Into The Inferno Part 20

"That was only to save her from a long drive. Honey, we're working on a project."

"You don't like her?" Britney asked. "Isn't she pretty?"

"Of course I like her. And she's very pretty. But there are other considerations."

"Like what?" Allyson asked.

"Ally," Britney said. "You're going to spoil everything."

"You started it." started it."

Filled with emotion, Britney looked around the table and said, "Daddy never lets anybody stay over. This is a millstone."

"A milestone," said Stephanie softly. "I think you mean it's a milestone."

"Yeah, right, whatever. The second Suzanne never stayed over once, and he really liked her. Mrs. LeMonde never even came in the house. Holly was nice, but . . ."

"What about Holly?" Stephanie asked.

"Morgan saw them kissing in the car."

"I'm sure your father's kissed a lot of women in the car."

"No, he hasn't really," Britney said. "Just Holly, and the second Suzanne, and maybe Mrs. LeMonde."

The breakfast was sitting foully in my stomach, but I didn't heed the warning.

I barely made it to the bathroom, dropping to my knees in front of the commode and retching until there was no more to bring up. I couldn't remember ever vomiting so violently, or feeling my stomach walls actually connect with my spine. For a few moments in the middle of it, I thought I was going to choke to death, or die of heart failure.

From the doorway behind me, Stephanie said, "You all right?"

"I don't know why I don't read the symptoms for the next day before I go to bed." I'd barely gotten the words out when another round shook me. And then a minute later, as I was was.h.i.+ng up, the wave of nausea vanished as quickly as it had arrived.

Day 4: Headache goes away, cannot keep food down.

Stan Beebe had been through this. So had Holly, Newcastle, Joel McCain, Jackie, and those three in Tennessee. I was joining a select brotherhood.

I must have looked ashen when I came out of the bathroom, because Allyson took my hand and said, "You all right, Daddy?"

"Fine."

"Did we leave eggsh.e.l.ls in the pancakes? You get sh.e.l.l shock?" It was a longtime family joke.

"No. Everything was wonderful. I just have a bug in my stomach, that's all." I found myself kneeling in the living room, clutching my eldest.

Britney, who had been obsessed with death and abandonment issues since her mother left, rushed over and said, "You're not going to die, are you?"

"No, of course not." I caught Stephanie's eye from the other room. "We all die eventually. You know that."

"I know that. I'm not a baby," Britney said. "But I want Ally and me to be at least twenty-one before you die."

"I'll be twenty-three. You'll be twenty-one," Allyson said. "I'm two years older."

"And how could I forget that? You only remind me every hour."

34. TWO-DOLLAR MAP, TWO-DOLLAR Wh.o.r.e.

Morgan had left a message on the machine saying she felt under the weather and could not baby-sit today. I could tell from her voice she was trying on a fit of pique over Stephanie. She'd done the same after seeing me with Suzanne.

With the help of Karrie Haston, Ben Arden, and Ian Hjorth, the three paid firefighters on duty that day, Stephanie and I set up a base camp in the officers' room. In the end we had a computer with an Internet connection, three landlines, plus two cell phones. Karrie and Ben set up the office while Ian kept watch in the station and entertained Allyson and Britney with cartoon drawings on the blackboard. In a matter of minutes, Stephanie and I were fielding calls, Stephanie logging outgoing and incoming so that we didn't duplicate our efforts.

There was still no sign of anybody from Jane's. When I called them in San Jose, I couldn't get through to anybody. It was as if the plant had closed down.

Stephanie contacted two doctors, one in California and a second in New York, both specialists in diseases transmitted by poultry, while I tried to get hold of someone else affiliated with the Chattanooga Fire Department. What I wanted was the down and gritty, a confirmation or confutation of Charlie Drago's tale. Also, I wanted a confirmation that Jane's California Propulsion, Inc., had had packages at Southeast Travelers Freight. I didn't know that they'd had anything there, but I strongly suspected it.

Trouble was, the Chattanooga Fire Department was hosting a conference in town, and none of the administration or union people were in their offices.

Stephanie tried her aunt's condo in Bellevue and then her office in Redmond. Marge DiMaggio was in a meeting and had left instructions not to be disturbed.

It was just about then that Karrie showed up at the door to the office. "Two suits to see you at the front door," she said.

Stephanie followed me to the tiny watch office at the front of the station, where I met two short bald men who looked uncomfortable in their sport coats and brown slacks. Both men kept their hands in their pockets, although each had brought along a bulky briefcase and one had a laptop computer in a black bag. Their names were Hillburn and Dobson. They were pudgy and soft the way people who'd been indoors all their lives were.

"Morning," said Hillburn genially. He was bright as a b.u.t.ton, and I had the feeling he had as many years in universities as I had in the fire department. They both claimed they were already full of coffee but drank more after Karrie offered it.

Out the window across the street I could see what looked like a rental car. These were the two from Jane's California Propulsion, Inc.

"Mr. Stuart said you guys would be here in three hours. That was yesterday."

"Did he?" Hillburn and Dobson looked at each other. "Did he say that? Odd. He knew we had to be in Denver yesterday."

"It is is odd," added Dobson. odd," added Dobson.

