Deadly Payload (Rim Country Mysteries Book 4)

by Karen Randau

  I steadied myself and put the spaghetti in the microwave. While the food warmed, I gathered the pages and set them on the dining table, then pulled a bottle of water from the case Katy had left on the island.

  The dimpled man in the photo I had seen earlier was David Zagby, manager of the water treatment plant. I studied his photo. Why did he seem so familiar?

  The second photo was of a water treatment technician named Jacob Haddad. Middle Eastern?

  I dropped the photo. Was this terrorism? Why choose a town with a population of only twelve thousand? Practice for something bigger?

  My footsteps echoed in the hallway as I ran to Cliff’s and my suite and flipped on the light. I rushed past the sitting area and bedroom to switch on the lamp in the office. The laptop on the desk whirred to life when I pressed the button.

  I sank down in the executive chair and remembered cuddling there in Cliff’s lap two nights ago as we twirled around and laughed. Then he kissed me.

  What should I look up first: what happened to Mary in Afghanistan, or cures for unidentified pathogens?

  I told myself to focus on the present situation.

  The words water poisoning led me to the CDC website. It said healthy adults should be able to recover from waterborne infections with antibiotics. Travis and Cliff were both healthy adults who ate right, exercised, and got plenty of rest. But this was a drug-resistant pathogen. Could healthy adults fight off this infection, whatever it was?

  I pulled a writing pad and pen from the top drawer and jotted notes for a call with Katy later.

  Several other links led to different websites using the same words to tell me nothing new.

  I turned to what had happened to Mary.

  The words Brandish Afghanistan led to the obituary of an Army colonel from Iowa. It took digging to learn he died in Afghanistan from an IED concealed in a cow. He had used his body to protect a second lieutenant nurse acting as interpreter for an Afghan woman. Someone had killed the Afghan woman’s cow, and she demanded the American military replace it.

  The explosion blew Army Colonel John Brandish’s leg into the face of Second Lieutenant Mary Zagby.

  The steel toe of Brandish’s boot had to be what caused the crescent-shaped scar on Mary’s cheek.

  How was she connected to the manager of the water treatment plant, David Zagby?

  Two hours into my research, I switched off the computer and called Katy.

  “I arrived at my parents about ten minutes ago,” she said. “I’ll spend the night here and go home super early tomorrow morning to cook.”

  “I appreciate it. Hey, I’m leaving in a few minutes to talk to the homeless woman you met this morning. I saw her when I set Hope outside the security gate. Mary led me to a house a few streets down the hill. I think she used to live there. She seems to have ideas about what happened, but it’s hard to keep her attention for more than a minute or two at a time. She mentioned drones. From your herbal medicine training, can you think of an incurable waterborne pathogen?”

  “It would have taken extremely high doses of whatever it was, and commercial drones are too small to carry a payload like that. Are you sure it wasn’t Mary’s imagination?”

  “No, but I plan to follow up on every lead. I expect to meet her back at that house as soon as I hang up with you. Would researching herbal medicines contribute more than cooking?”

  “I can do both, although I need to know what I’m fighting before I can come up with an herb that might help.”

  “Research waterborne diseases first.” I disconnected, then grabbed a flashlight from the top of the refrigerator and left to wait for Mary at 932 North Ash Street.

  9

  The sliver of the moon offered little light as I walked down the hill and turned left toward 932 North Ash Street. I didn’t want to take a chance of startling Mary with the beam from my flashlight, so I left it off.

  A manzanita shrub on the right corner rustled, shooting a burst of adrenalin through me. The shock discharged the memory of a song my mother sang when I was a child.

  “I am woman; hear me roar,” I whispered, then said it again when a low-pitched growl put goosebumps on my arms. During the next second, memories and questions flashed through my brain.

  A bobcat attacked an elderly man here a few years ago. The man fought the animal off with a walking stick. Should I risk scaring off Mary by turning on my light to rummage for a weapon? A branch? A rock? What if my search took me closer to whatever growled? Would it catch me if I ran? I stood still trying to breathe.

