The Protocol: A Prescription to Die (14 page)

Chapter 35

“Senator Washbourne, thanks for taking my call on such short notice,” Barbara said to the man on the phone. She put her phone down on the desk and pressed the speaker button. She hated holding it to her ear. Senator Washbourne was the man who pulled the parliamentary strings, and helped guide the healthcare law though the corridors of Congress and ultimately all of the way onto the President’s desk. It reached the President not because the votes were there, they weren’t. It was sent to the Oval Office using a procedure typically used for non-controversial issues: deem and pass. Once the President signed the bill, the United States had a new law more than two thousand pages long that absolutely no one completely understood and virtually no one had read.

“Hello, Barbara. How’s life in Minnesota?” replied the deep-voiced man with a slight southern accent.

“It’s a boil on gnat’s ass, Senator. But this is where we decided to start.”

“What can I do for you?”

“I need your help with a potential problem.”

There was no reply. She could still hear him breathing, ice clinking in a glass, and something being poured. A woman’s voice in the background was urging him to get off of the phone.

“Senator?”

“What exactly are you requesting?”

“Surveillance as a start. Then perhaps persuasion if it comes to that.”

“Who?”

Barbara outlined what she’d learned about Teague. She wanted someone close up. To watch his every move, and report directly to her.

“Expect a call,” he said.

“Thank you, Senator. It’s been . . . ,“ Barbara stopped in mid-sentence. She was talking to air. The Senator had already hung up.

“Fucking asshole,” she said as she ended the call on her side.

She wasn’t finished.

She was far from it, as a matter of fact.

In her college psych coursework, she’d learned that the best way to observe people is to put them in uncomfortable situations. To cause pain, discomfort, and uncertainty. Now she had to inflict some pain to see how Teague reacted. She clicked on her phone’s contacts app, scrolled until she found the person she needed, and pressed “Dial.” She feared that her call would go to voicemail but after five rings, it was finally answered.

“Internal Revenue Service. Agent Kaplin. ID 546583. How can I help you?”

“Kaplin. Nordstrom. I need you to freeze some accounts for me.”

Barbara smiled at her reflection on the laptop’s screen.

It was nice having power.

Chapter 36

Eat watched as Andy opened the door to the coffee shop and looked around. He wasn’t sitting at their regular table, so she hadn’t spotted him yet. She had her sunglasses on, and looked like an actress coming in for her glamour shot. All she needed was a breeze to blow her skirt up, and she could have been a brunette Marilyn Monroe.

Except Andy didn’t wear skirts.

She wouldn’t be caught dead in one.

“And, over here,” yelled Eat from across the wooden-planked floor.

“Hi Andy! The regular?” asked the barista as Andy walked by the register.

“Hey Rachel. Yup. Large caramel mocha latte, extra shot, skim,” said Andy as she confirmed her order in as few words as needed. “And a blueberry muffin. One of those low fat ones.”

“You got it.”

“Eat. Need another quad?” Rachel asked.

Eat looked at his large cup sitting in front of him. It was already half empty. This was his third quad latte of the day, and he was sure he’d be shaking in bed, unable to sleep. It wouldn’t be the first time, and he was sure it wouldn’t be the last. He ultimately succumbed to what he felt was one of life’s small treasures.

“Sure. And I’ll take a muffin too but don’t worry about the low fatness of it,” he said with a slight tease aimed at Andy. She was always worried about her waistline. He could eat ten bags of M&Ms, five gallons of ice cream, and two bags of potato chips without gaining an ounce.

She hated him for that.

“So, Handsome, how are you today,” she asked as she kissed Eat.

“Still need oxygen on a regular basis, so I guess that’s a good sign,” replied Eat as returned her kiss. “So what do you have for me that made you call this secret meeting?”

Andy sat down with gusto and exhaled as if she’d run five miles to get to the coffee shop instead of having taken the elevator from the parking garage. She pulled a folder from her briefcase.

“Do you remember the day you came to my lab, and your dad’s foot was there?”

“Like it was yesterday.”

“Do you remember why I had to leave?”

“You said something about a body being found. Why?”

“Good memory. But it wasn’t a whole body. Just parts found in a dumpster,” she said as she opened the folder. “I’ve been doing the analysis on the tissue we found.”

“Tissue? Doesn’t sound like much.”

“It was an arm cut from the shoulder, and part of a thigh. We call that tissue. In this case, size doesn’t matter.”

Eat smiled then swallowed. He was hoping that she wasn’t about to tell him that these were more parts of his father. Evidently, the look on his face was a preemptive warning to Andy.

“Don’t worry. It’s not your father. These are from a woman. 65-70 years old. Caucasian.”

“Do you know who?”

“Not at this time. We ran the fingerprints but nothing came up. She was probably never fingerprinted. If she ever committed a felony, she got away with it.”

Eat was already designing a potential analytical solution to Andy’s quandary when they were interrupted by the barista.

“Here’s your drink Andy, and your muffin. Eat, here’s yours. The only non low-fat muffin was banana. Hope that’s ok. I heated it for you. And here’s some butter,” she said as she placed everything on the table.

