Rabid (45 page)

“You are under arrest for the murder of Conroy Robert Sloan.” They stood on either side of her. The spokesman handcuffed her right hand and continued reciting Miranda rights.

Denials and shock and dismay clogged Bev’s throat. “It was his heart,” she coughed out. “He had a heart attack.”

Dante said, “Wait, what are you doing?” He reached toward the handcuffing and speaking officer, and the cop flipped his arm over and slammed Dante against the wall next to the window, his forearm jammed under Dante’s chin.

The black cop’s mustached upper lip twitched, and he said, “Do not interfere with this arrest or I’ll arrest you for interfering in a lawful arrest. Do you want that?” His voice escalated. “Huh? Is that what you want? Do you want me to arrest you?”

The other cop clanged his flopping handcuffs on her numb pin-studded cast. “Harlem, he’s a priest, for Christ’s sake. Sorry, Father.” He slapped the handcuffs at the cast again, and they bounced off. Vibration speared Bev’s wrist. “These won’t fit.”

The cop backed off Dante, who rubbed his throat and glared.

“I can’t get her into the handcuffs.”

The officer stared at Bev’s pin cage. “Latch them around her upper arm and we’ll chain them together in back.”

“You don’t have to,” Bev said. “I won’t do anything.”

“I’m sorry, ma’am,” the Hispanic officer said. “It’s for your protection as much as ours.”

~~~~~

Chapter Sixteen

The Daily Hamiltonian:

Neuro Doc Passes Away

By Kirin Oberoi

Tuesday, February 16 – Prominent neurologist Dr. Conroy Robert Sloan, 53, was pronounced dead at UNHHC early Sunday morning, February 14, due to cardiac arrest. He was transported by ambulance from 51 Vita Place.

The hospital was not forthcoming with details about Dr. Sloan’s sudden death. The police were called to the townhouse and the hospital, though no reports are available. Police forensic technicians are at the townhouse but will not comment.

~~~~~

At the lab that morning, Leila typed a carefully worded email to Valerie Lindh, breaking the news of Conroy’s death and mentioning his off-book rabies experiments.

Leila delicately refreshed Dr. Lindh’s memory that the rabies virus was abundantly present in saliva and if Dr. Lindh had had any contact with Dr. Sloan’s saliva, say drinking from the same glass
or anything else,
she should be tested and begin vaccinations immediately.

Dr. Lindh replied a half hour later, thanking Leila and telling her that she had a doctor’s appointment within the hour and was culturing her own spit, just to make sure.

~~~~~

Bev tried to stand straight beside the lawyer at her arraignment, but the lock-up’s pharmacist had filled her prescription with something potent.

Her lawyer, the judge and the bailiff guy slurred their words like they had been drinking whisky and soda, and their voices rose and fell and rose and fell.

Her eyes burned.

Her arm, immobilized by pins and plaster, itched.

Her lawyer, recommended by Father Samual, was a silver-streaked blonde, a transplanted Californian. His teeth shone. His skin was cast bronze. His hands wove in the air like a pair of mated swans, preening and dipping over her head.

The lawyer elbowed her and she said, “Not guilty,” just like he’d coached her.

~~~~~

Afterward, as the lawyer hurried Bev to the bail bondsmen, Lydia and Mary, who had of course been to the hearing to support Bev, met each other’s confused eyes.

Mary asked, “Did she seem okay?”

“I’ve heard about lawyers handing out Valium,” Lydia said.

“Maybe she got oxycodone or something for her arm.”

Lydia shrugged. “Maybe she’ll share.”

“Liddy, you’re going to Hell.” Mary’s voice was dejected, and she said it out of habit.

“If that’s where the party is,” Lydia said and stood on her tired legs. The insomnia was taking its toll. Her husband had begged her to sleep, but Lydia had been too busy interpreting the insurance forms that Laura had dropped off, trying to get Bev some money to live on for the next couple of months until she was acquitted.

And, dear God and Jesus and Holy Virgin, Bev must be acquitted.

Lydia had been vetting the Sloans’ finances, trying to figure out how much Bev needed versus how much she had, and forty thousand dollars was missing from the Sloans’ joint accounts.

Mary stood beside Lydia and stretched. Mary had lain awake in bed because resting was almost as good as sleeping, or so she had told herself. She had arranged Conroy’s funeral at the church, four days hence, though she had been creeped out the whole time. She had also convinced the suave California lawyer to take Bev’s case, though he said he normally didn’t take hopeless causes.

Heath Sheldon already hated this case. The forensic evidence, what little there was so soon, was damning.

His client’s fingerprints were on the knife in the vic’s chest, yet it was the fingers from her broken arm that had printed the knife, which was odd. That arm was so crushed that she couldn’t have murdered anybody with it. That might work in favor of a battered spouse defense, but that defense hadn’t played well lately due to the feminist backlash demanding women extricate themselves from abusive relationships, and Beverly Sloan had no previous, suspicious hospital admissions.

