Killerwatt (10 page)

Rhetta’s stomach revolted at the sight of the
bloated body lying face down on the floor alongside the bed, nearly hidden
under a cloud of flies. She was thankful she couldn’t see his face. She assumed
it was Peter, given the body’s slender build along with what she could see of
grayish, sandy colored hair.

She gagged, swallowed, and gagged again. Unable to
stop her body’s reflex from the overpowering stench, she bolted from the room.
She barely made it into the hallway before throwing up the remnants of whatever
she ate last. Stupidly, she identified it as a Snickers bar. And coffee.

Breathing rapidly, her head drenched with sweat, it
took a few minutes before she finally stopped heaving. She made her way down
the hall, and back to the door. Outside, she finally inhaled, clearing the
stench. Judging from his appearance along with the terrible decay odor that
invaded her nostrils, poor Peter had not just died. She was unable to tell what
caused his death. 

She glanced around as she groped in her bag for her
phone. Was someone watching Peter’s apartment? Her stomach began to clench
again. Peter was dead. Oh, God. She felt her hand tremble as she dialed.

“9-1-1, what is your emergency?” asked a crisp
female voice.

Rhetta sucked a breath in. She didn’t know where to
start.

“9-1-1, please state your emergency,” the dispatcher
ordered, more sharply this time.

“I…I… My name is Rhetta McCarter,” she began,
stammering, trying desperately to remember the protocol for reporting finding a
body. Then she remembered she never learned any protocol for reporting a dead
body. She blurted, “I just found a dead man.”

A momentary beat, then the dispatcher asked, “Are
you sure he’s dead? Do you need an ambulance?”           

She nodded, even though the emergency dispatcher
couldn’t see her. “It’s Doctor Peter LaRose. He’s a professor at the
university, and I’m sure he’s quite dead.” Rhetta finally gained some control
of her wits.

“Address?”

 
Address? I know where to tell her to come. I
don’t know the address!

“Sorry, I’m not sure of the exact street number.
It’s the apartment above the cannabis store on Main Street,” Rhetta said, and
paced on the small porch. She didn’t want to be so visible in case anyone was
watching, but she wasn’t about to go back into the apartment. She sat down on
one of Peter’s chairs. “The entrance is up the stairs in back. I’ll wait
outside for the officers.”

Rhetta lowered her head between her knees and gagged
again.

*
* *

It
took an Age of Aquarius to come and go before she heard sirens. Wasn’t that one
of her oldies songs? She felt like she’d been catapulted into a nightmare. How
did Peter die? Was it because of the schematic? Bad things were piling up
faster and faster, eliminating coincidences. Did those things indicate there
was a plot to kill everyone who’d seen the schematic? She tried to convince
herself it made no sense. She didn’t succeed. Something most definitely was
going on. But, what?

She needed to call Woody and tell him. He could be
in danger, too. However, she knew she had to tell Randolph about Peter in
person. Peter was his friend. Her call to Woody went to voice mail. “Woody,
it’s Rhetta. Peter is….” Before she could continue, her cell beeped and a “call
failed” message flashed across the screen. She stared at the screen as tears
filled her eyes. Her hand shook. What was going on? Who killed Peter? She
choked back a sob as she heard distant sirens.

The rising and falling wailing intensified as the
vehicles neared the building. In a whirl of dusty red and blue lights, two Cape
police cars skidded to a stop next to Peter’s Taurus in the gravel parking lot.
The sirens powered down. Two officers from each car, with weapons drawn, rushed
toward the stairs.

An orange and white county ambulance, with lights
swirling, materialized next to the police cars.

Radios clipped to blue uniformed shoulders crackled
as the officers clambered up the stairs. Rhetta stood and fished for her wallet
and driver’s license, knowing she would have to offer some identification. She
handed the license holder to a young officer whose pink sweating scalp
glistened through a blond crew cut, and whose badge identified read
R.
Germuth
.

Germuth asked her to remove her license from the
plastic holder in her wallet. When she did, he took it from her, stepped away,
tipped his head sideways, and spoke to his shoulder. She heard him read off her
name and license number.

Two uniformed officers rushed past her into the
apartment without introducing themselves. She hadn’t caught any names on their
badges.

