Into the Inferno - Earl Emerson [42]
“Back in late May we found a methamphetamine lab in the woods. Most of those meth cooks don’t live past their midforties. We tried to be careful—even had a private company come in and do the cleanup—but most of the people who’ve had this thing were there. Maybe all of them. I’d have to go back and check the daybook.”
“Did you see Holly around that time?”
“No. We were only speaking on the phone by then. What we’re looking for, I guess, is some event that connects Joel McCain; our chief, who went down like Holly; and Jackie Feldbaum. And of course, Stan.”
“Jackie? What happened to him?”
“Her. Slammed into the rear of an eighteen-wheeler in her sports car.”
“She was a firefighter?”
“A volunteer. I just can’t believe we didn’t all incur this together. We had to have. Don’t you think?”
“I do think. Is there any place where you all were at the same time?”
“Only that truck accident in February, where Holly and I met.”
“All of you?”
“I think so. That would make the truck accident the most likely source, wouldn’t it?”
“I’ve spoken at length to a neurologist in San Francisco, a doctor named Parker. He thinks Holly went down as a result of exposure to an insecticide. He said the pathophysiology of it affects the CNS, causing euphoria, dizziness, confusion, CNS depression, headache, vertigo, hallucinations, seizures, ataxia, tinnitus, stupor, and ultimately coma. That’s not exactly the way it happened with Holly, but close enough. The way I’m thinking about this, if it were just people from your fire department, it could have been anything. But you cross-reference it with the fact that Holly got it, too, and nobody else in Washington or even on the West Coast has it, it narrows down the possibilities.”
“The truck accident. That’s the hypothesis I should work from.”
“I agree. But you’re off by one pronoun. It’s the hypothesis we should work from. I’m in on this, too.”
“Trouble is, there wasn’t anything hazardous in either of those trucks.”
“That you recall.”
“One truck had nothing but chickens. The other truck was the one Holly drove, and as I remember, it had a pretty standard array of items. Lots of cartons and packages. Some comic books. Bibles. Coca-Cola extract. It was a sticky mess.”
“The chickens interest me. H5N1. That was the Hong Kong virus. Birds have spread disease to humans before. I’ll do some research. The trouble is, these aren’t flu symptoms you guys are coming down with, and that’s what H5N1 presents as. Flu symptoms.” She looked at me and I saw flickers of the compassion that must have originally attracted Stephanie Riggs to medicine. Maybe she wasn’t such a bitch after all. “You ready to run some tests?”
“Now?”
“We don’t have a whole lot of time.”
I felt like a man being dragged down the corridor to the gas chamber. I could only hope Stephanie couldn’t sense my terror. In fact, I was almost more afraid of her finding out how afraid I was than I was of the syndrome. For reasons I had trouble explaining to myself, I wanted her to like me more than I’d ever wanted any woman to like me. Jesus, I thought. I still had the steely taste of vanity in my mouth even when they were hauling me to the boneyard. Maybe I was a prick like everybody said.
“As far as I’m concerned, and until we find out otherwise, you and my sister have the same thing.”
“Which is?”
“I don’t have a clue. Neither does any doctor I’ve consulted. I’m hoping, because you’re still up and walking around, you’ll present differently. If you’ll let me test you, it just might be enough to give us the missing parts to the puzzle. You all right? You look a little pale.”
“You find out what it is, you think you’ll be able to reverse it?”
“Maybe for you. Holly had a brain aneurysm. I’m afraid there’s no going back.”
“But you told your aunt you were still hoping for a miracle.”
“You’re a patient. I have to tell you the truth, even if I don’t want to face it myself.