The existence of her 9-1-1 call supported that she hadn’t tried to conceal a crime, but what she had said during the call, like not mentioning the knife sticking in her husband’s chest, was a torpedo barreling at any affirmative defense.

Her lack of memory was implausible, but her blood alcohol had been impressive.

Damn it. Heath didn’t have a toehold here. He was slipping.

Near the back of the courtroom, Kirin Oberoi scribbled quick notes in English and Punjabi on a yellow legal pad. Though the attorneys had spoken in dispassionate vernacular, she had heard titillating stuff.

This case could make her career. A murder this lurid might end up on LawTV. Probing articles questioning the institution of marriage and the Church and that growling pretty-boy priest who sat behind the alleged murderess could lead to prizes, maybe the Pulitzer, and a book deal.

She thumbed the wobbly keys on her cell phone as she ran outside into the brittle February sun.

~~~~~

That morning, Leila and the other lab mates donned papery suits and cleaned the lab. Joe had some paramedic hazmat training, they all had excellent aseptic technique, and they were all getting vaccinated anyway.

A two percent bleach solution will kill anything, so they used three percent, just to make sure.

It hadn’t taken long to dump all of Conroy’s cultures into a tub of strong bleach and wipe down all the stainless steel, impermeable black countertop, and tile.

Leila sprayed the fuck out of anywhere Conroy might conceivably have touched, the bastard.

She went through the liquid nitrogen logs and, again, found his goddamn cryptic entries. He even had rabies virus frozen down for future use. She pulled the canes out of the frosty tanks, found the vials, loosened their caps, and autoclaved those sons-of-bitches.

Let all of his damned research die in a Hell of live steam and chlorine gas. Let it all burn. Let it all rot.

The lab smelled like an over-chlorinated pool.

The animal center took care of the mice, humanely. Those guys were all getting vaccinated, too.

They had removed the biohaz tape and reopened the lab right after that. They didn’t want their own experiments to die. Their other experiments might conceivably save lives.

That afternoon, Leila pipetted twenty-five microliters, two dozen snowflakes worth, of lightly salted water onto a speck of DNA in a bullet tube, a plastic vessel the size of a .22-caliber bullet, and twiddled the tiny tube. With Conroy gone, she didn’t have to hide her side project, which wasn’t even dangerous.

Nothing like rabid mice, anyway.

Past the other counters and shelves, the lab door snicked open.

She ejected the yellow conical tip off the end of the pipetter into a jar filled with a jumble of pipetter tips and looked across the lab, through shelves laden with clear bottles of salt buffers and bright kit boxes.

The black specter of Monsignor Dante Petrocchi-Bianchi magnified in the buffer bottles like funhouse mirrors as he strode in and looked around.

Leila’s knees buckled. She sat on the floor behind the lab bench, still twiddling the tube.

The lab manager Joe wandered over to the priest. “Father Dante, are you lost?”

The priest said, “Hi, Joe. I’m looking for Leila Faris. She works here?”

From where Leila sat, the priest’s dark voice brimmed with undertones, viral in its malevolence. Her pulse hopped, and cheekbones felt windburned.

She appreciated that he had helped her when they had to tell Danna’s parents about the rabies, but she didn’t want to see him right now. She needed more time to deal with everything, Conroy’ death, Danna’s illness, having been alone with the priest in his car, everything.

“Yeah,” Joe said. A pause. “She was just here. Leila?”

Leila sneaked her hand up over the bench and pressed the DNA tube into an insulated bucket of ice. Moist cold slipped through her gloves to her fingertips.

Joe said, “She probably went for coffee. You could wait for her.”

Crap.
She slowly twisted the knob of the cupboard door below the whooshing radioactive fume hood and removed a liter bottle from the cabinet that smelled like overripe peaches. A cup or so of acetone swished in the bottom of the brown bottle.

“Joe!” she yelled. “Do we have any more reagent-grade acetone?”

“Oh, hey!” Joe turned. “Hey! There, you are. You have a visitor.”

“Oh? Had my head in the fume hood. We’re out of acetone, Joe. Could you do me a favor? I’m in the middle of a kinase assay.”

Joe frowned. “I thought you were cloning.”

Leila continued, “And I desperately need acetone to precipitate the protein. Biochem Stores closes in a half hour and I can’t leave this,” she gestured toward the ice bucket. “Could you get me some acetone? I’ll bring donuts tomorrow.”

“Jelly donuts?” Joe poked around in his desk drawer for the University Stores credit card.

“Sure. Raspberry.”

“Deal.” He chucked his chin at the priest and walked out of the lab.

Leila spun around and faced the priest. “What can I do for you?”

He glanced at her eyes, and his sclerae were bloodstained near his black irises. Bruising purpled the skin under his eyes. He said, “I need to know what you told the police.”