Rest in Pieces (22 page)

“Not that I know of, but we can check just to make sure.” Haley grinned. She was cussing, eye rolling, and being sarcastic. Our little girl was growing up to be a bitch just like her best friends.

“Bingo, I found the computer.” Monica called from the end of the hall. “Damn, I think it’s older than I am. I don’t understand. You have a second home on some Caribbean island that no one’s ever heard of, but is probably very expensive, and you own a piece of shit computer. Priorities, people.”

Haley and I followed the sound of her voice.

I walked into the study and I could feel my eyes almost bleed. “Holy crap…”

I just didn’t have any more words to describe the black and white block tile that, instead of being on the floor, covered the walls and ceiling. The floor was covered in blood red carpet. On the wall opposite the desk was a giant three–dimensional red dot—like a clown nose minus the clown. It had to be three feet across. I looked at Haley for an explanation.

“Don’t look at me. Wouldn’t you hate to see the clown that left his nose on the wall?” She pulled up a chair next to Monica.

I did the same.

“I’m pretty sure this iMac is first generation circa nineteen ninety–eight. So after forty–five minutes and it boots up, we can get started.” Monica shook her head like she couldn’t understand how someone would own this.

The login screen came up asking for a password.

Monica looked at Haley.

“I have no idea. Just hit return. Maybe they don’t have one.” Haley reached over Monica and hit return on the silver and white keyboard.

The computer thought about the command for a moment and then the main screen came up.

“See.” Haley pointed to it. “No password.”

“Wow. People continue to amaze me.” Monica handed me the list as she clicked on the Safari icon. “What’s the first name after yours?”

We all held our breath as she clicked on the WiFi icon. Three wireless networks showed up and none of them were password protected. She chose the one with the strongest signal.

I read, “Jonathan Swerling.”

After a full minute, Safari finally came up. Monica typed in “Jonathan Swerling” into the Google search window.

Safari thought about the request and thought about it and thought about it.

“We probably have faster processors in our smart phones than this old thing.” Monica tapped her fingers against the desk binding time.

Finally Safari pulled up and we got two million, six hundred and nine thousand hits. The first one was an obituary. She clicked on it. A few seconds later it finally opened up. “Jonathan Swerling, entrepreneur and philanthropist died unexpectedly in his home on Sunday of respiratory failure…”

“That’s
The Times
out of London.” Haley pointed to the upper right hand side of the story. “I wonder how Molly knew him.”

“This one’s a dead end. I guess we’re not going to find out how he knew Molly.” Monica laughed. Again, I was giving up laughing at my own jokes.

“The next name is Alicia Mangris–Fuentes.” I showed Monica the correct spelling of the last name.

She typed it in the Google search window. It came up with seven hundred thousand, two hundred and ninety–two hits. The first one was an obituary from the
Miami Herald
.

Monica clicked on it. “Cuban Rights Activist, Alicia Mangris–Fuentes was found dead in her South Beach home of apparent respiratory failure…”

“Both dying of respiratory failure? That’s weird…right?” Haley bit her bottom lip. “The leading cause of death in the U.S. is heart disease.”

“Let’s check another one.” Monica looked at me. “Who’s next?”

“Peter Flannery.” I watched as Monica typed in his name.

Four hundred thousand, sixteen hits came up. The first was an obituary from
The Plain Dealer
out of Cleveland. “Peter Flannery, age fifty–six, died Monday from respiratory distress…”

“This is officially spooky.” I looked at Haley and then Monica. “Respiratory distress?”

We ran through all of the names on the list, and every single one—all seventeen—except me—died of respiratory distress within the last two years.

The people were from all over the world, had very different jobs, but all had died from the very same thing.

Was I next?

Chapter 18

To say I was freaked out was an understatement. Why was I the only one on the list who was still alive? I’m not complaining—alive was a whole lot better than dead, but still…

I was on my way to pick up Max from school and then take him to soccer practice.

Was I the next one to die from respiratory failure? I took a deep breath. I didn’t feel like I was coming down with a nasty case of respiratory failure. Or was I? I fake coughed. Nope, I’m good.

