New Year's Eve Murder (12 page)

“Okay,” said Lucy, taking a step backward.

“It’s been absolutely lovely getting to know you,” said Camilla, her sarcastic tone giving the lie to her words, “but I’m sure you know the makeover is officially over tonight. The magazine will no longer assume the cost of your hotel and I hope you have medical insurance because we are certainly not responsible for your daughter’s illness and hospitalization.” Camilla paused a moment, as if remembering something. “That’s right, you were the one who was so very interested in the ten-thousand-dollar prize, weren’t you?”

With all the worry over Elizabeth, Lucy had forgotten all about it. The prize, the makeover, it all seemed part of another life. Elizabeth’s illness had changed everything. But now that she was recovering, the money would sure come in handy. “Did we win?” she asked.

“Not in your dreams.”

Lucy felt as if she’d been slapped, and leaned against the wall. “Well, thanks for telling me,” she said, swallowing hard.

“No problem.” Camilla’s voice was silky and Lucy knew she wasn’t finished. “Have a nice day,” she purred.

L
ucy pressed the “end” button on her cell phone and leaned against the wall. Here she’d tried to help Camilla and all she’d gotten was a stinging rebuke. She felt as if she’d been slapped. So that’s what you got for trying to do the right thing, she thought. It was true what people said: “No good deed goes unpunished.” Her emotions in turmoil, she called home.

“What’s going on?” demanded Bill, picking up on the first ring. “How’s Elizabeth?”

“Better,” she said, quickly. “Much better. She’s sitting up, talking, and the wound is already starting to heal. She even asked for some food.”

He let out a big sign of relief. “That’s great.”

“I know.”

“So why don’t you sound happy?” he asked. “What’s going on?”

“I guess I’m just feeling overwhelmed,” said Lucy, hedging. She was terrified by the possibility that Elizabeth might have caught anthrax but she didn’t want to alarm Bill unnecessarily. It was a struggle to keep from saying the word. It was right there, on the tip of her tongue, and she had to keep it in while getting other words out. “I don’t know how long Elizabeth’s going to be in the hospital and I have to find someplace to stay, there’s all these expenses, we didn’t win the prize….”

“Hey, hey, hey,” said Bill. “Calm down. It’ll be okay.”

“What about the health insurance?”

“I’ll take care of it. You take care of Elizabeth, and yourself.”

“I’m okay,” said Lucy, biting her lip. “But I don’t know what I’m going to do after tonight. The magazine is kicking me out of the hotel.”

“What?”

“They say the makeover is over and they won’t pay for my room any longer. Like I don’t have enough to worry about.”

“Calm down, Lucy. Give Sam a call. I bet she’d love to have you stay with her.”

“I must be going crazy. I can’t believe I didn’t think of that.”

“It’s understandable. You’re upset. You’re away from home and you have a sick child. It’s very stressful. But everything’s going to be okay.”

“I hope so.” Something in the hall caught her eye. It was Dr. Marchetti, heading her way in green surgical scrubs and carrying a chart. “I’ve got to go. The doctor’s coming.”

“Keep me posted.”

“I will,” promised Lucy. She closed the phone and turned to meet the doctor.

“Mrs. Stone, I need to have a word with you,” he said.

Lucy’s heart gave a little jump in her chest.

“We can talk here,” he said, leading her to a small waiting area where the scarred coffee table was covered with well-thumbed magazines. He indicated a bright orange sectional sofa. “Have a seat.”

“Is everything all right?” she asked, nervously twisting her purse strap.

“Elizabeth’s doing very well and I expect she’ll make a full recovery. In fact, we’re going to move her out of ICU tomorrow, if her progress continues.” He paused and leaned forward, resting his elbows on his thighs. The move seemed intimate; the scrubs looked like pajamas to Lucy, and she could see his curly black chest hair sprouting at the V-neck.

She slid back in her seat, away from him. “That’s good, right?”

“Right. But the bad news is,” he paused, giving her time to prepare herself, “she has anthrax.”

It wasn’t as if she hadn’t been half expecting it, but the news was still devastating. She was suddenly cold and she could barely breathe, she felt as if she had to remind her heart to keep pumping.

Dr. Marchetti took her hand. “Are you all right, Mrs. Stone?”

