New Year's Eve Murder (23 page)

“Symbol of what?” asked Lucy, trying to make out the face behind the mask

“Operation Terra Mama. We’re warriors in the fight to reclaim the earth and restore the proper order of nature. Procreation. Woman power. Matriarchy.”

“Sounds good to me,” said Lucy. “Can I join?”

“Very funny,” scoffed Elise.

“I’m serious,” said Lucy. “I believe in all that stuff. Save the planet. Love your Mother. I recycle bottles and newspapers. I even take those awful plastic bags back to the supermarket.”

“What we’re doing here is a bit more serious.”

“I realize that,” said Lucy. “But since you’re holding me captive I think I deserve some sort of explanation. And where’s Geoff?”

“He’s fine, just like you,” said the robot voice. It sounded eerily familiar and this time, when she peered at the mask, Lucy recognized Fiona.

“Fiona!” she exclaimed, feeling betrayed. “I thought you were Elizabeth’s friend!”

“I am. Really I am. She wasn’t supposed to get sick. That was a mistake. But she’s going to be okay, right?”

“No thanks to you. She could have died, just like Nadine.”

“That was unavoidable,” said Elise. “We had to show Arnold that we meant what we said.”

“He’s building this big laboratory for NYU where they’re going to do all sorts of tests on animals. We sent letters and faxes and…”

“Numerous warnings,” interrupted Elise.

“All he had to do was stop the project, stop building the lab.”

“Typical man,” snorted Elise. “He wouldn’t take us seriously.”

“So we had to show him.”

“And Nadine was hardly blameless herself,” said Lucy. Their terrible logic was suddenly clear to her. “She wrote that article for
Jolie
saying how important animal testing is for developing new cosmetics.”

“I couldn’t believe that!” squeaked Fiona in her robot voice. “That was too much! Rabbits don’t want to wear mascara or lipstick, they don’t want to be squirted with perfume. It’s cruel and unnecessary. Why not use people to test these products? After all, they’re the ones who are going to use them. She even wore fur—she gave no thought at all to those poor little creatures who died so she could flaunt her wealth. How many for one coat? Dozens! She deserved to die.”

“Cosmetics are a form of submission to male domination,” said Elise, her voice oddly flat, as if she was repeating an argument she’d made many times. “Nadine subjected herself to male domination and she encouraged others to do the same thing.” Her tone changed, becoming waspish. “Like that Cathy Montgomery, turning herself into a walking advertisement for her husband’s wealth with her furs and jewels.”

“You certainly showed her,” said Lucy, remembering the incident outside the hotel. She was now convinced Fiona was one of the attackers, but who was the other? It certainly wasn’t Elise. “I bet she’ll think twice before she wears fur again.”

“That was a warning,” said Elise. “Next time it won’t be paint, it will be blood. Her blood.”

Lucy shivered, suddenly cold. Until now she’d thought they were mad as hatters, suffering some bizarre obsession or shared mania, but now she realized it was worse than that. They were evil, utterly evil, and would have no pity for anyone who posed a threat to their plans. She had to figure out a way to save herself and Geoff, but all she could think of at the moment was to keep them talking as long as she could. Maybe she could even convince them she was sympathetic to their cause, that she was on their team. Or perhaps convince Fiona to switch sides and help her. “This is quite a setup you’ve got here. Are we still on the island?”

“It’s an old bomb shelter. Elise is so clever, she found it,” said Fiona.

Even through the suit Lucy could hear the admiration in her voice. She was one of the faithful, and the job at the magazine was only a cover for her real work: terrorism. She’d do whatever Elise told her to do. And she was very good at it, Lucy realized. Lucy had never guessed. She’d even supplied Sidra’s phone number, which Fiona had promptly used to make terrifying threats. If they weren’t stopped, Norah would be next. And who else? Sidra? The other workers on the show? The audience? Lucy was convinced they’d stop at nothing. And it looked like she was nothing more than an inconvenient impediment they wouldn’t hesitate to remove. Determined not to reveal her fear, she struggled to make it sound as if she were impressed with their ingenuity. “Really! How did you ever find it?” she asked, hoping that Elise’s weak spot was flattery.

“I was over here a couple of times with Arnold and Nadine; he was giving tours to investors, that sort of thing. Then I came back in the summer, when they have the ferry and let people visit the island.” Elise chuckled; it was a horrible sound. “It wasn’t difficult to slip away on my own. If you’re a woman of a certain age and you dress in comfortable, practical clothes, you’re practically invisible.”

Lucy had heard this sentiment before, although it was usually a complaint. She fleetingly wondered about Elise’s sexuality and her relationship with Camilla. Had part of her motive for killing Nadine been to eliminate a rival for Camilla’s attention, if not her affection? “You really outsmarted them. And you found the anthrax here, too?”

