The Taint (4 page)

TEN

The Reverend Martin Frey pulled up to the hospital parking lot just as Nathan Adams drove away, raising a hand in greeting.

He needed to talk to Dr. Adams about Amanda but he knew that the good doctor would probably be back before he had finished his visits. He was concerned about her increasingly frail health, and her insistence on continuing her good works, even as she wasted away before his eyes.

He gathered up the inspirational pamphlets that he always distributed to the patients and entered through the emergency room door. The department was quiet and he placed some of the pamphlets in the waiting area before heading into the hospital proper.

Faint music played over the intercom; one of Dr. Adam’s latest additions to the intensive modernization he had begun three years back. The hospital itself was a marvel, clean and bright, with all of the eighteen patient rooms having a view of the courtyard which was enclosed in the center of the building. The sight of green plants, flowers, and the sunshine upon them must be good for the body as well as the soul. These patients were a great deal more cheerful than those he’d seen in the city.

He walked down the east wing toward the chapel, intending to open the windows, when he saw Emma standing in an open doorway, a troubled look on her face.

“Good afternoon,” he greeted her and glanced surreptitiously into the room. Nora Samuels was propped up in bed, staring out the window. Nothing odd about that, he thought, and turned his attention to Emma.

“Reverend Frey,” Emma reached for his arm urgently, pulling him back from the door. She put a finger to her lips and did not speak again until they were at the end of the hall. “Nora has gone peculiar again.”

“Oh my, what is it this time?” Nora was rather famous for her curious turns of fancy.

“She’s convinced that we’re under siege, and when I ask her from what or who, she says ‘It can’t be seen.’ “

“Outer space again?” He chuckled; her last foray into malignant forces resulted in a petition to the President requesting he not allow the space shuttle to land, in case it “showed them the way to earth.”

“I don’t think this is the same as the others.” Emma frowned, choosing her words carefully. “I’ve always had the feeling that her little escapades were . . . calculated. That she was constructing an elaborate game of some sort, and only she knew what the rules were. But this time, she’s scared. It isn’t a game and she’s
scared.”

“But Emma, remember, she’s a sick woman,” he said gently.

Emma didn’t respond.

“Dr. Adams tells me she hasn’t long to live. Isn’t it more likely that the invisible threat is to her own mortality? She’s facing death, and of course she’s frightened.”

“It seems like more than that,” Emma answered, but with less conviction.

“I’ll talk to her.” He smiled his Sunday smile to reassure her. “Everything will be fine.”

He saved Nora for last, wanting to feel unhurried while he helped her to confront her fears. All through his other visits his mind strayed, preoccupied with the right turn of phrase, the right expression, to enlighten her. It was a formidable task.

She was resting when he came into the room and he took a moment to arrange his face in the proper beneficent manner.

“Nora,” he said, and folded his hands in front of him.

Her black eyes opened, immediately alert and her lips parted, the tip of her tongue flitting to moisten them. Color flooded into her cheeks.

“Watch her . . . it will come, and she is weak.”

Outside, the sun ducked behind a cloud.

ELEVEN

Rachel stood in the laboratory doorway, her eyes taking in the impressive array of technological equipment in the spotless room.

“Does the Mayo Clinic know you’ve taken all this?”

Nathan laughed, delighted. “This is what I spend my money on.”

“But, an electron microscope . . . it must have cost . . .”

“. . . a lot of money,” he said tactfully, surveying his domain. “And worth every penny.”

“Somehow, when you told me you planned to retire to the lab, I pictured a damp dark basement with rats and things growing on the walls.” She shook her head in wonder. “And maybe a hunchback or two.”

“I’m working on that.” He took her arm. “Let me show you the rest of the hospital—you won’t recognize it.”

“I’m lost already.”

They had covered the east, north and west halls and were turning down the south hall, toward the front of the hospital when Nathan halted, stopping in front of an unmarked door.

“This,” he announced, “is for you.” He pushed the door open to reveal an office, furnished, equipped and ready for occupancy. The rear wall featured a large sliding glass door which opened out into the courtyard. One wall was given entirely to bookshelves and her own medical books, sent for storage when she’d gone to Africa, were handsomely displayed.

“It’s beautiful.” She turned to face him. “This is the nicest thing anyone could have done for me. Thank you.”

“I’ve been waiting a long time for you to come home. I hope to make you sufficiently obligated so you’ll stay a while.” He smiled. “A little emotional blackmail never hurt.”

