Into the Inferno - Earl Emerson [51]
Besides, I was still trying to figure out how to tell my daughters, and I certainly didn’t want them to hear it through the grapevine.
Karrie, the two Bellevue medics on duty that day, and Jackie Feldbaum’s common-law husband were all in attendance. I mingled with the fire personnel from other departments, making small talk until Steve Haston asked everyone to gather upstairs in the meeting room, where we found a long table surrounded by folding chairs. Latecomers, of which there were over a dozen, were forced to stand against the wall. Me included.
Mayor Haston took his place at the head of the table. He’d never been much of a commander, but he’d taken this task upon himself, his somber mood and height dominating the room. Introspective, prone to being overly fastidious in small things, when he did take charge of something Steve Haston was known as a control freak, so that city council meetings became almost unbearable as he flustered and quibbled endlessly over trivialities. He’d been like that as a volunteer firefighter, too. Had driven everyone nuts.
After Lorie and Gloria skipped town together, local gossips told me he’d been a domineering husband, that he’d thrown a fit when Gloria wanted to work outside his office, that he’d controlled family expenditures with an iron fist and hadn’t allowed her to have her own friends, that every major decision concerning Karrie had been his. Without a shred of proof, I’m ashamed to say I believed every word of it. Which made me wonder what people believed about me and Lorie.
After introducing each of the principals and reading off their credentials from notes typed up beforehand, Haston thanked everyone for coming and introduced me.
24. BURY ME SLOWLY; I MAY HAVE A FEW LAST WORDS
By nature I was not a public speaker, yet I’d had enough experience in front of groups at Six Points that it didn’t bother me.
What made it troublesome today was that I was trying to talk these citizens into saving my life.
I knew it. They didn’t. And wouldn’t.
I told the group about Chief Newcastle, about the autopsy report and the discovery that his hands were coated with an unidentified white substance that looked like candle wax but did not come off. I detailed the events and symptoms surrounding the accidents that Stan Beebe, Jackie Feldbaum, and Joel McCain all had. Using the grease board in the front of the room I listed the seven-day progression of symptoms as Beebe and Holly had delineated them. Anybody who noticed my hands were blemished was circumspect enough not to mention it. I told them about Holly, the truck accident, the fact that the only place all of these people’s paths intersected was on I-90 in February.
Sadly, I could tell from the looks on their faces my discourse had not won them over. At least, not all of them.
Dr. Brashears spoke after I did. Brashears was a heavy man, balding, with a wide, flat, florid face and eyes windowed by black-framed glasses. After equivocating about doctor-patient privilege, he confessed he’d had two patients recently, Jackie and Stan, both members of the fire department, whose symptoms had not been dissimilar to the symptoms on the list on the board, that one of them had sustained massive brain damage that had presented very much like a stroke. One of Joel McCain’s doctors spoke next, had discovered the same basic symptoms pertained to Joel and confirmed that his fall had not caused his brain injury. This doctor left for an appointment as soon as he finished speaking.
Through contacts he had at the University of Washington, Haston had brought an environmental chemist to the meeting, a wisp of a woman named Esther Mulherin.
When she wasn’t at the University of Washington, Mulherin worked for Electron Laboratory Research in Kenmore. She’d previously made a name for herself researching polymer membranes for studies of ion selectivity characteristics. Ms. Mulherin wore wire-rimmed glasses and had a self-effacing demeanor and manner of dress that I felt sure made her next to invisible in any crowd. She was the only speaker