“Anthrax here on the island?”

“I thought the government might have experimented….”

“No! There were never any anthrax experiments here, not that I know of, anyway.”

“So where did you get it?”

Elise’s eyes were cold. “You can get anything you want if you know the right people and you’re willing to pay.”

The plastic sheeting rustled and another figure in a shiny white hazmat suit entered the room and announced “Everything’s ready” in that spooky electronic voice. Lucy didn’t like the sound of this at all. Whatever was ready, she had a feeling wasn’t going to be good for her.

“Good,” said Elise. “Let’s go.”

Instinctively, Lucy strained against her bonds, but it was useless. They didn’t give an inch, not even a millimeter. Her heart raced as the hooded robot figures came forward, one on either side of the gurney, and began wheeling her through the plastic curtains that shrouded the door and out of the room. As she was rolled along Lucy struggled to identify the second figure, who she guessed must have been the other motorcycle attacker. The light was poor and she couldn’t make out the face until she was pushed through more plastic curtains into a brightly lit space where Geoff, still unconscious, was arranged on a similar gurney.

“Agent Christine!” exclaimed Lucy, remembering the supposed FBI agent’s dated Goodwill clothes, her plastic wallet, and her confusion about felonies and misdemeanors. “I knew there was something fishy about you.”

“Tape her mouth.” It was Elise’s voice, coming over some sort of intercom system. She hadn’t entered this area, and Lucy suspected it was because she wasn’t wearing a hazmat suit. There was apparently a greater chance that this area was contaminated. Belatedly, she wished she’d remembered to fill that Cipro prescription Dr. Marchetti gave her at the hospital. It was still in her purse, where she’d tucked it away and promptly forgotten it.

Her thoughts were interrupted when a piece of thick tape was slapped across her face, and she watched mutely as Geoff was wheeled up to a structure that looked like a small garden shed completely covered and sealed with plastic. A flexible metallic tube, like the duct from her clothes dryer, extended from the roof to a glass window through which Elise could be seen moving about. The shed appeared to be some sort of isolation chamber, and Lucy watched in horror as Elise gave a signal, the door was opened, and he was wheeled inside. It was an experiment of some sort and Geoff was a human guinea pig. Angrily, furiously, Lucy wanted to protest their twisted logic. They wouldn’t experiment on some stupid mouse—and living in the country, she knew all about mice—but they were willing to sacrifice a human being, a committed teacher, and a loving husband to their crazy plan.

Lucy wanted to give these conscienceless maniacs a piece of her mind, but she couldn’t, thanks to the tape. She twisted and thrashed as hard as she could; she couldn’t say words but she could produce moans and groans. She tried to make as much noise as she could. She might be at their mercy but she wasn’t going to go down without a fight. This was horrible. They were monsters and she knew she was next. Tears came to her eyes as she thought of the kids, of Bill, even the dog. She drew in a big breath through her nose and produced a high-pitched squeal. She made it as loud and as long as she could, again and again, until, to her amazement, the room was suddenly filled with black-clad SWAT team members in gas masks and armed with assault rifles.

One bent over her, peeling off the tape. “Boy, am I glad…” began Lucy, only to find herself once again mute as a protective gas mask was placed over her face.

H
ours later, after a frantic trip by ambulance and ferry to the hospital where she was thoroughly examined by a masked and robed medical team and intensely questioned by a couple of very serious and utterly genuine government agents, Lucy was finally released. She staggered out of the hospital, clutching a vial of Cipro that this time she was determined to remember to take, and hailed a taxi. Sam and Brad greeted her with hugs when she arrived early in the morning at their apartment.

“Boy, did you give us a scare!” exclaimed Sam. “Where were you?”

Too tired to talk, Lucy gave Brad the papers she’d been given and collapsed on her bed in the guest room. When she finally woke up, around one P.M. on New Year’s Eve, she was surprised to find Elizabeth sitting at Sam’s kitchen table.

“I’ve got a clean bill of health. They let me go early this morning.”

“It was more like they kicked her out,” said Sam. “They must have needed the bed for someone else. I got a phone call to come and pick her up.”

‘You should have gotten me up,” said Lucy. After years of motherhood she wore guilt like an old sweater. “I should have gone.”

“It was a pleasure,” said Sam. “It’s great to see our girl looking so healthy.”

It was true. Elizabeth did look good. She’d gained a pound or two in the hospital, and her cheeks were round and rosy.

“It’s sure good to be out of there,” said Elizabeth. “It makes you appreciate everyday things.” She took a long swallow of coffee. “This coffee is so good. And your apartment is so pretty and colorful, after all that hospital beige.”

“Is there more coffee?” Lucy asked. “I could sure use some.”

Sam was pouring when Brad returned. Lucy looked at him uneasily. “Am I going to jail?” she asked. “And what about Geoff and Lance?”