“This’ll do it.” She sat in the chair and looked around the room. “I spent the last year doctoring out of a tent—this is heaven.”

He leaned over and kissed her forehead. “Now . . . shall we check on our patients?”

“Lead on.”

The first patient was pacing the room when they arrived.

“It’s about time,” Franklin Dunn said, drawing up to his full height of five foot five and regarding them with disdain. What he lacked in size, he made up for in volume, raising his voice further. “You promised me I’d be going home today, and look, it’s already three o’clock.” He tapped the face of his expensive Swiss watch.

“I know how to tell time, Franklin,” Nathan said, unperturbed. “If you don’t calm down, your blood pressure’s going to go through the roof, and if your blood pressure’s up . . . you won’t be going home today.”

“I hope,” Dunn began, his voice controlled, “that you never have need of my professional services, because if you ever do, if there is a God, I’ll extract my pound of flesh.” Then he smiled. “So this must be Rachel.”

Rachel, stunned, did not reply.

“Rachel, this is Franklin Dunn, practitioner of law and other unsavory habits, voice of the town council, and the worst patient I’ve ever had.”

Dunn bowed, extended a hand. “It’s about time we got a real doctor around here.”

Nathan consulted the chart, the faint hint of a smile on his face. “Tsk, tsk.” He shook his head. “Not following my orders, I see.”

“They were absurd orders.” Dunn glowered.

“May I see?” Rachel interrupted and Nathan handed her the chart. She flipped through the pages, aware that the two men had exchanged a conspiratorial wink. After a second she nodded, closed the chart and regarded Mr. Dunn.

“Your blood pressure is up,” she said evenly, and turned to Nathan. “I suggest we bleed him.”

“What?” Dunn’s normally florid complexion paled.

“We’ll just make an incision, say, in the ankle, and drain off some blood. Your pressure will go down, if only until the next time, and you can go home.” She smiled sympathetically. “It’s quite scientific, really, and we hardly ever take too much blood these days.”

Nathan burst out laughing and Dunn looked back and forth between them, confused.

“Franklin, I think you might have just met your match,” Nathan said. “You’ve been taken.”

Dunn looked at Rachel, who arched her eyebrows, her face composed and serious. Dunn, whose successful law career was less from legal expertise than the inborn ability to determine at a glance which way a prospective juror would vote, looked again. He could not tell what Rachel Adams was thinking. And he smiled.

“If you ever get sick of medicine, I can get you into a really good law school.”

“I hope he didn’t think I was being a smartass,” Rachel said after they left Dunn.

“Franklin just looks like a pompous stuffed-shirt. And he likes to intimidate people if they’ll let him, but he has a great deal of respect for those who can out-maneuver him. Which you did.” He replaced Dunn’s chart on the desk and picked up another. “He just needs to unwind a little, relax.”

Emma Sutter snorted, coming up beside him. “There you go again, giving advice and never taking it.” She wagged a finger at him. “You’re discharging Frank, your old fishing buddy; why don’t the two of you take a day or two off?”

“That’s a wonderful idea,” Rachel agreed.

“Oh, I don’t . . .”

“Here you are,” Emma continued, “living alongside a national park, two miles from Freedom Lake, and you can’t take a day off to enjoy it? I think you’d better enjoy it while you can because you—aren’t getting any younger.”

“It would do you good,” Rachel added.

“But what about my patients?”

Rachel turned to Emma. “Half an hour ago those were
our
patients.”

Nathan sighed, lowering himself into a chair. He looked at their faces and nodded. Reluctantly.

“I’ve never seen a more half-hearted concession in my life.” Emma bustled down the hall.

“I knew I should have put a lake in that laboratory,” Nathan mused, rubbing his chin.

“It’ll make a new man of you.”

“I haven’t even used the old one,” he protested and then stood. Their eyes met, Rachel respectful but undeniably an equal.

“And,” he added, starting toward the next patient room, “I should have bound your feet when you were a child.”

Rachel smiled. “You’ve been taken.”

“Smartass.”

TWELVE

Susan Donlevy was one of the new breed of nurses; incredibly efficient, bright and always questioning. She had taken the job in the middle of nowhere precisely for that reason. The doctors in the huge hospital complexes valued her conscientiousness but deplored her pathological doubt. Her employment pattern was always the same; a quick rise to the top, based on her formidable nursing abilities, then a subtle reassignment when she stepped on some toes.