  A giggle came from the direction of my destination. A silhouette walked toward me.

  I resisted the scream that welled inside me and grasped the flashlight to use as a weapon if needed. “Mary, please tell me that’s you.”

  As the silhouette drew near, the scent of sweat, dirt, and garbage mingled with the lingering odor of sewage in the air. A hand touched my shoulder, detonating another salvo of adrenalin. I bobbed back.

  “Yes. Mary. Sorry to scare you.” She chuckled again. “I am woman; hear me roar. Grandma liked Helen Reddy.” She repeated the growl, this time shaping her hands into claws that scratched at the air in front of me. She nudged me toward the bench I’d seen earlier. I stubbed my toe on her shopping cart, then felt my way around it to sit.

  Seconds of silence followed.

  “I read online about Colonel Brandish’s heroism when he protected you from an IED that exploded a cow,” I whispered.

  Her flinch startled me, but not as much as when she laid her head on my shoulder. “Walled in park. Found me. And a trolley washing.” She touched the scar on her cheek.

  “I have plenty of room at my house.” I smoothed her hair as I’d done hundreds of times when my daughter Zoe laid her head on my shoulder. This time, my fingers caught in the mass of knots in Mary’s locks. “You can come stay with me. Take a shower. Sleep in a comfy bed. I have connections who can get you help.”

  Mary lifted her head and trembled. “Can’t be inside. Don’t know why.”

  She wrapped her arms around herself and rocked back and forth. With a halting sigh, she leaned over and picked up something from the ground, then stood and lobbed it toward the house. A stone hit the window, and Mary scampered behind the tree to sit on the bench, staring forward.

  The window curtain slid open and bathed the yard with a yellow glow. A tall, dark-haired man with a dimple in one cheek and a distressed expression in his blue eyes stepped into view.

  David Zagby.

  Behind him, a late-twenties woman with breast-length blond curls shifted from one foot to the other and back. Who was she?

  David lifted a toddler with purple bows at the base of blond pigtails above her ears. Was the blond lady this child’s mother? David’s wife?

  The way the wife flopped onto the couch with her back toward the window when the girl and David waved and smiled, I suspected there was more to this relationship. Was she jealous of Mary? But why?

  “Emma.” Pride filled Mary’s alto. For a moment, her trembles quieted.

  A sudden memory made me jump, a new level of understanding filling me. “She’s grown since I last saw you run with her in the stroller.”

  “Beautiful.” A smile filled Mary’s voice. She sounded like a normal mother praising her treasured daughter. As when I spoke of Zoe.

  “Yes, she’s gorgeous. Like you.”

  Mary whimpered. “No more. Can’t let her see me.” Her trembles returned.

  “Is he your husband? Emma’s father?” I tried a soothing tone. I needed her to sit still long enough to talk, to tell me what she’d seen, to help me determine if David Zagby had purposely polluted our water.

  Mary sat up, her face inches from mine. Her voice sounded indignant. “No... brother... you know.” She turned back to the window. “David. Love them.” She grasped her shirt at the chest, leaned forward to put her head between her legs, and breathed deeply. She clamped her hands around her temples. “Not yet.” The nails of her
left hand scraped my jeans as she sat tall, kissed two fingers on her right hand, and thrust her arm toward the window.

  David and Emma each threw a kiss. David stood Emma in a chair and faced the window. Seconds later, the front light came on.

  Mary turned her face away and covered her eyes.

  The door opened, and David stepped out to the porch. “Mary, please come home. I found an integrative neurologist who thinks he can help you. He said the tar on your hands and feet is your body trying to discard toxins. You crave bananas because you need phosphorous.”

  Mary’s back straightened. “Where?”

  “Phoenix. I’ve arranged it with the VA,” David said.

  “Can’t.” Mary bolted from the bench, pulled her shopping cart to the asphalt, and propelled it down the road in front of herself. “Already have one.”

  One what?

  David’s shoulders hunched, and his head dropped forward. He stepped back inside, closing the door. The porch light extinguished. The window curtain closed.

