that?”

  “At McMurdo, Pritchard and Dolan physically check the comm tower and weather tower elements, to be sure everything’s working. We can’t risk any compromise in our communications or weather-reporting systems.”

  “Okay.”

  “I called Sorenson, our nurse, who hustled over to the infirmary to help me. We took Lazo-Wasum right in here, right where I’m sitting. Checked vitals immediately. No breath. No pulse. Skin blue. Skin temperature extremely low. Not icy yet, but cold. I cut through his parka and clothes in about five to ten seconds. We’ve got a special tool for that.” Calloway holds up a finger—wait—opens a drawer behind him, pulls out a kind of electric knife, turns it on, and the fierce high whine and blinding-bright blade make his point for him. “The clothes fell to the floor around him. I administered a dose of adrenaline into his chest, and Sorenson prepared paddles.

  “No apparent signs of bruising or asphyxiat
ion or distress. In fact, no outward evidence of injury at all. I was keenly aware, believe me, that his near-frozen body might be preserving some clues about his condition and demise—that’s the good part of living in a world of ice, Mr. Heller—and I was aware that every second he was warming up in here, as we tried to treat him and save him, I might have been losing those clues.” He shakes his head, reliving the frustration.

  “And that’s when I saw it. Well, happened to see it. Truth be told, it’s Sorenson who happened to see it. Just lucky. A pinprick at the base of the neck. A little dot of red. Could have been easily mistaken for a pimple or mark on the skin, but the recency told me it wasn’t. And let me tell you, it was a little pinprick to my brain, seeing that. Because right away, if it’s from a drug, it’s from a drug that Lazo-Wasum did not administer to himself. Drug addict or OD? In the arm, sure, or even between toes or under the testicles to hide his addiction, I’ve seen that, but back of your own neck? Pretty much impossible. And if it’s from a drug, and whoever administered it came up from behind him, then he might not have even known it happened. Maybe at night. Maybe never even felt it. This is all the stuff that was going through my mind right away, seeing that red needle mark. Now, I’m not a forensic technician, I’m a mountaineering medic, for Chrissake. I was way out of my depth on this, and I was sure right away that if I administered a standard toxicology protocol, it was not only going to risk missing this, it could even fuck up the evidence, taint it.”

  Going through Heller’s mind are different questions: How did Nurse Sorenson happen to see it, when the doctor didn’t? When the doctor implied it was unlikely or surprising that anyone would? Did she know it was there? And did she purposely have to point it out to the doctor, when she saw that he’d missed it, didn’t see it for himself?

  He’ll be talking to her soon. Or holding off talking to her till he knows more. His first interview, and things are permutating already. The tentacles are already stretching out . . .

  “I’m thinking right away this could be exotic. Lots of scientists here, doctors, PhDs. This was everything that was racing through my mind. And that’s when I said to Sorenson, ‘Let’s get him back on ice, right away.’ She was pretty shocked. And the fastest way to do it? Not by the book, but pretty effective. We lugged him naked out into the snow—Sorenson, me, Pritchard, and Dolan, who were still there with us, ready to be useful. We all chipped and packed ice around him, while we jury-rigged a container.”

  Which they did. And the body stayed frozen. Although at some point in those intervening months the refrigeration unit had malfunctioned, and the temperature had fluctuated, but it was not detected because, this being Antarctica, it was cold within cold, and no indicator had been triggered. The equipment and the notification systems were commercial grade and not built specifically for the extreme weather of Antarctica—nothing was. No indicator had flashed, no alarm had sounded, and the forensic damage, if there was any, was done. In addition to the temperature fluctuation, it was hard to say whether the doctor, quick acting though he was, had screwed up or tainted something anyway. Because a full toxicology report showed only trace elements of toxic materials, which could have been environmental, naturally occurring, or else the vestigial remainder of the purposeful dose that had killed Lazo-Wasum.

  Something Heller knows. Something Heller knows the doctor knows.

  “I might have done the exact right thing, Mr. Heller. Or I might have done the exact wrong thing. I’ll never know.”

  Heller doesn’t want Calloway to brood about it. What’s done is done. Better to make him feel useful—and perhaps actually be useful. “You’ve had lots of time to think about all this, Doctor. About how they found Sandy, where they found him, how they got him in here, what you saw, physically and psychologically. Any theories? Any thoughts about what may have happened that you’re even only half-inclined to share? I’d be interested. You’ve been living with this, after all.”

  Calloway sighs deeply. “Unfortunately, Mr. Heller, I’m a short-timer here. Nurse Sorenson has been here a long time. A number of people have done ten, twelve years here. But the doctors have all rotated off after two-year stints. So none of us get to know the health patterns, the patients, and their medical needs all that well. We’re just not in the culture here like some others are. And I have a feeling that it’s someone who’s in the culture who’s going to be most helpful to you.”

  6.

