Into The Inferno Part 25

"He's almost almost positive?" I said. positive?" I said.

"You look like you believe him," Stephanie said to Karrie.

"Well . . . sure I believe him. He's a doctor."

"Listen, girl. I'm I'm a doctor. My sister's been in a brain ward for two months because of this nonexistent syndrome. Trust me, it exists." a doctor. My sister's been in a brain ward for two months because of this nonexistent syndrome. Trust me, it exists."

"But Dr. Perkins is internationally recognized."

"Karrie," I said. "What if he's wrong?"

"He's written books. I found one in the library."

"A lot of idiots have written books that are in the library. Why not wait a couple of days before making an announcement? If this gets in the news as a fraud, n.o.body'll help us. By Monday either I'll go down or I won't go down, and you'll know once and for all."

"All I did was phone him. He's researching a new book. Modern Medical Myths: The Hazards of Self-diagnosis and Ma.s.s Delusion. Modern Medical Myths: The Hazards of Self-diagnosis and Ma.s.s Delusion. It's so perfect, don't you see? It fits in perfectly with what's going on here. You don't have it. Stan didn't have it." It's so perfect, don't you see? It fits in perfectly with what's going on here. You don't have it. Stan didn't have it."

"Is this why your father was trying to disband the committee?"

"I don't know anything about what my father is doing."

"You took this doctor to the nursing home," Ian snapped, "and then you told him about Jim's wife leaving him and every other irrelevant piece of gossip you could think of."

"You told him about my wife?"

Karrie backed away. "It's not like you own the story, Lieutenant. I mean, she left town with my my mother." Having unexpectedly wandered into the mother lode of small-town gossip, Shad and Stevenson began rolling their eyes at each other. "I told him so he would have some background. And it's a good thing I did, because your personal history works into all this. Dr. Perkins says all this womanizing you've been doing has finally come to a head with the delusion about the syndrome, because this woman from Tacoma you were dating, Holly, got sick, and now you've transferred your guilt about the way you treated her and whatever else you were feeling about women in general to this syndrome. I should really let him explain. He's out in the other room gathering background material. When he puts you in his book, you're going to be famous." mother." Having unexpectedly wandered into the mother lode of small-town gossip, Shad and Stevenson began rolling their eyes at each other. "I told him so he would have some background. And it's a good thing I did, because your personal history works into all this. Dr. Perkins says all this womanizing you've been doing has finally come to a head with the delusion about the syndrome, because this woman from Tacoma you were dating, Holly, got sick, and now you've transferred your guilt about the way you treated her and whatever else you were feeling about women in general to this syndrome. I should really let him explain. He's out in the other room gathering background material. When he puts you in his book, you're going to be famous."

"As a jacka.s.s." I turned to Stephanie. "You know Perkins?"

"He's written a couple of pop culture books. He specializes in exposing fad diets and exercise crazes."

"The chief died out in the woods," Karrie said. "Happens to hundreds of people every year. Jackie had a car accident because of her alcoholism. Of course course Joel has brain injuries. He fell off his roof. Stan got so worked up about this syndrome, he made himself have an accident. Dr. Perkins said he wouldn't be surprised if you had an accident, too." Joel has brain injuries. He fell off his roof. Stan got so worked up about this syndrome, he made himself have an accident. Dr. Perkins said he wouldn't be surprised if you had an accident, too."

"Karrie. Let me see your hands." When she tried to rush out of the room, I grabbed her left wrist and held on. She pulled, sticking her feet out like a balky horse, and we played it like a kids' game until I reeled her in. "Jesus Christ, Karrie. What day are you on?"

"Perkins says it doesn't fit any syndrome he's ever heard of."

"Karrie, you need to decide what you're going to do."

"Perkins says the only thing wrong with us is we're caught up in a form of sympathetic hysteria. Show me one person of all these people where there isn't another perfectly suitable explanation for how they got hurt."

I nodded at Stephanie. "Her sister. She dropped on her kitchen floor for no apparent reason. Her hands look like yours. She's been in a coma for over a month. Exactly like Joel."

"Let Dr. Perkins see her. He'll get to the bottom of it."

"Where is he?" I asked.

"In the watch office interviewing some of the volunteers. He says in most major ma.s.s delusion cases there are precursor episodes that weren't as severe. He's trying to uncover those now. He wanted to know if that explosion the other day had been a delusion, but I told him I thought it was real."

"You thought thought it was real? Karrie, listen to yourself. If it had been any more real, they'd be burying us in thimbles. You're hobn.o.bbing with a quack." it was real? Karrie, listen to yourself. If it had been any more real, they'd be burying us in thimbles. You're hobn.o.bbing with a quack."

I stomped toward the watch office, Karrie riding my heels.

An imposing man with a shaved head met me in the watch office. "Dr. Perkins?" I said.

"And who may I have the pleasure of-"

"Get your hairy a.s.s out of this station before I throw you through a wall."

A moment later Karrie and the good doctor were on the sidewalk out front; he was already explaining away my actions in terms of his theory: ". . . understandable reaction to having the delusion exposed and-"

"Wow," Ian Hjorth said as I slammed the door behind them. Mouths agape, the volunteers Perkins had been interviewing stared at me.

"Put Karrie on disability leave. I don't want her falling off a rig on a response." I pulled out the three-by-five card I'd been carrying. "Here. These are the symptoms. Make sure she gets a copy. In fact, make copies and pa.s.s them around. Who knows who else might need it."

"Yes sir, Lieutenant."

I found the two county fire investigators, Shad and Stevenson, outside the empty chief's office. Judging by their faces, they'd been hugely entertained by our melodrama.

