Mirrors (6 page)

“Almost.”

She glanced at a medical journal I held. “Are you a doctor?”

“Yes, a hematologist.”

“Where do you live?”

“Las Vegas.”

She moved on, but after dinner, while I stretched near the galley, she approached me.

“Your hands,” she said. “May I see them again?”

I lifted them.

She caressed both. “As I thought: You should have become a surgeon; they hold healing powers.”

She left to answer a call button, and I saw little of her the rest of the flight as she worked the forward cabin. Upon deplaning, I was excited to see her beside the exit. I asked her to step aside. “Does
Qantas
fly to Las Vegas?”

“No, Los Angeles is the closest we get.”

“Fine, then will you have dinner with me the next time you’re in Los Angeles? I’ll meet you here.”

She blushed but said nothing.

“Here, take my card,” I said. “Think about it.”

I joined the throng and left, but halfway up the walkway, I turned to catch her wave.

Two weeks later, we dined in Malibu. She told me that she, like I, had grown up in the country—in her case, on a horse ranch outside Brisbane—and while I had driven a tractor, she rode horses along the hills that rimmed the ranch. After several months of meeting in Los Angeles every other week, I visited her in Australia where we rode horses and drove along the Gold and Sunshine coasts east of Brisbane to visit her favorite surfing spots. I reciprocated by escorting her through national parks near Nevada—Zion, Grand Canyon, and Death Valley. Shortly after starting the final year of my hematology fellowship, I received a call from her saying she was pregnant. Rather than wait for her next trip to Los Angeles, I hopped a flight to Australia to see her.

“Yes,” she said at her apartment in Sydney when I offered her a ring. “After holding your hands on the plane the day I met you, I never wanted to let them go.”

The aroma of
fresh-brewed coffee filled the air, a fragrance that normally stirred my hunger, but food was the last thing I craved. In the corner of the room, Paul DeTrigger scurried about preparing sandwiches and beverages.

“Let’s take a five-minute break before Dr. Bjornstad speaks,” McCloskey announced from the head of the table.

Chairs pushed back. I went to Glenn Bird. “I’m serious, I can’t travel,” I whispered.

“I understand your dilemma, Krispix, but we need you to go to Ecuador.”

“But this is our first child; I gotta be here!”

“We’ve got people
dying
from XK59.”

“I understand, but it’s not just a baby we’re dealing with. Eve recently discovered a breast mass as well.”

“I’m sorry, but there are surgeons who can help her while you help your country.”

“Screw you, Bird!”

I turned to leave, but he grasped my arm.

“Watch it!” he murmured. “I can make your life hell.”

“You already have.”

“
Real
hell—so bad you’d wish you weren’t alive.” He drilled his eyes into mine. “Does Eve know about the back-taxes you owe the IRS for gambling profits?”

From the food table, McCloskey turned an eye on us.

I withdrew from Bird’s grasp. “I hold no secrets from Eve.”

“A happy couple.” He left for a bite to eat.

McCloskey, seated with a beer now, summoned us. As we sat, Sigrid Bjornstad remained standing at one end of the table, tall and sleek with a feline face that tapered from temples to jaw. Her eyes were icy cold, as if dug from a glacier with a melon scooper. In high school, we called girls with snow-white hair like hers “Scandinavian blondes.”

“We’re fortunate to have Dr. Bjornstad here,” McCloskey began. “As a former member of Sweden’s downhill ski team, she became interested in the psyche as she noticed teammates deal with fear differently. After medical school, she completed a residency in psychiatry and then practiced for years before taking a post at the International Court of Justice in The Hague. She specializes in evaluating war criminals—dictators, terrorists, warlords. There’s no one more qualified to profile the mastermind of the XK59 poisonings than she.” He raised a hand. “Dr. Bjornstad, the floor’s yours.”

She smiled wanly. “Mr. Chairman, members of the Task Force, and staff from the United Network to Interdict Terrorism, I begin with the premise that shrimp was deliberately poisoned with XK59. I say this because of the messages the victims received after they fell ill from XK59 poisoning. I’ll refer to these messages as ‘missives,’ and as you’ll see shortly, they’re little more than truncated, perplexing clauses. To understand who might commit a crime of this sort, we’ll review the messages he mailed to seven of the victims after they fell ill from XK59.”

“You’re assuming the perpetrator is a male,” Kosta observed.

“Indeed, I believe he is someone like Ted Kaczynski—the so-called Unabomber who sent explosives to 16 victims from the late seventies to the early nineties, a man who mailed letters to many of his victims and demanded that a major newspaper print his 35,000-word paper dubbed the
Unabomber Manifesto
. He got his way, but it cost him his cover because his younger brother recognized the writings and notified authorities. Kaczynski was apprehended shortly after that.”

She presented a slide. “So, the first missive …”

…your father’s cruelty.

“Sent to the software engineer in Seattle,” she added. “Any thoughts as to what it means?”

I shuddered.

“
You’re
the expert,” Shaker scoffed.

“God, Pete, don’t be a churl,” McCloskey snapped. He held a look of anger for Shaker even as Bjornstad resumed speaking.

“That’s alright, Mr. Chairman,” the psychiatrist purred. “The Congressman is right: You’re paying for my expertise, and I could simply tell you what I think, but I prefer an interactive approach.”

“I agree we’re dealing with a male,” Kosta said. “I can’t see a woman poisoning people willy-nilly.”

“Can you envision a woman drowning her kids in a bathtub?” DeTrigger asked, his tone animated as he folded a table cloth. “That’s happened, you realize!” Immediately, he blushed.