A fourth officer, Sergeant Abel Risko, according to
the stenciled name badge above his left breast, removed a small spiral notebook
from a shirt pocket and began interviewing her. Risko was a burly man with a
gravel pit voice. She guessed him to be in his early thirties. Clearly, he was
the man in charge.

The two ambulance drivers wearing khakis and white
uniform shirts, who had followed the officers inside, returned quickly, advised
Germuth to call the coroner, and then left.

I told the dispatcher he was
dead.
Calling
the ambulance had to be protocol for the 9-1-1 operator. She nodded absently.

“You knew the deceased?” Sergeant Risko asked.

 
He must have thought my nodding meant I know
Peter.
She focused on Risko.

“Yes, I knew Doctor LaRose.” She coughed in an
attempt to clear her throat, hoping she could discharge the vile odor, which by
now she could taste. She plunged her hand into her purse and came out with a
single piece of gum. Quickly she unwrapped it and popped it into her mouth,
grateful for the burst of spearmint.

“What were you doing here?” he asked.

She hadn’t thought about how to answer any
questions. “I, uh, wanted to see if he was still in town,” she said.

“Why didn’t you call him?” The officer’s pen stayed
poised over the notebook, ready to jot down her answer.

“I did call, but didn’t get any answer.” She inhaled
again, the nausea threatening a return.

“Why did you need to know if he was staying in town?
Why was it so important that you had to come over here in person to find out?”

She had no idea how to answer. Shaking her head both
from confusion and a desire to rid her nostrils of the stench, she said, “I
wanted to tell him about my husband being in a car accident.”
Why hadn’t she
said that first?

“Why do you say ‘still in town?’ Was he planning a
trip?”

He’s interrogating me as if he’s
the Gestapo.
“No,
I don’t know about any trip. It’s just that when school is out, Peter has been
known to travel, sometimes to Saudi Arabia.”
Why did I say that?
I’m
so nervous I’m letting my mouth overload my ass.

Doing her best to get her nerves under control,
Rhetta continued. “He and my husband, Judge Randolph McCarter, are good
friends, and I wanted to tell him about Randolph’s accident.”

Upon hearing that, the officer snapped the notebook
closed. His tone softened. “How is your husband doing, Mrs. McCarter?”

Rhetta noticed an improvement in Risko’s demeanor
when he found out she was Judge McCarter’s wife. Did that mean he felt better
about her finding Peter’s body?

“I have your statement,” Risko continued, patting
his shirt pocket. “You’re free to leave. However, I’d like you to come by the
station sometime Monday to review and sign your official statement.”

“Of course.” She licked her dry lips. Bile rose in
her throat again and she swallowed it back. The spearmint flavor from the gum
was already gone.

Officer Germuth handed Rhetta her license, which she
dropped into her purse. She’d return it to her wallet later. She had to get
away from Peter’s apartment as soon as possible. The coroner’s van had arrived.
She had no desire to see the body bag being carried away.

Sliding her purse up her shoulder, Rhetta grasped
the handrail, and hurried down the steps as fast as she dared. She had no
desire to break her neck.

She had to call Woody. Peter’s sudden death had to
be connected to the schematic.
After Al-Serafi’s death in the Diversion
Channel, we find out that Agent Cooper is dead. Then Randolph has a near fatal
accident, and now Peter’s dead. Someone believes that we know something that we
shouldn’t. It has to be linked to that schematic.

Woody could be next, and Randolph had met with Billy
Dan. They could all be in jeopardy.

She had to call and warn them.

After jogging back to her car, she beeped open the
door, and slid behind the wheel, grateful that Randolph had surprised her on
her birthday with a keyless entry/remote start device for Cami. Cars didn’t
come with keyless entry back in the Middle Car Ages. She was certain that the
feature began showing up only in the 80s. She seldom started Cami remotely, but
it was great to be able to unlock the car without standing at the door, groping
for her keys.

She turned the AC up to its highest setting. She
rested her forehead on the hard metal steering wheel and briefly closed her
eyes.
Peter is dead.
He saw that schematic, and now he’s dead.

She reached up to adjust the mirror before backing
up. A pair of dull green eyes in her own ashen face stared back at her.

In spite of the heat, another chill rolled down her
spine.

I saw the schematic, too.