As if he owned the place, Shad, the short one with scrub-brush eyebrows, entered Newcastle's office and plunked down in the swivel chair with a familiarity that offended me. Shad wasn't fit to carry Newcastle's jockstrap to the laundry. Stevenson hunkered on the corner of the desk, while I leaned against the file cabinet.

Shad said, "Buncha things. First, tell us again what made you suspicious when you got to the trailer yesterday."

"I found Caputo's dog dying in the blackberries. After that the empty ammonium nitrate sacks and oil drums."

"Yeah," Stevenson said. "How come n.o.body else found that stuff? Just you."

"I was the only one with the time to look."

"Trouble with what you're telling us is, we can't find any of it," said Shad.

"You didn't find much of the trailer, either."

"We know explosions tend to diffuse materials over a large geographical area," Shad said. "But we want to look into an alternate explanation for why we can't find this stuff."

"What would that be?"

"That those items never existed."

"Sure. Maybe the trailer didn't exist, either. Maybe Max Caputo never existed. Maybe there was no fire. Maybe that head we found in the tree fell from outer s.p.a.ce. In that case, you boys might as well go home. Aloha."

"The head belonged to Maxwell Devlin Caputo, born in North Bend in 1970. They found one of his legs, well, the bones from one of his legs, and a cap with his scalp in it. Pretty grisly stuff. His record was not exactly clean, but he was no master criminal, either. He had some drug convictions after he got out of the army. Other than poaching arrests and somebody accusing him of stealing a tractor and some riding lawn mowers from a store here in town, that was pretty much it."

"I can understand the sacks disintegrating," I said, "but those drums probably went half a mile. You'll find them."

"Yeah," Stevenson said.

"Yeah," Shad said.

For a moment or two I didn't realize what they were getting at, and then it occurred to me this was their version of the third degree. Sarcasm. They sat back and stared, waiting for me to crack, both of them. I stared back. I was going to be a vegetable in three days. It was hard to think of anything they could threaten me with that came anywhere close. It was even harder to figure out why they were going after me.

"All that evidence," Stevenson said. "And now it's gone. Don't you think that's amazing?"

"It is unfortunate. The whole thing is."

"Oh, hey, that's right. You're the guy our chief was talking about. You're on some sort of final countdown. Got a week to live or something?"

"That's right."

The two of them looked at each other. "We're in the process of narrowing our list of suspects. We're pretty sure it wasn't Caputo."

"And?"

"We think it might have been you."

"What?"

"We think you might have set the fire."

"I was on the G.o.dd.a.m.n rig. I was one of the responding firefighters. I'm the one who figured out it was going to blow. If I hadn't been there, a whole bunch of people would be dead right now."

Shad said, "One: We can find no record of Caputo buying any fertilizer or fuel oil. We spoke to everyone else who responded to his accident the day before, and they said it wasn't in the trailer then. Two: We found his other dog in a ditch outside the property. He'd been poisoned with enough phencyclidine to drop a cow. We're a.s.suming that's also what happened with the dog we can't find."

"What's phencyclidine?"

"PCP, angel dust, crystal," said Stevenson.

Shad added, "Also known as hog. Or rocket fuel. Everybody says Caputo loved those dogs."

"I agree. Max loved those dogs. So go find somebody who didn't like the dogs."

"We heard you you didn't like Max or his dogs," Shad said. didn't like Max or his dogs," Shad said.

"You heard what?"

"We heard you didn't like Max Caputo."

"You had trouble with him in the past, didn't you?" Stevenson said. "Didn't his dogs bite one of your people?"

"I never even thought about him."

Shad said, "We got a phone call said you were depressed about your physical health. Said you were thinking about killing yourself and you were planning to take some people with you."

"That's ridiculous."

"You are sick, though. Aren't you?"

"Well, yes."

"Is it terminal?"

"It's not good."

"You thought about suicide?"

"No," I lied. "h.e.l.l, no. Who called you?"

"Can't tell you," Stevenson said, but Shad gave it away with his eyes.

"You don't know, do you?"

"Maybe it was anonymous," Stevenson said. "Maybe it wasn't."

"You got an anonymous call from some crackpot, and now you're jumping all over me? Why don't you go after the caller?"

"Pay phone," Stevenson said. "You know any women in Tacoma?"

"Not any who could make the call."

"You sure? You see, the trouble is we know about firefighters. Lots of times they start fires. We also know about terminally ill patients. Lots of times they want to die. It all fits. You're depressed. You want to die. You know how to set a fire."

Stevenson might have done a better job of staring me down if he hadn't had those Clara Bow lips and those baby-b.u.t.t cheeks with the pink circles in the center. "We figure you planned on wiping out the whole fire department," Stevenson said. "Even taking your kids with you. Then at the last minute you got the touchy-feelies and decided to let them live."

I got up and walked to the door. "They actually pay you guys for this?"

"You trying to get rid of us by walking out?" Shad asked, kicking the swivel chair across the room behind him in a display of toughness.

"Take it easy with the furniture. It was Harold Newcastle's."

"You're not walking out of here."

"Unless you're planning to arrest me, I am."

That would come back to haunt me. would come back to haunt me.

41. THE LPG DISASTER.

It was nearly nine-thirty when I walked through the door of the officers' room at the rear of the station. Stephanie looked up. "Line two."

"We've been paging you," Arden's wife added.

"You hear from Donovan and Carpenter?"

Stephanie shook her head. "Maybe this is them."

I picked up the receiver. "Lieutenant Swope."