But I was on the list. Why me? Had Molly stumbled onto some terrorist plot to kill random people by somehow inducing respiratory failure? What did I have to do with all of those names? I’m just not that important to anyone but my friends and family. And no, I’m not being modest, I’m the billing manager for a small hospital. In the grand scheme of things, I’m background noise. If I’d died in Pompeii, I wouldn’t have been one of the flash–fried cement corpse things, I’d have been the one trampled to death so that the person on top of me could be one of those flash–fried corpse things. Always in the right place at the wrong time.

I rubbed my right temple, where a headache of massive proportion was back building. As I pulled into the Bee Creek Elementary parking lot, I glanced at the clock. I still had ten minutes before school let out. I pulled out the printouts Monica had made of all of the people who had died.

One was a human rights activist, two were philanthropists, one was a Russian ballerina, one was a Catholic priest, and there was a plumber from Johannesburg. I flipped to the next sheet. There was a housewife whose husband and three children had been killed by a drunk driver, an oil company executive with no family, the Egyptian Undersecretary of Antiquities—no info about his family, and a New York City high school principal who had grandchildren.

I didn’t know these people and I certainly didn’t have anything in common with them. In fact, they didn’t seem to have anything in common with each other except for the way they died.

I’d never really thought of myself as a conspiracy theorist, but I was quickly leaning in that direction. Now that I really thought about it, an international conspiracy theory was the only thing that made sense. Had all of these people seen something they shouldn’t and been killed for it?

I didn’t recall having seen anything I shouldn’t, but I’d seen lots of things I regretted—hippos having sex on the discovery channel, leg warmers, the time I walked by the emergency room and saw a doctor removing a Wesson bottle from a man’s rectum, the movie
Glitter
, and chocolate–covered garbanzo beans. Some things you just can’t UNsee. And in all fairness, the garbanzo beans I didn’t see so much as taste, but each one was a new level of horrible.

Why would Molly have a cell phone with a list of dead people? Maybe it wasn’t hers, and she’d found it or was keeping it for a friend? If so, why would she keep it under her back porch? What was the deal with all of that money? Now I wished I’d let Molly pick up the tab every time she’d offered.

Maybe she’d stolen the phone and was using the names to blackmail someone? But who? And why?

The more I found out, the less I knew. There was no denying it, Molly was involved, but how? Had she stumbled onto some information that had gotten her killed or had she willingly participated in the deaths of these people? How did my name end up on that phone?

My questions were piling up like vodka bottles at a frat house. Besides Monica and Haley, I didn’t know who to trust. My house was bugged, my life was in danger, there was a fortune in money and gold hidden under a black tablecloth in the tackiest house I’d seen in my whole life, and the two men who’d suddenly popped into my life were probably involved—not with each other but with what had happened to Molly. My life was just plain craziness.

Not my best day…not my worst either.

This was a puzzle, and every new piece I found didn’t fit into place. I couldn’t help thinking that there was something I was missing…something obvious. Tonight, after Max went to bed, I planned to pull out the murder board and see if something new jumped out at me.

I checked my watch. It was two–forty–seven and parents were getting out of their cars to walk to the gym to pick up their kids. After I picked up Max, we’d have an hour before soccer practice, so a trip to the library for a little research sounded like a fantastic idea. I didn’t feel comfortable using my own computer, but I could search the Internet all I wanted in at the library. I’d written down the aliases Molly had used on her passport and wanted to find out more.

Twenty minutes later, I pulled the heavy door to the Lakeside library open for Max and followed him in. The library was small, but what it lacked in size, it more than made up for in amenities. A bank of state–of–the–art computers each had a private cubicle. An espresso machine complete with real heavy cream in an ice bucket stood ready to meet my caffeine needs. It sat right next to the librarian’s station. Of course there were rows and rows of books, but the library also had audio books on MP3 players and DVDs that could be checked out.

“Hey Max.” Carol Tatum, the librarian on duty, looked up from the book she was reading. Did I mention that not many Lakeside citizens frequent the library? Living in a wealthy town had its advantages. First, there was plenty of money to keep the library in espresso and second, every one of the ‘haves’ bought their books, because being seen checking anything out of the library was a sure sign that your tens of millions were dwindling down to a mere seven figures.