She was very tired of being transferred.

She considered going into computer programming, where absolute accuracy would surely be prized, but decided against it when she’d heard that her cousin Ruthanne was in data processing school. Any discipline that would take Ruthanne would never have her.

It was nice, too, having only seven other nurses on staff. She knew them, could read their writing, and clearly understood the hierarchy of command. It was a nice hospital, and she liked Dr. Adams primarily because he never called her “nurse.” She had always hated being called by a generic name.

There were not many challenges for her organized mind, and when she came on duty at three she sat down with the patient charts to review the details of their care. Emma was busy setting up the labor room—the mother-to-be was on the way in, and Susan liked to start with all the facts current.

Immediately she noted the temperatures, charted and graphed on the vital signs sheet in Emma’s tidy hand. All of the temperatures, for all of the patients, were up by four tenths of a degree. Not a significant rise in itself, and not even unusual that everyone’s was up—the body temperature being given to afternoon and evening elevations in perfectly healthy people. But four tenths of a degree? All of them?

Intrigued, she turned to the nursing notes to read what Emma had to say about each patient’s progress during the day. Franklin was being discharged despite his little temp, his blood pressure still hovering around 160 over 90. He had no complaints, except for the overcooked broccoli served at lunch.

Samuels was restive, agitated and behaving strangely, as usual. Other than the temperature, her vital signs were stable. She had complained of nausea after lunch. Probably the broccoli.

The new patient, Tyler, was receiving nourishment via a nasogastric tube, and was still on D5W. He was in soft restraints and was non-communicative.

The Thomas brat, who was being watched for possible concussion after having jumped from the roof of his parent’s home in an attempt to fly, was oriented as to time and place, but was now to be kept a second night because of the fever.

And, curiously. The last three patients—Nelson, Hunter and Brown—all were complaining of severe headache, nausea and vertigo. She checked their medication indexes, to make sure none were taking any drug which might account for the symptoms.

Then she scolded herself; all three were admitted with exacerbation of flu syndrome. As simple as that.

She stood, straightening her uniform. It was a good thing she had the week-end off. Finding a pattern was one thing—it existed. Forcing a conclusion as to the cause of the pattern was another.

She went to help Emma prepare the labor room.

At four o’clock she took vitals, writing the figures, as was her practice, on the back of a progress sheet for later transfer to the charts. The aide was covering the floor while she concentrated on Tina Cruz, the eighteen year old child struggling to give birth to another child.

It was the beginning of a long evening.

THIRTEEN

Jonathan Scott arrived at the town hall at five p.m. and went straight to his office. Earl was out, presumably on patrol, and the door between the communications room and the outer office was closed. He poured a cup of coffee and went to his desk.

A note from Earl stating that he had been unable to locate family for the Tylers and that the car was at the garage being checked for mechanical failure. A set of Polaroids showing the car from several angles and the road with no skid marks.

A poorly-typed report from Earl on a minor fender-bender involving Ralph Stuart, a camper, and Florence Wagner, Earl’s mother. With painful impartiality, Earl detailed the incident. Mr. Stuart, exiting the campgrounds, had pulled without warning in front of Mrs. Wagner’s slow-moving vehicle, startling her so she had stepped on the gas and run into the back of the Stuart’s rented trailer. Mrs. Wagner was fine, and the Stuarts were fine, except for the wife who seemed almost hysterical when it was suggested they stay another night and have a home-cooked meal at the Wagner home.

That was it; the range of law enforcement in Crest-view. Accidents caused by winding roads and careless drivers. An occasional assist to the forestry service during fire season. And, sporadically, a search and rescue for a lost camper.

He settled in the chair, sipping the coffee, his eyes critically examining the room.

Is this what he had wanted? Coming out of the service, what? Fifteen years ago, aching for action but also needing the discipline of a quasi-military order. He had always felt, and still did, a need for order, for justice. There was right and wrong, and only as he grew older had he acknowledged the in-between.

Timothy Adams was the only one who had understood. They were in the military police, along with a lot of guys who were looking for heads to bust. He and Tim were the good guys. Professional, thorough and dispassionate. It was by the book, all the way. They never abused the implicit immunity of their work, took no favors, and gave none.

Six months before their discharge—Tim got out a week before he did—they agreed to pursue police work on the outside. They discussed New York, which Tim felt was the most challenging city in the country, but settled on Los Angeles because he had a strong suspicion that Tim would be unable to stay that far away from his family for very long.

