Anatomy of Evil (12 page)

Chapter Nineteen

Kelly studied the photo prints spread across her dining room table, a selection of colorful snapshots from the vacation to Christmas Island.

The group pictures revealed a startling similarity across Rodney, Gary, Sam and Carol. In some of the photos, they were smiling with warm, natural expressions. In others, they exhibited a collective cold look, as if the life had been sucked out of them. In more than one picture, Rodney frowned, out of character given his traditional, jovial demeanor.

Kelly reached down and moved the photos around the table's surface to arrange them chronologically. Then she stood back. The sequence confirmed an eerie suspicion lurking in the back of her mind.

All of the cheerful faces preceded the offshore fishing expedition. The deadened, joyless looks appeared in photos taken after their return.

Kelly recalled Rodney's description of a strange, terrifying storm during the boating trip, a story that made no sense given the sunny, cloudless skies she had experienced on the island that same day. He only told her about it once, that night in the bedroom with Christina in his arms, and then refused to discuss it again. More recently he had denied ever telling her such a tale.

Rodney's negative attitude had continued many weeks after their return home to Chicago. He no longer approached his work with passion. He dragged himself through each day with bitter apathy, muttering chilling statements like, “None of it matters. I should just put a bullet in my head.”

Recently he had been bringing home random consumer goods from unknown sources, stashing the items in growing piles in closets and the basement. She watched him walk in the door with brand-new electronics, high-end appliances and even jewelry. He had also collected several firearms and refused to tell her where they came from or why he needed them.

She noticed he was accumulating rolls of unexplained cash, money that exceeded his paycheck.

When she asked about it, he told her to mind her own business.

Staring at the vacation photos, Kelly became obsessed with the abruptness of Rodney's transformation.

Something had happened to his mental state. He was a different person. Had he hit his head? Was he on drugs? Had the stress of police work finally produced a crack in his psyche? She pleaded with him to see a doctor. He refused.

“Nothing is wrong with me,” he told her. “I've never been more right.”

On his days off, he spent hours sitting in a chair positioned at the big living room window overlooking the front yard. Sometimes he pointed his gun at strangers on the sidewalk and said, in a soft voice, “Bang.”

She begged him to stop. She wanted to take away the gun in case he pulled the trigger for real. She contemplated calling the police but the irony of that sent her head swimming.

Sitting in the chair at the window, he said little, but one of his remarks stayed with her, haunting her.

“Don't you know it babe, it's every man for himself out there.”

Kelly turned away from the vacation photos. She scooped up Christina, who had been playing on the floor with her toy kitchenette set—bright, plastic plates, cups, silverware, fake fruit and vegetables.

Kelly hugged Christina tight.

“Let's get you cleaned up, honey,” she said to her daughter, planting a kiss on her forehead. “We're going out for lunch. We're going to see mommy's friend.”

At noon, Kelly arrived at Pete's Place, the small family restaurant where she had arranged to meet Emma. She found an empty table in the back and set up Christina with her activity books and crayons. Emma arrived a few minutes later, still limping from her hip surgery.

Emma's relationship with Gary had crumbled over the past month. Two days ago, she had called Kelly to share the news that he had moved out. Kelly began to share her own stories of marital crisis and then decided they should meet in person.

Emma settled into the chair across from Kelly. After ordering lunch, Kelly launched into her agenda.

“I wanted to get together,” she told Emma, “because we're having a similar experience. There's also something going on with Rodney. I don't know what it is, but it all seemed to happen after the trip.”

Emma sighed. “All I know is Gary has taken a turn. It's been a nightmare. Maybe it's been happening all along and I just missed it. Maybe it's always been under the surface. I never would've suspected Gary of infidelity, ever. He's always been affectionate. He was so caring throughout my surgery, he slept in the hospital room with me. And then, all of a sudden, it's like…you wouldn't believe it, Kelly. While I'm at physical therapy, our teenage daughter comes home and finds him in bed with some slut he met God knows where. This is in our house, for Christ's sake, on my sheets, and he doesn't even care. What the fuck is wrong with him?” Then she glanced at Christina coloring in her book and grimaced. “Sorry. I'll watch the language.”

“Rodney's whole attitude has changed,” said Kelly. “I don't know if he's having affairs, but his police work… It's like he doesn't care about it or anything anymore. He's bringing home this merchandise, iPads and cameras, and I don't know where he's getting them. Maybe it's stolen, but that would be so unlike him.”

“Men change,” said Emma sadly. “Midlife crisis, who knows. They become children again. They lose their values. They go rotten.”

“But so suddenly?” said Kelly. “That's what keeps throwing me. It's like I brought a different husband home from that trip.”

“Men are clever, they can hide things,” said Emma. “Then one day they decide they don't want to hide whatever it is any longer. It's entirely possible Gary's been cheating on me for longer than the past month. He's still a well-known sports figure. He's good looking, women come on to him. But the man I married… I truly felt he would always be faithful.”

Soon a trio of lunch platters arrived. Kelly helped to get Christina started with her children's meal, cutting the chicken nuggets into smaller pieces.