“Hello, Mrs. Tatum.” Max’s cheeks turned a nice shade of rosy. He had a little crush on Carol. He thought I didn’t know. It was so cute.

“I just got a brand new book on airplanes and thought you might like it. I’ve been saving it for you.” She rolled to the other side of her circular desk, leaned over, and pulled out a huge, hardbound book. She rolled back over to us and slid the book over to Max.

No wonder my son had a crush on her. In addition to being petite, blonde and curvy, she always managed to have a special book that she knew he would love.

“Thanks.” His gaze drank in both the book and Carol. He slid the book off of the counter and glanced at me. “Can I go sit in the chairs and read it?”

The chairs are what we’d always called the bank of overstuffed chocolate leather chairs next to the espresso maker.

“Sure, buddy.” I ruffled his hair as he walked passed me.

“Sorry, I don’t have that new
People Magazine
yet, but maybe tomorrow.” Did I mention how wonderful Carol is? She knows I love me some
People Magazine
so she had the library buy a subscription, because she knew I couldn’t afford it.

“That’s fine. I actually came to use the computers.” I knew that she had to turn on the Internet from her computer first.

She rolled over to her computer, typed furiously and then stopped. “Take number two.”

She gestured toward the computer cubicles. “The Internet is up and running for you.”

I made an espresso and headed to computer number two. I set my espresso down, pulled the printouts from my tote, and sat. I logged into the computer using the login and password taped to the top of the monitor, and pulled up the browser.

I typed in respiratory failure. Before I could come up with a viable conspiracy theory, I needed to know exactly what respiratory failure meant.

Eight million hits. This could take a while.

I clicked on the Wikipedia site first. It had a bunch of scientific mumbo–jumbo that involved chemical names for gases. I got crossed–eyed trying to figure it out so I clicked on Medline Plus—a service of the U.S. National Library of Medicine. It stated that respiratory failure happens when not enough oxygen gets to the brain or when the lungs can’t remove carbon dioxide out of the blood.

I clicked on causes. There were several: lung disease, conditions that affect the nerves and muscles that control breathing like spinal cord injuries, an injury to the chest that damages the tissue around the chest, drug or alcohol overdose, or inhaling harmful smoke or fumes.

Okay, so unless someone used lung diseases to commit murder, which seemed like an inefficient way to kill someone, as it would take a long time, that was out. Spinal cord injury maybe, but wouldn’t the death be attributed to the spinal cord injury? The same for the chest injury and the drug or alcohol overdose. The only thing left was the harmful smoke or fume inhalation. That didn’t seem like a very good way to kill someone because the murderer ran the risk of inhaling the fumes or smoke, too. Okay, say the killer wore a facemask or something that prevented the fumes from killing him—or her. When the killer forced the noxious fumes on the victim, wouldn’t there be burns or something around the nose, or wouldn’t the air around the victim leave some clue that they had inhaled something toxic? I didn’t really know but it seemed like a strong possibility.

There just seemed to be better ways to kill someone.

What about poisons?

I typed respiratory failure and poison into the Google search window.

Only three hundred thousand hits this time.

The first article was about pesticides causing respiratory failure in third world countries but according to the article, death wasn’t immediate. It took years worth of repeated exposure to kill.

The next article was about poison hemlock ingested by a toddler. He had abdominal pain and muscle weakness that resulted in the respiratory failure. It took hours though, and once he was intubated and could breathe, he was out of danger. It took twenty–four hours for the hemlock to work its way out of his system.

So maybe poison hemlock as a murder weapon?

I wrote that down.

There was an article on acute barium poisoning caused by barium salt, which is a heavy metal used in radiography. That seemed like something that would be really hard to get your hands on, unless, you’re a psychotic radiologist, which I guess is possible. After all, radiologists are locked in dark rooms all day looking at x–rays. That sure would make me psychotic, but then I don’t like dark rooms. Presumably radiologists do since they chose that profession. On the off chance Molly was blackmailing Dr. Haverman, our local radiologist, I wrote barium poisoning down on my list.