Deadly Payload (Rim Country Mysteries Book 4)

by Karen Randau

  “I don’t doubt that.” She chuckled, then seconds of silence followed. “Taylor will do her best to get them through this, dear.”

  “Yes. I love you, Zelda.”

  “Love you, too. Good night, dear.” She disconnected.

  I turned my attention to the computer, entering David Zagby into the search engine. An article in the local newspaper showed a teenage David Zagby with his arm draped around the shoulders of my son Travis. “Local Teens Win State 4H Championship,” the headline read.

  Ah-ha! That’s how I knew David. When this article appeared in the newspaper, Travis was ten, David eleven. That was nearly twenty years ago. I didn’t remember if I ever knew David’s last name but figured I must have.

  David and Travis had raised a calf together. My first husband Jared rented a paddock for the boys from a retired veterinarian who had specialized in large animals. Now I remembered David’s little sister, five years younger than him. Mary. One year younger than Zoe. I played tag with the two girls while Jared helped the boys feed and care for their calf.

  The family lived in a small house in the old part of town. The parents always seemed exhausted from their jobs and caring for two active children. They thanked me when I suggested we take David to Boy Scout meetings and got David involved with 4H. The boys lost touch after David left to attend a university in New Mexico. I never saw Mary again and must have missed the news story about their parents’ accident.

  As I thought of that friendly wave in her running days, I cringed at not recognizing Mary or David.

  Another article showed David years later, the day he returned to Rim Vista to become manager of the water treatment plant.

  Did David know the person who infected the town’s water with a mysterious pathogen? Why didn’t he mention that when we spoke? I remembered his glare when I said Mary might know what happened.

  I made a mental note to talk to David again, then searched for news on today’s events.

  A story from a Phoenix television station said police suspected an Iraqi-American who had never even travelled outside of the U.S.

  Jacob Haddad.

  What happened to the manila folder I saw when I first came home after Cliff got sick?

  I ran to the living room. The folder still sat on the coffee table.

  Cliff had brought home dossiers on Jacob Haddad and David Zagby. Why?

  Among the many papers inside the folder I found a note that said Jacob boarded a plane for Iraq two days ago with his wife and a young daughter. He told friends he was visiting relatives he had never met.

  The folder also included a list of precautions residents of Rim Vista should take. A memo said the illness hadn’t spread, but authorities had quarantined the town anyway.

  What? Did that mean with roadblocks? Were we isolated? How would Katy get past them to come back with food and water?

  Mary and David were keys to finding out what happened to our town, and I was determined to unlock whatever they knew. Would Mary open up? She seemed to want to.

  The thought of the outdoor shower and latrine we used for camping sent me running to the garage to rummage through the sporting equipment. From under the stairs, I pulled out blue plastic tarps, the solar shower, and the latrine kit.

  It took considerable effort to get the outdoor bathroom assembled over a cement base Jared had installed years ago for a backyard shed he never built. I lugged a five-gallon jug of water from the crawl space under the house and rolled it to the shower platform, then retrieved liquid soap and shampoo from the basement’s guest bathroom.

  Tomorrow, I would invite Mary Zagby to enjoy a warm shower under the stars.

  After setting up a cot a few feet from the shower, I rubbed my hands together to dislodge the dirt. Mary had a new bedroom. I hoped she’d accept it.

  I pulled myself up the back stairs to enter the house and trudged toward my bedroom. As an afterthought, I turned back to the front door to activate the security system.

  In my room, I checked my phone for the time. One a.m.

  I set an alarm for five, checked my handgun in the nightstand drawer beside me, and shed my clothes. Glancing toward the reading alcove, the sight of Cliff’s shirt on the loveseat flooded my eyes with tears.

  I walked over to pick up the shirt, breathed in my husband’s scent, and slipped it on. If his shirt was all I could have of him near me tonight, it would have to do.

  The sheets felt cool against my aching body as I sent a silent goodnight to Cliff and Travis.

  The intruder alarm startled me out of bed three hours later.