Lucy struggled to put her thoughts into words. “I knew…I mean, I thought it might be anthrax…” She shook her head. “I still can’t believe it. It’s crazy.” Suddenly, it occurred to her that tests were often wrong. A false positive they called it. She locked eyes with him. “Are you sure, absolutely sure? Maybe it’s something else, like chicken pox.”

“We’re sure. When you told me about the woman at the magazine, Nadine Nelson, I checked with the medical examiner’s office and learned the cause of death was anthrax. We then tested Elizabeth for anthrax and got a positive result. But we caught it early and Elizabeth’s prognosis is excellent.” He looked down at the file in his hand. “Maybe I misunderstood you. Did you say you thought it might be anthrax?”

“A friend mentioned it. He did some Internet research for me.”

He slapped the file down on the coffee table. “And what did this friend tell you?”

“It’s a spore…there’s two kinds…” Lucy was aware she was babbling, avoiding her fear. “Is this some sort of terror attack?” she asked. “Are we all going to get sick?”

“It doesn’t look like it, at least not yet. But of course there are homeland security concerns and there will be an investigation. The FBI is going to want to talk to you and your daughter.”

“The FBI? But we haven’t done anything!”

“Of course not. I made that very clear to the investigators. But they do need to track down the source of the anthrax. We’ve been lucky so far, with only two cases. There doesn’t seem to be a widespread outbreak. Still, we have to be concerned. There could possibly be more deaths, if the source of the anthrax isn’t discovered.”

“But Elizabeth’s in the clear, right?”

He leveled his eyes at hers and took both her hands in his. “Listen, I learned long ago not to make promises in this business. There are no guarantees in medicine, too much can go wrong. But having said that, and bearing in mind that complications are always possible, I think it’s safe to say she’s out of the woods.”

“So how much longer will she have to stay in the hospital?”

The doctor studied the chart. “I’m afraid I don’t really know. We’ll just have to see what happens.”

“But you said….”

“I said there are no guarantees. We want to keep an eye on her. She’s on some serious medication and there could be side effects.” He paused. “Anthrax is very rare, you know, and we’re not that familiar with the disease itself. And then, there are some curious anomalies in your daughter’s case….”

“Anomalies?”

“Some unusual factors we haven’t seen before.”

Lucy felt like screaming. “Like what?”

“Nothing for you to be concerned about, honestly. Just variations from the usual course. Frankly, I would have expected her to be sicker.”

Relief flooded Lucy. “Oh. That’s good then, right?”

“We think so. But we want to be cautious.” He got to his feet and handed her a piece of paper. “This is a Cipro prescription for you. You’ve been exposed so you need to take it as a precautionary measure. Be sure to finish the bottle and take all the pills.”

Lucy sat on the couch, staring at the piece of paper in her hand, for a long while after the doctor had left. This was very scary. It wasn’t something she was reading about in the newspaper, it wasn’t taking place miles away, it wasn’t happening to somebody else. It was real life, her life. She folded the prescription and put it in her purse.

When she returned to Elizabeth’s room and saw how well she looked, she was reassured. Elizabeth was sitting up in bed eating from her dinner tray. The color had returned to her cheeks and her eyes were sparkling, probably because Lance was perched on the side of the bed. Giddy with relief, Lucy wrapped her arms around her and gave her a big hug.

“Mom! What’s the deal?” exclaimed Elizabeth, squirming out her mother’s embrace and spearing a chicken nugget.

“You’re going to be okay,” said Lucy. “I just talked to the doctor. But Lance was right. You have anthrax.”

“What’s that?” asked Elizabeth, spooning up some applesauce.

“Don’t you remember….” began Lance, eager to fill her in.

Lucy stopped him with a glance and a shake of the head. This was no time for a current affairs lesson. “How are you feeling?” she asked Elizabeth.

“Great! When can I leave?”

“I just talked with the doctor and he says you’ll probably have to stay for a while.”

“Why? I feel much better. Besides, I don’t want to spend another minute in this awful johnny!”

Lance laughed. “I think it’s kind of cute.”

Elizabeth scowled at him. “You would.”

Lucy was making a mental note to bring Elizabeth’s pajamas when there was a knock on the door and Fiona entered, clutching a bunch of pink and white Oriental lilies.

“I’m not dead,” protested Elizabeth, laughing.

“Those are different lilies, I think,” said Fiona. “I got these because they smell so nice.” She gave them to Elizabeth. “Take a sniff. Heavenly.”