“Yum. One of my favorites, Rachel,” said Eat. “Thanks. What’s the damage?”

“Eleven fifty.”

Eat handed her a ten and a five.

“Be right back with the change.”

“We’re good,” Eat said. Eat returned his attention to Andy. “I’m sure I could cross reference the obits to any stats you can give me. Might narrow things down.”

Eat always knew exactly what she needed. He knew that she could have done the analysis manually, but it would take days. He would have it done in a matter of hours, if not minutes, with Mother’s help.

“That would be wonderful,” she said with a toothy smile. “But that’s not all. Take a look.”

Andy pulled the folder closer to the center of the table and opened it. The top page was one he recognized. It was his father’s tox screen results.

“Remember this?”

“How can I forget?”

“Now look at this,” she said as she moved his father’s results off of the top only to show what appeared to be a copy on the page below it.

“A copy? You’ve already shown them to me.”

“That’s it. It’s not a copy. The second page is from the woman’s tissue. Her tox screen is virtually identical to your father’s. She also had lethal amounts of succinic acid in her system,” Andy took a pen and circled the charted peaks on both pieces of paper.

They were identical.

Chapter 37

A man sat at the adjacent table. He had the Wall Street Journal opened and covered his face. The cup of coffee he’d ordered and paid for, sat untouched yet still steaming, at the corner of the table.

Without studying him, anyone would think he was just reading the paper. He was a professional guy in a Brook’s Brothers suit, minding his own business. Except that he wasn’t here to read the paper or drink the coffee. He’d been sent here to observe and report. Specifically to observe and report on the couple sitting across from him.

And that’s what he was doing as he typed the words, “succinic acid” on his phone, and pressed send.

He looked at his Rolex watch, pushed back his chair, folded the paper, and headed towards the door. It was time for him to go. The man and woman had left moments ago.

“Sir, you forgot your coffee,” warned Rachel as he headed for the door.

“Oh. Thank you,” he said as he walked back to grab his cup. “Forgot I had a meeting to get to,” he said as he walked outside.

*

Mother had indeed worked quickly. Eat outlined the results to Andy.

“Ruth Ann Baxter. 67. Died of a heart attack on March 3
rd
. Cremated at Gordon, Leake, and Bluthe on March 6
th
. Insured by Aequalis Health Services. Mother of four. Grandmother of fifteen. Great grandmother of three. Husband, Arthur, died in 1998.”

“This is the best fit? How sure are you?” asked Andy.

Eat looked at her; astonished that she could even consider uttering those words.

“Mother and I don’t make mistakes,” he replied in monotone and looked directly at Andy. He didn’t blink. When it came to his prowess with computers, databases, and programming, Eat’s ego surpassed all others. It was the only area in which he was absolutely sure of himself. He was even more confident in Mother’s abilities.

She was emotionless.

She didn’t make mistakes unless she was given bad information.

Andy raised her arms up in mock surrender.

“Ok! I was just making sure. Chill. I suppose now she won’t turn on the TV for me?”

To further prove his point, Eat asked Mother.

“Mother?”

“Yes, Eat,” came the reply over the surround sound system.

“Was there another possibility regarding the analysis we worked on?”

“Yes.”

“Report please.”

“Gretchen Maxwell. 68. Died on March 4
th
due to complications of lung cancer. Cremated at Gordon, Leake, and Bluthe on March 7
th
. Insured by Aequalis Health Services.”

“Thank you.”

“She sounds like a possibility. Why was she excluded?”

“Mother. Why was Gretchen Maxwell excluded?”

“Gretchen Maxwell was African American.”

Eat turned back to Andy.

“We don’t make mistakes,” he said with a smile.

“Sometimes you two are impossible. You know that?”

“I try,” said Eat. “
We
try,” he corrected himself. “She’ll turn on the TV. Just say please when you do. She’s temperamental.”

“Temperamental my ass. I’ll figure out how to format her hard drive someday. Then we’ll see who can turn the television on.”

“She doesn’t have a hard drive. That’s so, how do I say it? Twentieth century.”

*

The man parked his car below Eat’s loft, and could see the shadows of the people inside. If the information he had been provided was correct, the figures belonged to Evan Teague and Andrea McCorkendale, the two people he was tasked to keep an eye on. After the meeting at the coffee shop, the woman had returned to her lab, while the man had left and spent the rest of the afternoon at an assisted living center visiting an old woman.

He looked back at his notes.

Betty Lou Teague.

The subject’s mother.

The man glanced at his face in the mirror and grimaced. He hadn’t had time to shave yet today, and the bags under his eyes were big enough to fit an entire wardrobe. He had a reservation at a downtown hotel, and couldn’t wait to get checked in and into a hot shower. Although he’d flown first class, being on an airplane most of the day, and losing two hours on top of everything else, made things worse.

He was tired, but he still had to report in. He looked at his watch. It was 8:50 pm. He was supposed to make his call at 10:00 Eastern, and that meant 9:00 Central.

It was close enough for government work.

And he guessed that this fit the definition, given who his employer was.

The man picked up his phone, swiped the screen to activate it, and dialed the number he’d been given.

