SIREN'S TEARS (ALTON RHODE MYSTERIES Book 3) (3 page)

She opened her case and removed its specially constructed false bottom, under which were 30 other vials, each resting securely in a niche in Styrofoam. Next to the vials was a small red water pistol. The false-bottom subterfuge wasn’t necessary this day, but might prove crucial at the border crossing. Practice never hurt. She had been planning for this day, which admittedly came earlier than she had hoped, for years. 

Working carefully, she removed the laboratory vials one-by-one and replaced them with their identical-looking counterparts from her attaché case, all bought from a medical supply company in Ontario. The colors of the liquid now in these new vials were the same as those of the originals, and the vials had the same markings.

Dr. Naulls knew that she could have just taken the originals and been done with it. But once she disappeared, the staff would undoubtedly break into the refrigerator. If they went to the trouble of testing what was in all the vials now in the cooler, they would find traces of the venoms and poisons she was known to work with, adulterated with some chemicals she had concocted using common ingredients available in any pharmacy. It would be assumed that the chemicals were reagents she was using in her experiments.

The liquids in the original vials were a different story. Some of them were highly toxic in their own right. But when mixed with special reagents, in proportions known only Mary Naulls, they were potentially among the most lethal concoctions on Earth.

She was almost done. There was one bit of unpleasantness. She removed one of the vials from the attaché case and poured a drop of liquid into a beaker. She then filled the beaker with distilled water, almost to the top. Then, taking another vial, she added another drop. The mixture in the beaker did not change color, but Mary knew that at the molecular level everything was altered. She reached into the attaché and brought out the small toy water pistol, filling it with some of the liquid from the beaker. She replaced the two vials she had just used and inserted the attaché’s false bottom, on top of which she put the water pistol.  

All told, she was in the lab only 30 minutes.

***

“That didn’t take long, Doc.”

Mary Naulls smiled at the guard by the front entrance. She liked Charlie. He was a nice old guy, always friendly, unlike some of the younger ones, who thought their rent-a-cop uniforms made them Rambos. One of them had even made a pass at her.

“I’m in a bit of a hurry.”

“Of course. I’m sure your Mom will be OK. I’ll say a novena for her.”

If she could have gotten in and out of the building without Charlie seeing her, she would have. But on weekends, when the place was usually deserted, all the other entries in the building were locked and alarmed. That was the only real security for the facility overall, something that initially surprised her in the post-9/11 world. True, the coded buzzers and retina scans offered some protection against intruders, but they were meant to discourage corporate piracy rather than terrorists. And Dr. Cruikshank, the facility’s director, told her that neither pirates nor terrorists were likely to bother with an obscure lab doing esoteric research “in the middle of nowhere.”

There were security cameras, but they were for show. None of them worked.   Of course, the lobby guards were supposed to check every bag and case that left the building. But they rarely did, especially if they knew the person who was leaving. Once in a blue moon a brown-nosing Rambo made a show of following protocol, even with Cruikshank. But he was soon straightened out by the older hands, who invariably pointed out that anyone who wanted to steal material could do it in miniscule batches over time. Nobody would be dumb enough to fill a briefcase or pocketbook with the stuff.

Mary put the attaché case on the guard’s counter and opened it. He smiled and winked at her.

“That’s OK, Doc. Have a safe trip.”

“I intend to,” Mary Naulls said. “That’s why I have to do this.”

She casually pulled out the water pistol, and covering her mouth and nose with her other hand just in case of a splatter, sprayed the surprised guard in the face. His initial reaction was to laugh, assuming that Dr. Naulls was playing a prank. His next reaction was to die. He toppled from his chair to the floor.

“Five seconds,” Mary, ever the scientist, murmured.

She didn’t check to see if he was really dead. The dose would have killed 20 Charlies. She leaned across the counter and ripped the top page from the yellow pad, which contained only her name and time of arrival. Then she recalled a recent crime show on TV and tore off another three pages. There would be no pressure imprints.

“Sorry Charlie,” she said, and left.

***

The water pistol was thrown into one of the many lakes Mary Naulls passed on her drive toward Ontario. Its deadly contents could not harm aquatic creatures, whose biology and neural pathways differed from mammals. Besides, the toxin was quickly diluted by millions of gallons of water.

An hour later in the Toronto Pearson International Airport, she purchased a ticket to Vancouver, which she promptly ripped up and deposited in a trash bin. Then, leaving her car in the long-term parking lot, she wheeled her one large Laco Sac suitcase to the express bus shuttle that took her downtown to Union Station, where, paying cash, she booked a train ticket for the next morning.