“Amazingly enough, you’re all heroes,” said Brad, joining them at the kitchen table. “It seems that the FBI has been watching Elise and company for some time but were never able to find the lab. It was thanks to you that they got the break they needed.”

Lucy took a long swallow of coffee. “The FBI was there all the time?”

“Yeah. They’d been concerned about Operation Terra Mama for some time. It’s an international feminist ecoterror group. They’ve been mainly active in England—apparently quite effectively. They managed to indefinitely halt construction of a lab at Oxford University by threatening the contractor and anybody else connected with it. It got so bad that truck drivers wouldn’t make deliveries, and taxis wouldn’t even go there for fear of retaliation.”

“So Fiona brought their tactics over here?”

“Fiona!” Elizabeth’s jaw dropped. “She was part of this?”

Lucy nodded and gave her daughter a hug.

“You bet. She’s wanted in England on a number of charges, including arson and murder.”

“She seemed like such a nice girl,” said Sam, who was standing at the counter, making sandwiches.

“It was the accent,” said Lucy. “It’ll fool you every time.”

“Elise was definitely the leader here,” continued Brad. “She first got acquainted with OTM when she was doing graduate work at Oxford. She laid low when she returned to the U.S., however, working quietly on building a network of contacts in the science community. She was very patient, getting herself hired at
Jolie
by her old friends and biding her time until an opportunity for action presented itself. Arnold actually took her out to Governors Island several times; he couldn’t have been more helpful.”

“Where did she get the anthrax in the first place?” asked Sam, setting a platter of sandwiches on the table.

“That’s the one thing she won’t talk about. She’s apparently determined to protect whoever it was. They’re checking out all her former colleagues, anyone she might have come into contact with as a scientist. Apparently there’s some similarity with the 2001 attack.” Brad looked thoughtful. “Maybe this will help them solve that, too. Anyway, at some point she decided to set up her own lab. That’s when Fiona—she has a doctorate in microbiology, you know—came over to help.”

Lucy and Elizabeth’s eyes met over the sandwiches.

“Fiona had a doctorate? I thought she went to beauty school,” said Elizabeth. “She sure had me fooled.”

Lucy took a bite of tuna salad on whole wheat and chewed thoughtfully. “How did they get back and forth to the island? We had an awful time in that boat.”

“They didn’t use a boat. This was really clever. They got official transit authority uniforms and used the Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel. Apparently there’s some sort of escape hatch in that ventilation tower on the island. They even used an official MTA van, and they had bicycles hidden on the island.”

“And the lab?” asked Lucy, talking with her mouth full. “Where exactly was that?”

“It was an old bomb shelter, left over from the cold war. They think Elise must have heard about it somehow and searched until she found it. She made regular weekend trips to the island all last summer on the public ferry.”

“This is so weird,” said Elizabeth. “Here everybody’s worried about Islamic militants but these Terra Mama people were homegrown. I mean, Elise is American and Fiona’s British. We’re supposed to be allies in the fight against terrorism.”

“They were driven by ideology, though,” said Sam, “just as much as the Islamists are. They didn’t hesitate to kill Nadine.”

Lucy shook her head. “I’m not so sure it was all ideology, at least on Elise’s part. A lot of it seemed like a grudge against men and women who liked men. I think Fiona was the idealogue. She said she felt badly about Elizabeth getting sick, but it didn’t stop her. She thought it was perfectly okay to use me and Geoff as human guinea pigs. It’s twisted. Like animals are worth more than people.”

“Well, animals are innocent,” said Brad. “Only humans cause harm deliberately. It’s like those signs in the zoo that identify the most dangerous species in the world.”

“Tigers?” guessed Elizabeth.

“Nope. People like us, you and me. The sign has a mirror instead of a picture.”

“That’s why we have forgiveness,” said Sam. “Like the Bible says, faith and hope are important, but charity, love, forgiveness—whatever you call it, it’s all the same thing—is the most important. Without love, we have nothing.”

They sat silently, pondering this important truth, when Lucy’s cell phone began to ring. She expected to hear Bill’s voice but instead heard Ed Reidel’s gruff New York accent. The
New York Tattler
editor had a proposition for her.

“The FBI’s announcing a big arrest in this anthrax case,” he said. “You wouldn’t know anything about it, would you?”

Lucy perked right up. “Boy, have I got a story for you. I was held captive in an underground anthrax lab by a mad feminist scientist.”

She figured he’d laugh it off. After all, she’d lived through it and she still could hardly believe it. But Ed didn’t bat an eyelash.

“Cool,” he said. “Can you write a first-person account?”

“Sure,” said Lucy. “What will you pay?”

There was a pause. Finally, he said, “One hundred.”