“Paul!” McCloskey lashed out. “Did someone ask you to speak?”

The aide retreated.

Kosta, inclined to indulge DeTrigger but unwilling to expend the effort to look at him, said: “I see your point, Paul, but drowning kids in a bathtub is a domestic affair. Here, we’re dealing with random strikes on society, the sort of thing loner males do.”

“But speak to the slide,” Bjornstad insisted. “What do the words tell us?”

Glenn Bird read the words aloud, “…
your father’s cruelty
. The guy was probably abused as a child.”

“By his father?” Bjornstad asked.

“Or another male.”

Bjornstad advanced the slide.

…of the lovely cheeks,

Beneath the table, I clenched each knee with all my might.

“Bird’s onto something,” Flagstaff proffered. “The perpetrator may have been sexually abused.”

“Why do you say that?” Bjornstad asked.

“ ‘Cheeks,’ ” Flagstaff replied. “As in buttocks.”

“A former altar boy!” Paul DeTrigger squeaked, coffee pot in-hand.

McCloskey: “We’ll handle this, Paul!”

DeTrigger left the room carrying a bag in each hand stacked with supplies.

“Good riddance,” McCloskey grumbled. To Bjornstad: “Please …”

She tapped the laptop …

But she, surrendering to
…

But she, surrendering to
…

“Why the duplication?” Kosta asked.

“Because, two victims received identical missives.”

“So much for the male theory,” Kosta lamented.

“Hold the thought,” Bjornstad advised. “Let’s review the next missive.”

…
Power and Strength,

“I can understand that one,” Bird said. “Someone who had been abused would attribute power and strength to the abuser.”

“And then unleash his anger on society?” Bjornstad proposed.

“
Plleaseeee
,” Shaker objected. “You’re making it sound so simple.”

Bjornstad pressed ahead. “And the final missives …

…
not that rich chimaera.

…
who lives under the earth,

The room fell silent.

“
Chimaera
,” Bjornstad said. “Note the spelling with ‘ae’ instead of just ‘e’, an older version of the word, it seems.” She paused. “And as we all know, a chimera is a mythological, fire-breathing monster commonly represented with a lion’s head, a goat’s body, and a serpent’s tail. In my view, the most telling missive because it opens a door to the perpetrator’s mind, an angry, hideous zone of conflicting emotions. As the chimera of Greek lore was known to breathe fire, so our man exhales fiery flames.”

“You presented six missives, one sent to two victims,” Shaker noted. “Did the remaining victims not receive any?”

“As of yet, no. So, I ask you to dwell on what you’ve seen so that we can discuss them later in more detail.” She took a seat.

Shaker’s expression suggested he had many questions. He launched one: “How could the perpetrator have identified the victims so readily?”

“Care to comment, Dr. Bird?” McCloskey asked.

“We’re dealing with a techie,” Bird replied, “a wizard who planted microchips in shrimp soft enough to go undetected yet sophisticated enough to transmit GPS signals upon contact with blood in the intestinal tract. We found the chips in leftover shrimp.”

Shaker raised his brows. “That seems far-fetched.”

“A lot of things about this outbreak seem far-fetched, but they are what they are.”

“And the missives,” Shaker continued, “how were they sent?”

“By U.S. mail addressed to
Current Resident
at the sites specified by GPS.”

McCloskey stirred. “Alright folks, the Task Force needs to huddle at this point.” He eyed Bird. “If you’ll give us a few moments …”

Bird led us out of the room at which point I approached Muñoz immediately. “Can I see that epidemic curve you displayed?”

He handed me a printed copy of the slide. I zeroed in on the name
Marinero, CA
above the solid bar indicating a death. “This was the one you called the ‘outlier,’ the one who didn’t eat shrimp?”

“Right,” Muñoz replied.

“Did he get a missive?”

“Yes—…
who lives under the earth,
”

My heart heaved.

“How old was he?”

“Thirty-three.”

“What did he do for a living?”

“He ran a surf shop.”

A stabbing pain pierced my belly.

“Was his name Danny Rogers?”

Muñoz glared at Bird. “Did you tell him? The names were to remain confidential!”

“I didn’t reveal any names!” Bird parried.

The hallway closed in on me. Turning, I raced down the corridor but stopped abruptly to vomit. I watched the contents ooze along a wall beside me. Slumping to the floor, I sobbed, “God! Why
Danny
?”

As a child,
six months is an eternity to keep a secret, but that’s how long I sequestered mine, hoping it would dissolve like a toxic granule. Even after sharing it with Danny Rogers, the memory haunted me for years and caused me to shun storage areas.

Shame kept me from divulging the torment to my mother and brother, and I had no father in whom to confide because he had abandoned us. That left Danny Rogers as my sole counselor, and it was he who implored me to tell our sixth grade teacher what had happened, the very woman who sent me on the ill-fated mission.

At the time, although I ranked as an average student, I held the honor of being my teacher’s go-to guy when it came to computer-related tasks. Among my jobs was setting up projectors for class presentations. The skills earned me the right to slip out periodically to help other teachers with their technical needs as well. It was a privilege I coveted.

So it was with the usual pride I felt one morning when my teacher asked me to retrieve a replacement light bulb for a projector. It meant journeying to an expansive stock room in the school’s basement, and to get there, I took a remote stairway that led to a long, dark hallway that opened into a cavernous space. It was dank and dimly lit with fluorescent bulbs sputtering intermittently.