Then she walked across the street to Fairmont Royal York Hotel and, again paying cash and using a false driver’s license provided by a man in Toronto who specialized in such things, she took a room for the night. The police could eventually figure it all out, she reasoned, if they bothered. But by then, using the papers and background provided by the forger, she would have established her new identity. He certainly would never tell anyone about her. An addict, he had been happy to take part of his payments in some of the drugs she could provide from LexGen. Unfortunately for him, his last batch was laced with a little extra something from the lab refrigerator. With the needle still in his arm, the police chalked his death up to an overdose.

After lunch and a short nap in her hotel room, she went down to the Fairmont’s Business Center and, using one of the hotel’s computers, spend two hours transferring funds from local accounts offshore to select banks in the Caribbean. The offshore accounts were already well stocked, from years of precautionary financial planning on her part. Mary Naulls would never have to work a day in her life if she didn’t want to. She could live off the money and royalties she had earned for the drug and biological patents LexGen, as part of her employment contract, either bought from her or let her keep. The forger had been an expert. His work, and her variety of new names, passed scrutiny in all the islands she had visited to set up the accounts. The world lost a great artist when that man died, she believed.

Her financial future again secure, she went to the 5 PM mass at Toronto’s famous St. Michael’s Cathedral, built, she knew, in 1848. Then, after a light dinner in her room, Mary Naulls riffled through several fashion magazines, comparing various possible hair styles and colors for her next look. She nodded off with
Vogue
lying across her chest, and slept soundly the night through.

***

As the train pulled out of Union Station at 8:20 AM Monday morning, Mary permitted herself a few moments of contemplation. It wasn’t regret, since she never regretted anything she did and had a preternatural ability to move on, both physically and mentally. Considering her religiosity, some people might have found it strange that she never went to Confession. She didn’t see the need for the Sacrament of Reconciliation After all, she was doing God’s work. What did she have to confess?

But she knew she’d miss certain things about her life in Cashman. The easy access north to the beautiful resort area of Parry Sound, with its pristine lakes and endless forests. The lure of cosmopolitan Toronto, with Chinatown, the Distillery District and St. Lawrence Market. Most of all she’d miss the city’s huge Eaton Centre shopping mall, which had some of her favorite stores: Bench, Laco Sac, Melanie Lynn, Femme du Carrier. She’s spent many happy days eating a gelato under the famous “Flying Geese” sculpture that dominated the mall’s center court or sitting quietly in the lovely old Church of the Trinity, which was incorporated into the Centre. Anglican, to be sure, but certainly peaceful.

By the time Mary Naulls walked to the dining car, Canada and Toronto were in her mental rear view mirror.

After all, they couldn’t hold a candle next to her next home: New York City.

CHAPTER 2 – ILL WIND

New York City – November, 2012

I was almost certain someone was following me through the Staten Island Mall. I say almost because the mall was crowded and I was out of my element. I’m not a mall person and do much of my clothes shopping online, or at some family-owned stores in older neighborhoods where they know my name. There aren’t that many left on Staten Island, so I occasionally venture into Manhattan to shop with Alice Watts. Her taste in my clothes is better than mine.

But I had to quickly replace much of my basic wardrobe after Hurricane or Superstorm Sandy, or whatever the hell they called that meteorological malignancy, blew the South Shore of Staten Island to smithereens a week earlier. 

Not that the storm directly affected me. My part of the borough, on the North Shore, was virtually unscathed by Sandy. On St. Austins Place, where I lived in a 100-year-old side-hall colonial I’d inherited from my parents, no big trees came down, mainly because earlier storms eliminated many of the older and weaker ones. The neighborhood’s power was back on in 16 hours, a fact that I kept to myself when meeting people on the South Shore who were still hovering around street bonfires fueled by kindling from their shattered homes.

After Sandy left town, I fired up my outdoor gas grill and cooked up all the meat in my larder and boiled eggs in a pot of water. The smell of barbecuing meat attracted several animals, including a three-legged raccoon, two dogs and two cats, all of whom looked bedraggled, not surprising considering that wind speeds had topped out at 80 miles an hour and the rain had been horizontal. The raccoon had apparently lost one of its limbs long before Sandy and was obviously a tough hombre. The dogs were mutts and the cats were, well, cats. All looked hungry.