“It’s me,” he said when the phone was answered on the first ring.

Chapter 38

“What are you doing,” asked Andy as she was watching Eat tinker with some odd looking gadgets.

“This is neat stuff.”

“You look like a little boy on Christmas morning with a brand new chemistry set trying to decide how to blow-up his new Tonka truck. You’re just too damn cute for your own good, Evan Teague.”

Eat blew her a kiss.

“Like I said, this stuff is pretty neat.”

“Neat? I didn’t know that was still a word.”

“Nifty?”

“I like neat better. Rhymes with Eat.”

“Would you put this in the kitchen? By the fridge,” he said as he handed her a tall can that resembled an energy drink.

“This is kinda heavy,” she said as she shook it back and forth expecting to hear a slosh.

“Don’t shake it! You’ll break it.”

Andy grimaced at her faux pas.

“Oops. Will it explode or something?”

She walked into the kitchen and put the can right by the Sub Zero refrigerator.

“Ok. I put your can down.”

“Move it a bit to the left, please.”

Andy scooted the can over.

“Perfect. Now come here. Catch this.”

Andy walked back to the table where Eat was sitting with his laptop.

“It’s a camera. I can see everything. A complete 360-degree view.”

Andy looked at the laptop’s screen and saw a panoramic view of the loft.

“You’re right. Neat!”

Eat smiled.

“Watch this,” he put his finger on the touch pad and moved his finger. The image on the screen panned and zoomed in and mimicked the motion of his finger. What once was an image of the entire kitchen was now just an image of the range’s Wolfe logo.

“Mother.”

“Yes, Eat.”

“Display laptop video source on the television.”

Instantly, the image on his laptop was shown on the 80 inch, LED television.

“Neat?”

Andy nodded.

“Really neat.”

“I’m going to put these in a few special places.”

“What’s this?”

“That’s another neat little box. It’s a data grabber. It collects electronic transmissions, and then sends them to a receiver. In this case, me.”

The look on Andy’s face told Eat that she wasn’t following.

“I attach it to a cable hub. You know, those little green boxes on the sides of buildings?”

Andy nodded.

“When all of the wires are connected, my little box grabs data going in to, and out of, the building. If an email is sent, I get it. If someone receives an email, I get it. This little box tells me everything that goes on through the Internet at that location.”

“Is that legal?”

Eat bumped up his parenthetical eyebrows.

“The trick is not getting caught.”

“Ah. I get it.”

*

The man drove down Hennepin Avenue. He could see the hotel tower that was home to his mattress directly ahead of him. He had one last thing to do before crawling under the blankets.

He pressed the hands-free button on his phone that sent the call through the car’s speakers. He had been instructed to be in constant communication with his local contact.

“Dial Nordstrom.”

After three rings, the call was answered. “You’re late. I was expecting your call fifteen minutes ago.”

Without a shred of emotion or excuse, the man provided a summary of his day trailing his subjects.

“That’s not much,” she said. “I could have done that in my sleep. One of my guys here could have done that.”

“It was a short day. I will be following the man tomorrow and taking pictures. Today was preliminaries.”

“I expect more tomorrow. If not, I’ll be calling the Senator.”

The man heard the click as she ended the call.

“Fucking bitch.”

The Senator was right.

*

Andy was still enthralled with the gadgets.

“So where are you going to put them?”

Eat was packaging sets of his toys along with wires, batteries, and cables. Each package contained a camera can and a data grabber.

“Definitely the funeral home’s processing center.”

Andy sipped from a glass of Chianti and nodded in agreement. She held the glass in her left and the bottle in her right.

“I don’t think anything goes on at the funeral home. The processing facility is the hub of activity, and if they get an email from the home, so will I. It’s where the bodies are taken, and where they are evidently exchanged for concrete mix and chicken bones.”

“Want some?” she asked as she poured herself more wine.

“You’ll just take advantage of me if I do. You know I can’t hold my liquor.”

“Is that a bad thing?” she said with an evil smile as she walked back into the kitchen. “Can you zoom into these?”

“Whoa! Shit!” Eat looked up and saw the television monitor. “Mother, close the blinds.”

“Oh. So that’s what you think of my girls? Let’s see if you have access to them anytime soon.”

Eat laughed. His face beet red.

“No. Your girls are wonderful. Help me out here. Where else? I’m thinking of my mother’s apartment.”

Andy turned around and an image of her bare backside appeared on the large television monitor. She pursed her lips in a pout.

Eat wasn’t paying attention.

“Why there?”

“I just don’t have a good feeling. I want to see what goes on there when things are quiet. That mole on your left cheek looks cute.”

“So you are paying attention!”

Eat was grinning from ear to ear as he admired the eighty-inch butt on the television screen.

Andy walked over to where Eat was sitting and poured Eat a glass of wine. She filled it to the brim.

“Whoa!”

Andy licked the top of her glass.

“Get serious!”

“I am. Believe me,” she said as she put the neck of the bottle in her mouth.

“Mother.”

“Yes, Eat.”

“Turn off lights and television. Play some music.”

The room went dark, and erotic notes of Bolero filled the room.