  I sprinted in the direction Mary had gone. Someone gasped nearby.

  “Mary, I need you to help me figure out how to save Emma and David. And my husband and son.” I yelled, hoping Mary had stopped nearby and understood me.

  From a few yards away, Mary wept, her voice no longer the soothing alto of a mother admiring her child. “Drones. Poison.” Her shopping cart rattled down the road away from me.

  I switched on my flashlight and returned to David’s house to ring the doorbell. The porch lit up as David flung the door open. His smile disappeared when he saw me. He plastered his left side against the edge of the door and leaned his right palm against the doorjamb.

  “She ran away,” I said.

  “She always does, Mrs. Avery.”

  How did he know my name? His expression reminded me of someone, but who? He probably jogged with Mary before she got deployed. Mary acted offended when I didn’t recognize them. I studied his features.

  Emma wrapped her arms around David’s leg. He smoothed her hair, then moved his hand to her shoulder.

  “Go play, Emma. I’ll join you soon.”

  Emma skipped away.

  “I live down the street,” I said. “Mary is trying to communicate with me. I hope you help me understand what she’s saying.”

  He opened the door wider and gestured for me to enter the house. He led me to a couch against the wall of a great room half the size of mine. I stood in a tasteful living room beside a dining room. The kitchen held an alcove for a kitchenette.

  I scanned the room as I spoke. “I used to see Mary run with the stroller.” My eyes fell to a grouping of photos on the fireplace mantel. One drew my attention. “Who are those two soldiers with Mary?”

  “Jason Wall and Kyle Park, the soldiers who found Mary after villagers hid her and nursed her until those two arrived a day later,” David said.

  I watched Emma zoom across the laminate floor on a pink riding toy with Minnie Mouse emblazoned on the front. “I thought Mary was saying ‘walled in park.’ She keeps repeating that Wall and Park found her. And something about a trolley washing something.”

  “I’m sure there’s a message behind it, but I can’t figure out what it is. I think it goes beyond them finding her.” He nodded toward the photo. “I put that there trying to get her to talk about it. She kept getting worse. One night after Emma slipped from Mary’s arms and hit her head on the floor, she said, ‘Promise you’ll take care of my little girl.’ I told her we’d find a cure for whatever was wrong with her, but she kept pressuring me until I promised I’d care for Emma. She left that night while I slept. I called the police. Your husband found her and took her to a shelter for abused women and children, but she wouldn’t stay. A month later, a pebble hit the window. We used to do that when our parents were alive, and we wanted to sneak out. Each time a pebble pelts the window, I hold Emma to it. I keep hoping Mary will come home. All she wants is to see Emma. She never stays more than a minute or two.”

  “Mary knows something about what happened,” I said.

  David’s icy glare dug into me. “What makes you say that?”

  “She keeps mentioning getting sick and seeing drones. A sound woke me last week, maybe a drone.”

  “She told me drones sprayed a liquid on her after the explosion,” David said. “She’s sure that’s what made her sick, what caused her current condition. The VA dismissed it as her imagination and severe PTSD.”

  “You mentioned you found a doctor. I think you said it was a special kind of neurologist?”

  “The physician I found uses both medicine-based neurology with alternative things like nutritional supplements, acupuncture, and different therapies. He’s taken his medical education beyond chemical-based cures for a disease. He says he uses whatever it takes to help the body heal itself, and that includes a spiritual component because research has shown people respond best when they have hope.”

  During an hour of visiting with David, I learned the siblings’ parents died in a car wreck while David was attending college in New Mexico. Mary, already a freshman track star at Rim Vista High, lived with her paternal grandmother until she graduated and earned an associate degree in nursing from the local community college. The grandmother slowly slipped away because of Alzheimer’s, and Mary joined the Army Reserve to earn the money to finish her nursing education.