  11

  I leaped out of bed, jerked my gun from the nightstand drawer, forced a round into the chamber, and picked up my phone to check the security cameras. One camera showed the worn bottom of a sneaker as the intruder jumped to the street from the top of the gate. His hoodie kept me from seeing his features.

  What would someone want inside my yard?

  I called 9-1-1.

  “This is Rita Avery, wife of Detective Cliff Avery.” I swallowed to lower my voice half an octave. “Someone just scaled my security fence. They’re gone now, but can you send over an officer to check the rest of the property?”

  “I’ll try,” a tired-sounding woman said. “We’re getting calls about prowlers from all over town. People are looking for water, especially in big-house neighborhoods like yours. I guess they think luxury homes have better filtration systems.”

  I disconnected and watched through the peephole in the front door until I remembered I was wearing nothing but Cliff’s shirt, then returned to my room to don clean clothes, tuck my gun into the waistband, and resume my vigil at the peephole.

  A cruiser arrived more than an hour later.

  As the plain-clothes officer stepped out of the cruiser, I recognized his stubby legs, paunch, and the saggy jowls that reminded me of a basset hound.

  Why would Chief of Police Ronald Williams answer an early morning call about a prowler?

  From inside the house, I pressed a button to open the security gate, then stood on the front porch to wait for him. As he approached the steps, I said, “I wasn’t expecting them to send the top brass. Can I offer you a cup of coffee?”

  “My distaste for coffee is the reason you get the top brass instead of a patrol officer.” He lumbered up the stairs and charged past me to flop into the recliner. “I’ll take a soda if you have one. Or anything else that doesn’t contain tap water.”

  “We don’t drink soda. Will bottled water do?”

  “Perfect.” He accepted the water with a heavy sigh and drank half before looking at me again. “Healthy eaters got the sickest, like Cliff. How’s he doing?”

  “He isn’t responding to the meds, so I gave Taylor permission to try her natural medicines on him. He’s a little better now.”

  The more I thought about it, the more I wondered about healthy eaters getting the sickest. “Is the problem just with the water? Or is the water also contaminating the vegetable crops? Or…” Should I mention the drones? Would he believe anything said by someone the townspeople called Crazy Mary?

  “What?”

  “A buzzing outside my window woke me a few nights before everyone got sick. I’ve been talking with… a woman. She said she saw drones. She seems to compare it to an attack she witnessed as a soldier in the Middle East.”

  “Who is this witness?”

  “Mary Zagby.”

  His humph said it all.

  “The dispatcher said you had a prowler.”

  I showed him the video footage of a person jumping from the top of my gate.

  He swigged the rest of his water. “I’m tired. Your video showed the person climbing the fence and leaving your property. I guess I’m done here. Most of the department is out.”

  “There may have been another person. Maybe they’re still on my property.” It sounded lame even to me. “I’m alone here. I got spooked, and… do you have to leave already?”

  He stood. “Let’s tak
e a stroll outside.” He angled his bent arm toward me, and I slipped my arm through. He patted my hand as we walked outside, then paraded through every inch of the property. “You have a top-of-the-line security set-up. These lights flood every corner, nook, and cranny.”

  “Cliff helped me set this up when he was investigating my late husband’s murder.” I knew Ronald was familiar with the circumstances that led to my fancy set-up, but it felt good to talk about Cliff. “Before we were a couple.”

  “Uh huh. I remember.” My solar shower and latrine caught his interest. “Good thinking.” He used the back of his hand to move the shower’s tarp aside and look inside. He turned toward the cot. “Expecting company?”

  “Mary Zagby is a homeless war vet. She deserves any help I can offer. Besides, I knew her when she was a child. I thought I’d invite her to stay with me for a bit.”

  “You’re a good and generous woman, Rita. I’d be careful with that one, though. She’s unpredictable.” He turned but hesitated. “And her ramblings about a drone attack… she rambles about a lot of things that have no connection to reality.” He headed toward the front gate.

  “Could I make you some bacon and eggs?” I still didn’t want to be alone.