I was in the middle of cutting up some of the meat for them when Scar showed up. A big, almost feral, tomcat who adopts me whenever he feels like it, Scar didn’t look much worse than he usually does. His name, which I gave him, says it all. We have an understanding. I feed him and he ignores me. I have never petted him or even picked him up. I would bet Alex Rodriguez’s paycheck that he doesn’t purr, not that I will ever find out. I’d rather put a live grenade on my lap. His meow reminds me of fingernails on a blackboard, although to him it probably sounds like music to his one and a half ears.

Scar walked majestically through the other critters and climbed the stairs as if he owned my deck, which, I suppose, he does.  I could have sworn that the raccoon eyed him warily. It made me wonder about that missing leg.

I made Scar a plate and put it down in a corner of the deck. He rewarded me with his usual signs of affection. Which is to say, none. I then fixed up plates for the others. When I carried them down to the yard, far from Scar, the dogs and cats paired off and ate separately, which I sort of expected. It was like the U.S. Congress. That left the raccoon. I put his plate down by the garage and he waddled over and started eating. I looked around my yard. I had become a zookeeper. I didn’t bother putting out anything for the animals to drink. Standing water wasn’t going to be in short supply anywhere on Staten Island for days to come.

I wanted to leave before the wildebeest arrived, so I wrapped up the rest of the cooked food, and went through my pantry, grabbing everything edible or drinkable. Then I drove to Midland Beach, perhaps the hardest-hit community on the Island, which had the most storm fatalities in New York City, where I joined an army of volunteers trying to mitigate the unimaginable.

After giving the food to those I thought needed it most, I signed up with some ad hoc cleanup crews, which included people from all five boroughs and New Jersey, and even hundreds of runners who had come to New York for the canceled Marathon. It was dirty, often dangerous work, and I ruined every set of clothes I wore, rotating home every night to change. But I was glad to do it and seeing people come together like that restored a bit of my flagging faith in the human race. I even bumped into a couple of lawyers from the firm that owned the Stapleton building where my office is. And they weren’t trolling for liability or insurance cases.  

The only break in my routine came when I drove over to nearby Great Kills to see how Porgie Carmichael and his family made out. Porgie was a one-time and small-time hood who had risked his life by refusing to take mine when a psychopath mobster named Nando Carlucci ordered him to. For that, he was savagely beaten. I got Porgie a job in a marina, one of the legitimate businesses run by the Rahm crime family, with their promise that he would not have to do anything illegal for them. On Staten Island, where friendship and family ties outweigh standard, and often hypocritical, morality, such arrangements are commonplace. It can work both ways. I know a detective in the New Dorp Precinct who arranged to have a friend who had lost his job on Wall Street get a numbers job with a bookie they had both grown up with in West Brighton. Not surprisingly, the numbers business was a good fit.

A natural fisherman, Porgie soon bought his own boat and was doing quite well. Then Superstorm Sandy came along. When I got to Porgie’s house, only three blocks from the water, it was in the middle of what looked like a war zone. He was standing in his yard piling up ruined furniture, rugs, clothing, electronics and children’s toys. I immediately asked about his family.

“Angie and the kids left during the mandatory evacuation, Mr. Rhode.” I couldn’t get him to stop calling me that. “I stayed until the last minute at the marina securing boats. Not that it mattered.”

“Where’s your boat?”

It was, of course, named “Angie.”

Porgie smiled wearily and pointed up the block.

“My house is closer to the bay than my boat now.”

A black Humvee pulled up. It looked suspiciously like the military version and my instincts were confirmed when I saw a splash of camouflage peeking through the newer black paint around a side view mirror. Someone had been sloppy with a spray gun.

Arman Rahm and Maks Kalugin stepped out and walked over. Rahm, a darkly rakish, cultured man with an easy smile and murderous instincts, looked like he stepped straight out of an L.L. Bean catalogue: tan khaki pants with leg pockets, navy blue wool sweater over a red corduroy shirt and shearing-lined work boots. Everything was creased and new. Kalugin was also color coordinated, all in dark brown work clothes. As usual, he looked like a block of wood.

“I’m not sure that gas guzzler will go over big around here, Arman,” I said.

“When people see the blankets and food in the back, I doubt they will complain, Alton.”

“Worried about I.E.D.’s? That doesn’t look like a Hummer you can buy off the lot.”

“It does have some added refinements.” He smiled. “Let’s say it is Army surplus.”

I was fairly certain the Army was unaware this particular vehicle was “surplus.”

Rahm put his hand on Carmichael’s shoulder.

“How are you doing, Porgie? Family OK?”

“Yes, sir. They’re at my Mom’s. No power yet, but soon, they say.”

“Good. What about your house?”