  “On Mary’s first tour to Afghanistan, she fell for a lowlife from a high-class Boston neighborhood.” Bitterness filled David’s voice. “He got her pregnant then said he wanted nothing to do with his daughter. Mary and Emma didn’t fit into his elite lifestyle. I dropped out of my Ph.D. chemistry program and applied at the Rim Vista water treatment plant. An opening came up while Mary was still pregnant, and here I am. I helped her care for the baby while she continued her schooling, worked at the hospital, and played weekend warrior. Then she was deployed again. Why would the American government deploy a part-time soldier with a baby girl?”

  He explained that shortly after the IED explosion that killed Mary’s commanding officer, Mary contracted the flu, which turned into meningitis. Before long, she had a stent draining fluid from her brain.

  “She hasn’t been the same since,” David said.

  “You said you work at the water treatment plant. What happened there?”

  “Someone who knew what they were doing contaminated the water supply with human waste,” David said. “The CDC suspects the pathogen making everyone sick is similar to listeria, but it isn’t responding to the treatment.”

  He looked toward Emma. “Fortunately, after Afghanistan Mary insisted we filter the water coming into the house and always use purified water for cooking and drinking.”

  An idea struck me. Cliff had said Taylor gave him garlic. I had given Zoe garlic and olive oil when I couldn’t get her to a clinic for a severe infection. I needed to get home.

  “Mary is reaching out,” I said. “I’ll keep you informed. Do you mind if I try a natural remedy on her that seems to be helping my husband and son?”

  “Why not? Nothing else has worked. She’s going downhill fast.” He walked me to the door, and as I moved past him, he said, “Tell Travis I’m thinking of him.”

  10

  While climbing the hill toward my house, illuminated by my flashlight, I dialed Taylor’s number. She didn’t answer. I punched the code into the street-side keypad, and the security gate slid open. I stopped it when I slipped into the yard and used the inside keypad to close myself in.

  Loneliness struck the second I heard the locking mechanism click. On a normal night at this time, Cliff and I would snuggle on the loveseat in our suite as we talked about our day. Tonight, I had no one to help ease the tension that continued to build inside me.

  One step toward the porch activated the flood lights throughout the property. I glanced left and right, then hurried toward the staircase. With my foot on the first step, my phone vibrated. I entered the house, locked the door, stared at the empty
spot vacated by Hope’s crate, and darted to my room to read Taylor’s text message.

  Cliff and Travis may be responding to garlic and colloidal silver, she wrote. Still very ill, but not getting worse like others. Use your uninfected water from under the house to bathe. I’m going to try to sleep for a couple hours.

  I moved to the office, turned on the computer, and called Cliff’s Aunt Zelda. Her voice sounded groggy when she answered.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “Did I wake you?” I turned toward the grandfather clock in the corner of the room. Ten o’clock p.m.

  “Yeah. It’s been a long day, dear. How’s Cliff?”

  “Taylor said the medicine isn’t working, so she tried a natural remedy on him and Travis. She’ll update me tomorrow.”

  “Are you showing any symptoms?” she asked.

  “No. Katy, Neri, and I didn’t drink the tap water. Travis, Cliff, and Hope did. Hope already died.” My voice caught.

  “I’m sorry, dear. I know how much you loved your dog.”

  I took a breath. “Katy took Neri to Tucson and will be back in two days with frozen meals and more water. Are you okay?”

  “None of us is any sicker than normal. We use purified water here because some of our residents come in so sickly. We also filter all the water coming into the building.”

  “Good. Do you remember a young woman named Mary Zagby coming to your shelter?”

  “Yes, I remember her.” Sadness weighed down Zelda’s tone. “She was injured in Afghanistan. Cliff found her sleeping in the enclosure surrounding a dumpster. He brought her here thinking I could use my social work contacts to get her psychiatric help. I made an appointment in Phoenix for her, but she bolted as I tried to get her into the car. I often see her pushing a shopping cart around town.”

  “She used to live down the street from us,” I said. “I talked to her and her brother today. He seems familiar, and he mentioned Travis. They have a very sad story. Anyway, I’ll call you tomorrow after I visit Cliff at the hospital. I hope things calm down over night. They didn’t let us go in earlier today, but no one is keeping me away from my husband and son tomorrow.”