  He stopped. The radio on his shoulder chirped. “Wish I could stay, but duty calls.”

  “Hire me,” I said.

  “For what?”

  “You know I got my PI license recently. I’m investigating what happened to our water supply. Cliff wants me to do it with you, but I’ll find out what happened with or without you.”

  “Cliff told me.”

  “You saw him?”

  He nodded and grabbed a metal bar in the security gate. “Rita, this is being investigated as terrorism. It’s out of my hands. Stay away from the investigation. It could get dangerous.” He slid open the gate and slipped behind the steering wheel of his cruiser. With a final stern glare at me, he drove away.

  I checked my phone for the time. Six-thirty a.m.

  I moved to the kitchen and pulled bacon and eggs from the refrigerator. Did I have the energy to cook? What if washing the dishes in contaminated water made me sick? I put the food back and searched the pantry. Thinking I could use bottled water to wash my dishes and my lack of energy could be the need for protein, I made the bacon and eggs.

  When I finished eating and washing up, I headed to the garage to get into my car and drive to the hospital.

  The streets of Rim Vista seemed more normal than yesterday. The parking lots of the Chevy dealer, Desert Federal Credit Union, and Walmart all seemed quiet and peaceful. It felt strange that no one walked on the sidewalks. No lights were on in any of the fast food restaurants.

  The hospital parking lot didn’t offer many empty slots, but I found one. The masks Taylor had given me sat on my passenger seat. I donned one and walked through the double sliding glass doors of the main entrance.

  The smell inside caused my stomach to roll.

  Beyond the dozen blue cloth chairs in the lobby, no one sat at the information desk. I turned right and walked on a shiny floor down a hallway lined with sleeping patients on gurneys. I stopped at a three-person nursing station where a heavy-set nurse worked, her face covered with a mask. She looked up from her paperwork and glared at me with furrowed brows.

  “Visiting hours are seven a.m. until nine p.m.,” she said from behind her mask. She yawned, checked her watch, and stretched. “However, we’re discouraging visitors until we identify the pathogen that led to your loved one’s illness.”

  After a quick glance at her nametag, I pulled down my mask long enough to smile. “Hi, Dianne. I’ll take my chances. I’m looking for my husband, Detective Cliff Avery.”

  With a shrug, she stared at her monitor and tapped on her keyboard. “Room 112. On your left. I recommend keeping your mask on. Touch no bodily fluids you see. We can’t keep up with them. Stay well.” She lifted her mask long enough to take a swig of bottled water and returned to her paperwork.

  I stopped at room 112 and stood in the open doorway to the smelly room and watched my husband and son sleep.

  The last time I was in one of these rooms, there were two beds, along with a pair of nightstands and two guest chairs. Now, beds hugged all four walls, each with an IV drip and a vitals monitor. A rolling tray in the middle of the room held medical equipment, next to the room’s single guest chair.

  I didn’t recognize two of the men who slept across the room and against the wall near the door. One guy had vomited into a kidney-shaped basin that sat beside his pillow.

  I pinched my mask against my nose and breathed through my mouth.

  To my right, Travis looked pale, but not as much as when we brought him in.

  On the left, Cliff stirred. I stepped to his bedside and touched his hand. His eyes opened, and his smile made my heart skip a beat. I stroked the gray streak at his left temple and worked to hold back my tears.

  “How’s my brown-eyed beauty?” He squeezed my hand.

  I lifted my mask to talk to him. “I’m good. I didn’t drink tap water, so I’m not at all sick. Neither are Katy and Neri. How are you feeling?”

  “Better, but weak.” He raised his head to look around. “Those two guys refused Taylor’s natural remedies. They’re not recovering like we are. Jeez, it stinks in here.”

  “Maybe they’ll change their minds when they see you get well. I heard Ronald visited you.” I lifted my mask to kiss his hand, then held it to my face. “Did he give you an update?”

  “Yeah. They’re closing the highway.”

  “Katy took Neri to her parents in Tucson. She’s planning to come back tomorrow with frozen meals she made to get us by. I wouldn’t be surprised if she cooked all night.”