“It’s going to need some work, but I think it’s sound.” He pointed at the rubble he’d been piling up. “Lost a lot of stuff on the first floor.”

Kalugin, who had walked into the house without invitation, presumably to do a quick inspection, now reappeared. He nodded to his boss.

“Good,” Arman said. “What your insurance doesn’t cover, I will. Same with the boat. I presume it’s a loss.”

  “Don’t know. You may have driven passed it on the way here. It’s in the front yard of that colonial at the corner of Hylan. I’m afraid the marina is a disaster.”

The Rahm family owned the marina.

“Serves us right,” Arman said, smiling. “Russians usually don’t have to worry about global warming. Historically, we spend much of our lives freezing our balls off. But we’re Americans now, so there you have it.”

He looked me up and down. I must have been a sight.

“Typical sartorial splendor, Alton. Volunteering?”

“Yeah. Midland Beach. They are in bad straits.”

“I know. We’ve made several trips. Got a truck with generators coming tomorrow morning. Some of them aren’t even stolen.” He turned back to Porgie. “You better stay close. Heard there are some looters. I’ll send men back with Kalugin to keep an eye on your block until the police get a handle on things.”

We all looked at Kalugin, who may have killed more people in Brooklyn and Staten Island than any hurricane. But at least they might have deserved it. The Rahms were known as prolific, but not indiscriminate, killers.

“No looters,” Kalugin said.

And there weren’t any. Arman Rahm was a bad guy, running a Russian mob with an iron fist. The fist being Maks Kalugin. But he spent as much time helping out the victims of Sandy as anyone. And got his hands dirty. By the end of the week he didn’t look so L. L. Beanish. One of us may have to kill the other some day, but I’m sure we won’t be happy about it.

On my last day, I brought the clothes on my back, and bags more. It was cold, and people needed them. By that time, Alice had been working at my side for several days, sleeping back at my place. Well, mostly sleeping. It’s an ill wind, etc.

Alice not only approved my decision to donate my clothes but helped me clean out my closets and drawers. A bit too enthusiastically, I thought. She even teased me with the suggestion that the storm victims might reject some of my threads. My trip to the mall was in partial revenge for that comment. Alice wouldn’t be caught dead in a mall.

***

But I thought I might, since I was now positive I was being followed. I wasn’t sure how I knew.  I’d like to say that my instincts were so honed by experience that detecting a tail or an observer was second nature, but that’s wishful thinking.  Yeah, I can spot a tail with the best of them, because I am one.  But this was different.

It was more an animal thing, that sixth sense thing many people have.  It dates back to prehistory, when the world was a very inhospitable place for hairy, semi-intelligent bipeds not far removed from the comparative safety of trees.  A lot of Neanderthals and Cro-Magnon’s were undoubtedly snacked on by saber-toothed tigers or cave bears, but I bet not too many of them were taken by surprise.  Most were outrun, or trapped in a gully, or maybe went down defending the Missus and the little cave brats, but they probably weren’t calmly walking down the trail with some 600-pound carnivore walking behind them.

  At some point, the hair on the back of their neck stood up and they knew – with absolute certainty – their day was about to be ruined unless they stepped lively.  I wonder what it is, this sixth sense a lot of us have.   Do things radiate a force that can be detected by the ultrasensitive? Or is it merely an acute awareness distilled from the input all our other senses are constantly gathering.  A polar bear can smell a seal 20 miles away, and smell is only atoms, or bits of matter.  And matter is energy in a different state, E=MC2 and all that.

In any event, I had a feeling. I looked around for a men’s room.  If somebody followed me into one, I’d at least narrow the field by 50%, even accounting for transvestites. It was Sunday and the mall was crowded, but I’d already eliminated the senior citizens getting in their exercise, women with strollers or toddlers, the old priest who was standing at a travel agency kiosk looking at guides (for Italy and Rome, what else?) and a million hyperactive teen-agers.

Of course, the men’s room ploy doesn’t always work.  And it didn’t this time. I wasted 20 minutes in the john before I began to feel foolish. A lot of men came in. Nobody paid me much attention, except a security guard who had been alerted by the cleaning man changing the paper towels that a pervert was watching everyone who came in to take a leak. I decided to leave before I was arrested.

When I came out, there was nobody suspicious lurking about, and I recognized no one in the crowd.  There wasn’t a polar bear in sight, and I had lost that feeling. So I went shopping. Maybe I had been wrong. I hoped I was. Because by the time I reached my car I was so overburdened with boxes and bags a Girl Scout with an attitude could have taken me out.