CHAPTER
20

It took forty-five minutes for Rhetta to escape from
the craziness of the festival. People walked along the streets oblivious to the
throngs of cars trying to crawl through the traffic. Most of the pedestrians
carried large white plastic cups bearing the festival’s logo. She suspected the
cups contained fermented beverages.

Once she managed to turn north on Kingshighway, the
traffic improved. However, she still managed to catch every red light between
downtown and her office.

Woody was on the phone taking an application when
she pushed open the door, and a young couple was on the sofa waiting to meet
with him. That meant she couldn’t tell him about Peter just yet.

He implored her with his eyes and by jutting his
chin toward the couple. She tucked her purse into her bottom desk drawer, took
a deep breath, and approached the customers on the sofa. She hoped that the
smell of death hadn’t permeated her clothes. She could still taste the vile
smell in her nostrils.

*
* *

Fifteen
minutes later, she’d taken their application and pulled their credit. Finally,
Woody finished up and came to her desk. After introductions, Woody guided them
to his desk to continue the process.

Folding her arms across her desk, Rhetta lay her
head on her arms and closed her eyes. When she looked up a few minutes later,
Woody was eyeing her and furrowing his brow. She snatched a note pad and
scribbled,
Got lots to tell you
. She walked to his desk, handed him the
folded note, and went on to the kitchen. She glanced back at him in time to see
him open it, read and nod.

Rhetta reached into the refrigerator, snatched a
cold bottle of water, twisted off the top, and downed the entire contents in
two swallows.

Gulping ice-cold water brought a wave of protest
from her already irritated stomach. She dashed to the bathroom. After losing
the water she just gulped, she bent over the sink and splashed cool water on
her face.

Dabbing her face with a damp paper towel helped
compose her. Rhetta returned to the kitchen where she plucked another bottle of
water from the refrigerator. This time she sipped slowly. The water stayed
down. She carried the bottle back to her desk.

She stared blankly at the manila folders standing
neatly in her upright file holder. With everything that had happened, she
hadn’t had time to come into the office and work on any of her customers’
files. Although she wasn’t sure that she could concentrate on them now, she
reached for the closest folder. She owed it to her customers to make sure their
applications were going smoothly.

Opening it, she blinked, confused. A printed sheet
of notes was stapled to the inside cover. Woody had gone through the file and
updated it.

She reached for another and found similar notes. One
by one, each of the files contained Woody’s precise notes. He had taken care of
all her customers.

She sat back in her chair and closed her eyes.

*
* *

When
she got home, the sun was still shining low on the horizon the way it does late
in a summer day. That was a trick of Daylight Savings Time to fool people into
believing it’s still mid-afternoon, even though evening had sneaked in. Rhetta
thought a better name for the spring and summer extended daylight hours would
be Daylight Wasting Time, since it always served to lull the unaware into
believing there was more of the day left than there actually was.

Rhetta showered, and then donned an old pair of
denim jeans and a faded T-shirt. Wandering into the kitchen, she opened the
refrigerator, searching for something to nibble on before heading back to the
hospital, even though she wasn’t hungry.

She’d brushed her teeth forcefully and rinsed her
mouth with a strong mouthwash in an attempt to rid herself of the tastes of
bile and death.

Earlier, after Woody had finished with his
customers, she finally had a chance to tell him about Peter. He collapsed in
the chair near her desk, his head beginning to glisten.

“What on earth is going on?” Withdrawing a
handkerchief from his pocket, he wiped his head. “I can’t believe there’s a
terrorist plot. That can’t be happening here.”

Rhetta massaged her temples in an effort to get rid
of the headache bubbling at each side of her head “Hakim Al-Serafi is dead.
Agent Cooper is dead. Peter is dead. Then Randolph has an accident that’s a
whole lot like Al-Serafi’s. What do
you
think is happening?”

Woody stood and began pacing. “This just can’t be a
terrorist plot. I’ve changed my mind. It’s either your imagination or it’s all
coincidence, or both.” He left her desk and charged for the door.

Rhetta was too stunned by Woody’s abrupt departure
to stop him. She sighed, locked the office, and went home.

The cats had assembled on the deck, and Rhetta could
hear their pathetic song of starvation. She fed them, gathered her purse,
phone, and keys, then headed to the garage.

In spite of Woody’s denial, Rhetta was convinced
that a plot of some sort, one involving the schematic wasn’t merely possible,
but had already begun to manifest itself.

CHAPTER
21