“I can smell them from here,” said Lucy. “Lovely.” She got up. “I’ll go see if the nurse has a vase.”

When she returned Fiona was also perched on the bed, sitting at the foot, lighting a cigarette.

“You can’t smoke in here,” said Lucy, horrified. “It’s a hospital.”

“Really? You Yanks are too much.”

“It’s not a Yank thing, it’s a health thing.”

“You know, Americans wouldn’t be so fat if they smoked more,” said Fiona, putting her cigarettes back in her purse.

“I’ll tell the Surgeon General,” said Lance.

“It’s true,” insisted Fiona. “People are much thinner in Europe, much healthier, despite the fact they drink like fish and smoke like chimneys and eat all sorts of fatty foods like fish and chips and foie gras.”

“If you like it so much better there, why did you come here?” asked Lance, resentful of the intrusion.

“Oh, I like it here just fine,” said Fiona. “And I’d like to stay longer, but I don’t think that’s going to happen.”

“Why not?” asked Lucy, placing the last stem in the vase and setting it on the window sill, where Elizabeth could see them.

“I’m here on a work visa and when the job ends I’ve got to go.” She drummed her fingers nervously. “Is it true what they say? That Nadine had anthrax?”

Lucy stepped close to the bed and took Elizabeth’s hand. “You had a close call but you’re going to be fine.”

“Elizabeth, too?” asked Fiona, her eyes widening.

“That’s what the doctor says.”

“Well, I’ll be gob smacked,” said Fiona. “You mean Nadine didn’t have the flu, she had anthrax? And everybody at the magazine was exposed?”

“If a lot of people were exposed, they’d already be sick,” said Lance. “Of course, they’ll close the offices and bring in the hazmat crews and there’ll be a big investigation, but it’s really just bureaucrats covering their behinds.”

“But who would do such a thing?” asked Fiona, staring out the window. “Who would send anthrax to a fashion magazine? Why would they do it?”

They all fell silent, baffled by a new world order in which ideological and religious beliefs were used to justify violence and atrocities against innocent people going about their daily business. These days taking a train or airplane, sitting in a café, or riding a bus to work had suddenly become dangerous.

Lance finally broke the silence. “You know, I don’t think this is terrorism,” he said.

Fiona snapped her head around to look at him. “What do you mean?”

“Only two people have gotten sick, right?”

Fiona nodded. “Just Nadine and Elizabeth.”

“A lot more people would’ve gotten sick if it was really a terrorist attack on the magazine. And like you said, why would terrorists attack a fashion magazine, anyway? There’s lots of better targets, like the subway.”

“But if it’s not a terror attack, what could it be?” asked Elizabeth.

“Murder,” said Lucy.

“Murder!” Elizabeth’s eyes were huge. “Who’d want to murder me?”

“Nobody. But I can think of at least one person who wanted Nadine out of the way,” said Lucy, remembering Arnold’s pass at the AIDS gala.

“So, just for the sake of argument, let’s say somebody sent anthrax to Nadine, how could Elizabeth have come in contact with it?” asked Lance.

“However it was delivered, Nadine must have received a lot more than Elizabeth,” said Lucy.

“And she must have inhaled it,” said Lance. “The inhalation type is a lot more serious. Elizabeth probably only touched it, which is why she got the cutaneous type.”

“But what did she touch that Nadine also handled, but that other people didn’t?” asked Lucy.

Elizabeth looked thoughtful, going over her actions at the magazine. “The compact!” she exclaimed.

“That’s right! Nadine was powdering her face and she dropped the compact and Elizabeth picked it up,” said Lucy.

“That would fit,” said Lance. “If the anthrax spores were in the powder, they would have been released when she pressed the puff against her face and she would have inhaled them. When Elizabeth picked up the compact, some of the spores must have gotten on her hand.”

“Oh, I remember the compact.” Fiona’s mouth was a round O. “It came a week or two before she got sick. It was lovely, shaped like a pansy with enamel decoration. It just screamed ‘spring’ and everybody noticed it.”

“Where did it come from?” asked Lucy. “Was it a gift? Was there a tag?”

“I doubt it.” Fiona shrugged. “Stuff comes in all the time. New products, samples, gifts—there were boxes and boxes arriving everyday from cosmetics manufacturers hoping for a mention in the magazine.”