  Next are Dolan and Pritchard, the communications techs who brought the body in. Hobbes has found Heller an office to use—really just a small empty desk and two chairs behind a partition in a corner of an administration building. Two locking drawers—that’s all he’ll have for private storage of any notes. But Heller is thinking that the formality of the little office may constrict the comfort of some people, so for initial interviews, he’ll try to meet people in more neutral places—and, at the same time, get to know the rhythms of McMurdo a little.

  So he meets Dolan and Pritchard in the canteen late morning for a coffee, after their daily communications-equipment inspection. Last June, of course, they were among the lean winter crew of scientists and technicians and support staff. But right now, in season, McMurdo Station is bustling with close to a thousand people in residence, and the canteen is lively and loud. Aromas of fresh coffee and baked goods pervade the room. Music pumps from hanging speakers—Springsteen, Coldplay, Mumford & Sons. Dolan and Pritchard lean toward Heller to make themselves heard.

  Pritchard is the burlier of the two, but both seem solid and substantial beneath their parkas and snow pants. Dolan is from Vancouver; Pritchard’s from Minnesota. Both move with a comical slowness in their outdoor gear, Heller notices—like they’re on the moon.

  They’re both veterans of Antarctica. Permanent workforce.

  “I’ve wintered over eight years now,” says Pritchard. Beard reddish, unkempt, hair curly, eyes wide with childlike wonder.

  “Year seven for me,” says Dolan. Straight black hair, and black-framed eyeglasses devoid of style.

  “Pays real good,” Pritchard offers, as if anticipating and heading off the inevitable tiresome question of why, thinks Heller.

  And despite their roustabout looks, they’re plenty smart, Heller can tell.

  “Tell me about that morning.”

  Dolan shrugs. “We head out as usual . . .”

  “What time?”

  “Six a.m.” Dolan shrugs. “Arbitrary. In winter here, it’s not like we’re waiting for the morning light.”

  “Yeah, when we say morning, we don’t mean sun or daylight, or any of the ways you normally think of morning.” Pritchard smiles. “No birds or roosters or pink light or nothing. You gotta adjust your thinking.”

  “We make inspections once every twenty-four hours in high season and switch to an as-possible basis during winter.”

  Clearly, they want to be helpful. Eager to please, to be explanatory.

  Probably the first two people I can eliminate as suspects.

  Then again, you gotta adjust your thinking.

  “Ok. Go on.”

  “Totally dark, remember. So Dolan here practically trips over the body.”

  “Didn’t actually trip over it or touch it,” Dolan clarifies. “Did not make accidental contact with the body.” I followed the rules, sir, so don’t penalize me.

  “Wind is blowing pretty stiff that morning too, so it’s dark and there’s snow swirling around. Typical of six a.m. that time of year.”

  “Typical, and no fun at all,” adds Dolan.

  Pritchard takes a breath. “At first, I couldn’t see it was Sandy. I only realized it later as we were carrying him.”

  “Wait. How’d you know it then?” asks Heller. “You could see his face?”

  Pritchard shakes his head. “No, I still couldn’t see. But he was wearing the parka I’d always seen him in, with the duct tape at the zipper . . . I didn’t consciously think about knowing him by his parka zipper, you know? . . . I just had a sudden sense
it was Lazo-Wasum. What can I tell you?”

  Too honest and weird to be anything but true, thinks Heller.

  But Dolan adds in a little logic. “You know, there’s not that many of us here in winter. We all know each other. See each other every day.”

  “Did you realize it was Lazo-Wasum?” Heller asks Dolan.

  “I only realized when Pritchard said it.”

  “Said what?”

  “Said, ‘Hey, it’s Lazo-Wasum.’”

  “Okay, go back to when you first saw the body. What did you do?”

  “Sprang into action. Walkie’d to the base doctor right away. That’s what we’re instructed to do in a medical emergency. Two-one-zero.”

  “Two-one-zero?”

  “Base doc’s code. We both know it ’cause of our inspection walks.”

  “We figured if there was any chance at all for this person, whoever it is, we need to get him inside. Seconds count. Didn’t even have to discuss it, there in the wind. We both just picked him up.”

  “Him, not her?”

  “Oh, by weight, you knew it was a him right off.”

  “And where’d you carry the body?”

  “Straight to Med. The infirmary. About a three-hundred-yard carry.”

  “He was stiff and heavy, wasn’t easy in the cold and blow.”

  “Plus it’s pitch black, don’t forget.”

  “But my adrenaline was pumping. I didn’t even notice.”

  “No surprise it was slow going. So Sorenson, the base nurse, and Calloway, the doctor, were at Med by the time we got there. We helped them get the body up onto the exam table. Then they both waved us off, I guess afraid we couldn’t take what was gonna happen next in there, heroic measures or whatnot . . . ,” says Pritchard.

  “I was happy enough not to see it,” says Dolan.

  “So we backed off like they wanted,” says Pritchard.

  “They needed to close the door to get the heat cranked.”

  “And then what?”

  “We waited in case they needed us.”

  “Turns out they did.”