"Now let's get down to cases," Hillburn said. "First off. How many people have been affected?"

"Here?" I said. "Here in Was.h.i.+ngton? Five that we know of. One more with symptoms."

"And what are the symptoms? Exactly."

I listed them while Dobson opened his laptop and typed them into a doc.u.ment. He kept typing after he was finished with the list, as if recording our meeting. In fact, he did a lot more typing than we did talking, filling up all the empty s.p.a.ces with his tap-tap-tapping.

"Okay," Hillburn said. "Now. I need to see the manifest."

I walked to the other room and brought it back. After he'd studied it a minute, he handed it to Dobson, who studied it also, then entered the complete list of materials and involved companies into his computer, typing like a high school speed champ.

I said, "Were you s.h.i.+pping a product that could have caused any of our symptoms?"

Without looking up, Dobson said, "No."

"No," repeated Hillburn reflexively.

"How can you a.s.sure us of that?" Stephanie said.

"And you are?" Hillburn said.

"Stephanie Riggs. I'm his doctor."

"A doctor of medicine?"

"Yes."

Hillburn and Dobson looked at each other for a second, and then Hillburn looked at Stephanie for a long while as Dobson directed his attention back to his laptop. Finally, Dobson looked up from his typing again and said, "We've never had anything even remotely like this."

"What have have you had?" I asked. you had?" I asked.

"Well, unfortunately, company policy prohibits us from discussing that."

"Company policy," said Hillburn.

"And company policy would also preclude you from admitting you had something like this even if you did, wouldn't it?" I said.

"More than likely," Hillburn admitted.

"So what sorts of previous health concerns are you prepared to admit to? And did you have any products in a fire at Southeast Travelers' s.h.i.+pping facility in Chattanooga, Tennessee, three years ago?"

"Before we answer any of your questions, we'll need to see the materials," Hillburn said. "The actual materials from the crash site."

"You've got the s.h.i.+pping manifest in front of you."

"We know that. We need to look at the materials. The truck trailer and so forth."

"We don't have the truck trailer. I told you the accident was last winter."

"What do you mean, you don't have the trailer?"

"I mean all that stuff got hauled off months ago."

"So how do you know the accident had anything to do with these health problems you're talking about?"

"We don't. Not for sure."

"You sure you don't have any of the materials?" Hillburn asked.

"Just that manifest."

Hillburn and Dobson looked at each other; Dobson was already folding up his laptop. They were out the door before I could stop them. As the door closed behind them, Dobson said, "I guess that's all we need then."

"What the h.e.l.l were you s.h.i.+pping?" I yelled at the closed door. I followed them outside.

"You have any more problems with this, give us a call," Hillburn said as if he were being helpful.

"Wait a minute!" I screamed at their backsides, but neither of them slowed, not until they'd reached their rental. "We've got people who are going brain-dead here. I'm one of them. You've gotta d.a.m.n well tell me what you think is happening!"

For half a minute they looked at me like two owls in a thunderstorm, neither willing to concede anything. Then they quickly got into their car and drove away.

"Sons of b.i.t.c.hes!" I said.

Stephanie was waiting for me at the front of the station.

I said, "They're a.s.suming because we can't pin them down on it they can skate in a court of law."

"I'm not so sure they knew exactly exactly what we were talking about," Stephanie said. what we were talking about," Stephanie said.

"They seemed like nice guys," Karrie said as we went back into the station. "I mean, they came all this way to help."

"They came all this way to cover their b.u.t.ts. When they found out they weren't in trouble, they packed up and left. They weren't here to help."

We went back to the office at the rear of the station, where Stephanie called her aunt, again without result.

Last night she'd updated me on Marge DiMaggio. After her husband died, DiMaggio took over the running of Canyon View Systems in Redmond, Was.h.i.+ngton, and put everything she had into it. Now the company was on the verge of being sold for a "staggering amount of money." I recalled Marge had tried to talk Holly into investing in their stock, telling her that in a matter of months the value would skyrocket.

Ben and Karrie went to the other computer to look up anything they could find on chicken-related illnesses, a channel of investigation for which Stephanie still held out hope. Karrie seemed along for the ride, which was strange considering she'd been in Holly's truck with the rest of us. I kept thinking about how abruptly Hillburn and Dobson had lost interest in us. Stephanie called an expert on industrial poisons and gathered more information on toluene. n.o.body had any brainstorms.

At ten-thirty I took a call from Ms. Mulherin, the environmental chemist from the University of Was.h.i.+ngton, her voice sounding unoiled over the phone. "I understand the committee's being disbanded," she said.

"What?"

"I heard the committee's been canceled."

"Where'd you hear that?"

"I had a message on my machine when I got in this morning. Your mayor told me there'd been a mistake."

"Mayor Haston?"

"He told me he was sorry for the imposition, but we were to discontinue any work we'd started. Don't tell me there was never anything wrong with you people?"

"Nothing's been canceled, Ms. Mulherin. We're still as sick as ever."

"Good. Well, no, not good that you have this, but . . . Do you you have this?" have this?"

"I'm afraid I do."

"I'm sorry. Well, I'm still gathering a preliminary team of graduate students. I won't be out to your station until early next week."

"I guess you'll see me then," I said, savoring the irony.