And for two years it had been an exciting, exhausting life. It was tough out there, and scary, and brutal. People lived and died and it made no difference. They sweated and bled and cried, unnoticed, in the streets. He lived by instinct and intuition and a constant surge of adrenaline.

Tim amazed him. Especially after seeing where he’d been brought up. He was a very good cop and he made no mistakes. He was fast and careful at the same time. He had the ability to talk to the street people without damaging their brittle dignity, without passing judgment.

The strange thing was, Tim never let go. There was no discharge of emotion, no cathartic cry. No shakes. No bad dreams. No paranoia. For someone like Tim, whom he secretly thought had led a sheltered life, it was amazing.

It might have been what killed him.

They were both on the night shift and had met at an all-night restaurant for dinner. Tim had a letter from home, from Rachel. A week-end at home was in the works, and Rachel wanted to make sure that Tim invited him to come along. Tim winked at him.

“I think baby Rachel has a crush on you.”

Jon felt the warmth rise in his face. “I doubt it.” He looked at the menu with renewed interest.

“I know my own sister. You’d better watch out.”

“I’m not her type—I shave.”

Tim laughed. “She’s not interested in boys her own age. Never has been.”

“Even so . . .” He couldn’t read the look on Tim’s face.

“Yeah, you’re right. She’ll probably get married to some peach-fuzz punk, have eight kids . . .” Another smile.

Something about the remark annoyed him and he did not answer.

Later, cruising the streets in the patrol car, Jon allowed himself to examine the conversation. He had blushed. A grown man, a police officer. Yet he could feel the need to accept the invitation. To see Rachel.

He could see her gray eyes, her direct and questioning gaze. The soft reddish-brown hair she still wore long and loose, covering her bare tanned shoulders. Her slim arms, raised over her head as she stretched, the tight muscles of her legs.

He rolled down the window on the unit and turned up the radio, clearing his head. He caught his eyes in the mirror. None of this.

She was fifteen, now, still a child. There were laws against that kind of thing. Certainly he, least of all, should be thinking this way.

Yet after he had parked and was sitting in the dark quiet night, his thoughts returned to her. Imagining her tender young mouth . . .

The call came “Officer needs assistance,” and even before he pulled back into the street, he knew it was Tim. The other cars were lining the street, lights flashing, and he hesitated only slightly, but knew there was no alternative.

Tim lay flat on his back in the middle of a stinking alley. A dark stain, wet and spreading, covered his chest. His gun was clutched in his hand. His mouth worked, bubbling blood.

“I’m here,” Jon said, beside him, ignoring the broken glass that dug into his knees.

“Too slow . . .” Tim said, and blinked.

“Don’t talk.” Jon leaned over him, closer, shielding his body from other eyes. He heard the ambulance pulling up and sensed the lack of time. He squeezed Tim’s free hand.

The rescue personnel loaded him on the stretcher and into the ambulance. He got in the back without asking.

They were almost there.

“Jon?”

He looked up to see Tim’s face, strangely peaceful. He moved forward so that Tim could see him.

“Take me home . . .” Tim closed his eyes.

Jon swallowed with difficulty. “We’ll both go,” he whispered.

The ambulance pulled up to the hospital.

“Jon.” Earl Wagner stood in the door. “Didn’t you hear me come in?”

Jon swung around in the chair and waited a moment before answering. “Sorry. Did you need something?”

“Just to let you know what’s going on . . . I’m off duty in ten minutes.”

“Ah . . . go ahead.”

“You’ve seen my reports? The only new thing is that Randy Cruz has disappeared.”

“Disappeared?”

“And his wife is over about to have the baby. I haven’t been able to talk to her yet, but there’s no sign of Randy, that’s for sure. I’ve criss-crossed all over this mountain.”

“Well, he knows the forest, I doubt that he’s lost.”

“He’s on foot, though. Hardly seems likely he could get that far away on foot, that I couldn’t find him.”

“Where was he going?”

“Don’t know. His wife’s mother said he went out to check on some sounds he heard—thought someone was sneaking around.”

“How long ago?”

“About midnight last night.”

“It’s twenty-four hours for a missing person . . .”

“I know. But with Tina having the baby . . .”

“You’re right. Okay, thanks.” He got up and put on his hat. “I’ll go over to the hospital and see if I can talk to Mrs. Cruz.”

“Well, good luck. It’d be a terrible thing if something happened to him when his kid was just getting born . . .”