Into the Inferno - Earl Emerson [108]
“The same shift had the LPG fire as went to Southeast Travelers?”
“Yeah.”
“The guy at the paper seemed to think that was significant.”
“I don’t know why.”
I spoke to several more fire officers who either had been at the tanker fire in Chattanooga or were intimate with the details. Unfortunately, the details shed little light on our problems in North Bend. Even though Drago told me at one time he had a complete list of the companies involved in the Southeast Travelers fire, he couldn’t confirm or deny JCP, Inc., had been involved. So far, neither could anybody else.
We fielded several calls from people in the upper Snoqualmie Valley asking to confirm Scott Donovan was working with us, so we knew he was making the rounds.
At five-thirty people began disappearing to go home and have dinner with their families. By six-thirty there were only three of us left, myself, Stephanie, and Cherie, God bless her. She’d been with us all day.
Stephanie looked across the conference room table at me and said, “None of these doctors has called back. I told their people this was a matter of life and death.”
“They’ll call.”
“Know what else?”
“What?”
“I sure wish we could have done an autopsy on your friend.”
“Why not wait and do one on me?”
“Not funny. And please don’t talk like that.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“I spoke to the CDC today. I was honest with them. I shouldn’t have been. I told them most of these cases had been officially attributed to something other than a syndrome. For instance, your chief dying out in the woods. Or the two car accidents. They’re real busy. They need more conclusive evidence of a syndrome before they’ll send someone out.”
The girls called every half hour or so to make sure I was all right and to find out when Stephanie and I would be home. Later they called to tell me they were going to a movie with Morgan.
At a few minutes after six o’clock we got a call back from one of the doctors Stephanie had been waiting on, a neurologist in Biloxi who’d treated a young woman who had been brain-dead for three years; after complaining of dizziness and ringing in her ears, the woman had gone down in a matter of days, her only outward symptom waxy-looking hands. Stephanie kept the doctor on the line for half an hour.
When she hung up, she turned to me. “She’s exactly like Holly and the others.”
“They ever track down the source?”
“Nope.”
“Do they know anything?”
“Nope.”
46. THE DEEP BLUE DREAD
The shower shut off with a bang of the pipes in the wall, and for some minutes there was no sound from the bathroom. When the door finally opened, Stephanie’s silhouette was limned by the light behind her. She walked toward me as relaxed as if she were shopping for groceries.
She padded barefoot across the room, stood beside the bed for a few moments before I felt her weight on the mattress. Slowly, she crawled next to me, smelling of soap, toothpaste, and shampoo, pressing the length of her body against mine. It was at times such as this that I usually came up with my dumbest comments, as if the occasion inspired the idiocy. Tonight was no exception.
“This is a mercy fuck. Right?”
“Yes, it is, sweetie.”
“Then it’s not going to happen.”
“What? You don’t want to help out a socially maladjusted doctor who’s been so busy putting herself through med school and residency and establishing a practice, she never had time for a social life?”
“You’re only doing this because you feel sorry for me.”
“No. You’re doing it because you feel sorry for me.” Her faulty logic forced a laugh from me.