  “The highway is barricaded. The forest roads are probably still open. Katy’s Prius wouldn’t fare well, but maybe you should meet her and take the food. Let her go home to Chandler.” He laid his head on the pillow and closed his eyes. “Take the Jeep to Second Street, turn right on Vista’s Edge Ranch Road, then Mule Train Trail down the hill. That’s four-wheel drive only. It will drop you off at the highway. It’s steep and rocky. Drive slow.” He yawned, turned to his side, and laid his cheek on his hand. He was asleep.

  “Hi, Mom.” Travis’ voice sounded throaty.

  I moved to his bed and stroked his forehead. “Hi, son. You aren’t as hot as you were when we brought you in.”

  “I’m feeling a lot better.” His eyes drooped, and I was sure he’d talk less than Cliff did before going back to sleep. “Tell Katy—”

  The beep on one monitor became constant. The nurse ran in, followed by a man in a white lab coat with a stethoscope dangling from his neck.

  “We need you to leave,” the nurse said as she nudged me out the door. I waited in the hallway to finish my conversion with Travis.

  “Ma’am, are you a patient?” The man’s voice came from behind me.

  I turned to face a husky man with a thick neck. “No. I was visiting my husband and son. I’m waiting to go back in this room.” I gestured toward the closed door of room 112.

  “We’re closing the hospital to visitors. I must ask you to exit now.”

  “Okay. I want to say goodbye to my son, then I’ll leave.”

  He took my arm and forced me toward the exit. “You need to leave now.”

  “You can’t treat me like this.” I tried to pull away, but his grip tightened.

  He escorted me outside, went back in, and locked the doors.

  12

  I stared at the hospital’s sealed double glass doors. Why would they do this? Ronald had said the authorities were treating the sabotage of the water treatment plant as terrorism. Cliff said they closed the highway.

  Was this martial law? I scanned the area. No soldiers or police patrolled the streets. If not martial law, what was it?

  I dialed Taylor. She answered on the first ring, a smile in her voice. “Have you seen how much better Cliff and Travis are doing?”


  “Yes, I was visiting them when a burley guy in a security uniform ejected me from the hospital. They’ve locked the doors. What’s going on?”

  After a long silence, she answered. “I’ll call you back.” She disconnected.

  A noise at the end of the parking lot caught my attention. A thin man with a scruffy beard slid from the driver’s seat of a white box truck. He walked to the rear, and his two passengers met him.

  The deep voice of a passenger with a wide chest was loud enough for me to listen. “We’ll set up the table over there.” He gestured toward the driveway. “We can direct people to line up along the sidewalk to pick up their rations.”

  Rations? Why did we need rations? And they planned to block the driveway?

  I ran to my car. The tires squealed as I rushed to exit the lot before the men’s table made it impossible. I stopped beside the truck and rolled down my window.

  “Hey, what are you doing?” I tried to keep alarm from my voice.

  The third man, a thirty-something blond with a boyish smile and a Salvation Army logo on his tight-fitting T-shirt, leaned his tanned arm on my window frame. “Good morning, ma’am. The grocery stores are out of water and canned goods. We’re setting up all over town to offer residents supplies to get through the next few days. There’s no need to worry.”

  “How nice. Thank you.” I rolled up my window as the blond hollered, “Jesus loves you.”

  My mind reeled. If no one could get into town, the grocery stores couldn’t replenish their shelves. We’d get no fuel. Would Jesus’ love be enough to sustain us? My mother told me God helps us by leading us in the right direction.

  Which direction should I go?

  A gas station sign caught my attention. Cars waited at all six pumps. I stopped in a line with only two cars ahead of me.

  After filling up, I drove home to get the Jeep. By the time I returned to the same station, the line stretched half a mile down the street. What if Cliff needed his police cruiser once he left the hospital? I wanted him to come home and need it again.

  It was town business. Filling up three cars wasn’t unreasonable. Right? I drove home and returned with his company Ford.