Lucy’s heart sank. So much for the six figures she’d been promised. “This story is worth a lot more than a hundred. Why, even back home I can get at least two from my editor.”

“A hundred fifty,” he said, with a big sigh. “One hundred fifty thousand, but not a penny more. And it better be worth it.”

Lucy’s jaw dropped and she swallowed hard. “It will be,” she finally said. “I’ll get right to work.”

She put the phone down and, after taking a few deep breaths, asked Sam if she could use her computer. “The
Tattler
is going to give me one hundred fifty thousand dollars for my story, but I’ve got to do it right now. He wants it yesterday.”

All of a sudden everyone was jumping up and down and hugging her, and Elizabeth was actually crying. “This means I can go back to school, right?”

“Absolutely,” said Lucy. “And Sara and Zoe, too. And maybe even Toby, if he wants to try again.”

“What about you?” asked Sam. “Don’t you want anything for yourself?”

Lucy smiled, considering the possibilities. “Maybe I’ll finally get to take that trip to Europe.”

“You should.”

“We’ll see,” said Lucy. “First things first. There’s no sense counting my chickens until they’re hatched. I’ve got to write the darn thing and see if Ed likes it before I start spending the money.”

Elizabeth and Brad exchanged a nervous glance.

“Right now?” asked Sam. “It’s New Year’s Eve and you’re in New York. Don’t you want to see the ball drop for real?”

“Yeah, Mom,” added Elizabeth. “This might be the only chance I get.”

“Well, that’s not until midnight. I’ve got hours, right?”

“People start gathering early, to get the best spots,” said Sam. “We usually leave around now.”

“You go. I’ll work on my story and watch it on TV. Maybe I’ll see you.”

“No, that’s all right,” said Sam. “We’ll wait for you.”

When they left the apartment around ten o’clock by the lobster watch, Lucy still wasn’t convinced the expedition was a good idea, given Elizabeth’s recent illness. Furthermore, she was worried because she hadn’t been able to reach Bill on her cell phone, although she’d called home several times. There was no answer, just the machine, which puzzled her. Where could they all be? Why weren’t they home, getting ready to greet the new year?

The subway wasn’t very crowded but when they emerged at Times Square they immediately found themselves part of an enormous, boisterous crowd. Everyone was in good spirits, and the weather was perfect: a lovely, clear night with the temperature hovering at a mild forty degrees.

“Where shall we stand? We want a clear view of the ball.”

“Let’s go over by the TKTS booth up at Forty-seventh Street,” suggested Brad, winking at Sam. “That’s our favorite spot.”

He pointed it out and they began making their way through the throng that packed the entire area, which on an ordinary day would be filled with cars and trucks and taxis. The amazing neon display of colorful lights blinked all around them; enormous billboards advertising everything from underwear to the NASDAQ exchange to perennial Broadway shows like
The Phantom of the Opera
and
A Christmas Carol
.

“That’s MTV,” said Elizabeth, pointing to an upper-story window where a curvaceous girl in a low-cut tank top and a wisp of a skirt was interviewing a rap group of four young men covered head to foot in oversized clothing. The crowd gathered beneath the window was watching raptly, and young girls were screaming in rapture at seeing their idols up close.

“They’re broadcasting right now?”

“Yeah.”

“Wow. We’re really here in the center of things. Everybody, all over the country, is watching and we’re right here.” Lucy felt as if a veil was being lifted; she just hadn’t made the connection. “Wow, this is really cool.”

Elizabeth managed not to roll her eyes. “Right, Mom.”

It took them a long time to make their way through the crowd to the little island where the TKTS booth stood, and Lucy couldn’t quite figure out why it was so important to get to the statue of George M. Cohan, which Brad insisted was their destination. You could clearly see the Times building, with the huge, illuminated ball poised to fall, from anywhere in the entire square. Lucy felt it was a bit rude to keep pushing through the crowd, but people didn’t seem to mind. Many were wearing party hats and paper leis, some were holding signs for the TV cameras, and just about everyone had some sort of noisemaker. They laughed and held their breath and joked about resolving to lose weight as their group squeezed past.

Finally, with moments to spare, Lucy felt a strong hand grab her arm and haul her over the curb and onto the TKTS island. She turned to thank the man who’d assisted her and saw Bill’s beaming, bearded face. The whole family was ranged around him: Sara, Zoe, Toby, and Molly, too. And Lance. She couldn’t believe her eyes. “What are you all doing here?” she stammered.

“We came for New Year’s.”

“Norah bought us all plane tickets and Lance met us at the airport.”

“To surprise you!”

“To make sure you start the year off right.” She found herself engulfed in Bill’s arms as he bent to kiss her. The crowd roared as the ball began its descent.

“Happy New Year,” she whispered. “I have a feeling it’s going to be very prosperous.”