“The only time Rodney seems to be himself is around Christina,” said Kelly. “He lightens up, he shows some positive energy. It's like the old Rodney comes back, I can tell he's still there…under all that nastiness.”

Emma took a bite out of her BLT sandwich. “Maybe the trip was a mistake,” she said, chewing. “I know that sounds crazy, but maybe there's something about breaking out of your routine that can derail the way you think about life. You know, it's not just Gary and Rodney. Something's going on with Carol.”

Kelly immediately looked up from her salad and asked, “What you mean?”

“I was talking to Jake the other day and he said Carol's really come out of her shell at work. She got a big promotion and it's gone to her head. She's been working everybody like a slave driver, putting in 18-hour days, laying people off. She barely sees her family. She doesn't go to the boys' activities anymore, their ballgames and band concerts. Jake was a little freaked out.”

“It's Sam too,” said Kelly.

“Excuse me?”

“There's also something wrong with Sam. You know, there are some people who think he started that church fire.”

“Sam?” Emma broke out laughing. “That's ludicrous. Are we talking about the same Sam? He's belonged to that church forever. They adore him. He teaches confirmation class. He's more religious than the Pope.”

“He made a scene at a church service. He started taking off his clothes.”

“Oh my God. Are you serious?”

“Emma, listen to me. Something happened on that trip and I have a theory. It's the people who went on the fishing trip, out on the ocean, the second to last day. Think about it. It was Gary, Rodney, Carol and Sam. And now they're all acting strange.”

“Because of a fishing trip?”

“Did Gary tell you anything about the boat going through a storm?”

“No. There was no rain that day. We were lying out on the beach, remember?”

“Rodney said something about a storm hitting the boat. He called it a red storm, like a blast or heat flash. He mentioned it once and then I couldn't get him to talk about it again.”

“Gary didn't say anything about a storm.”

“After the boat trip, that's when all this started, the weird behavior.”

“After a boat trip?” said Emma. “That doesn't make any sense.”

“You know they used to do nuclear testing on that island…”

“Come off it, Kelly. Fifty years ago. We researched that before we went there. It's clean. What are you saying, they got sick with radiation poisoning?”

Kelly nodded. “Yes. Maybe.”

Back home, Kelly placed Christina in front of her favorite Disney movie and then grabbed her laptop.

She began researching nuclear bomb testing on Kiritimati Island in the 1950s and early 1960s.

She found many of the same, general facts she uncovered when exploring the island's history prior to the trip. Several web pages cited one book in particular
: Shock Waves: A History of the Atomic Era, 1945—1991
.

A quick visit to her local library's website confirmed they had a copy of the out-of-print book.

Kelly stopped the Disney movie in the middle of a musical number and brought Christina with her to the library.

Kelly found
Shock Waves
and skimmed it for references to Kiritimati and Christmas Island. She found several pages of historical information. She tucked the book under her arm. She took a quick glance across the other titles on the same shelf.

One spine immediately grabbed her attention. It read:

The Island that Threatened the World.

She slid it out and examined the cover, which confirmed the topic: Kiritimati.

Kelly returned home with both books. She stuck Christina back in front of the Disney movie, restarted it mid song, and moved to the couch to conduct her research.

Shock Waves
provided a useful overview of global nuclear weapon testing across the decades, including the tension-filled buildup to the Cuban missile crisis.

The Island that Threatened the World
, while a much slimmer tome, focused exclusively on the activities on Kiritimati with interviews and research probing the dozens of nuclear tests in the 1950s and 1960s by British and American military forces.

One passage in particular, captivated Kelly's attention:

As nuclear weapon testing accelerated into an international competition, American scientists pushed to expand the limits of destructive force. Veterans of the 1962 tests claimed that the island provided no safe retreat and the military did little to protect the troops from exposure to ionizing radiation.

One nuclear blast above all others generated an outcry of controversy that just as swiftly dissipated, prompting suspicions of a cover-up. The test, “Project Erebos,” remains classified and shrouded in secrecy more than 50 years later.

Officials familiar with the project refused to go on record but acknowledged an ambitious bomb of unorthodox construction designed to create an extraordinary impact with pinpoint precision inside a small radius. Unlike other explosive weapons, “Project Erebos” released a wall of pressure that collapsed inward rather than expanded outward. A single detonation of the experimental device took place on June 14, 1962 with alarming consequences. The blast created an unprecedented disruption to the surrounding atmosphere that would be “unacceptable as a weapon of war under any circumstance” according to a retired army general on the condition of anonymity. Project Erebos was immediately abandoned and all records of its existence have since disappeared, giving it an almost mythical stature among nuclear weapon historians.

A small number of servicemen are rumored to have suffered health effects from being in the vicinity of the bomb's limited range. These effects are said to include brain and nerve damage and signs of post-traumatic stress syndrome. Attempts to identify or interview these victims have been unsuccessful throughout the years.

Kelly flipped to the back of the book to read the author's bio. Clearly he knew more than he could publish.

Was it possible that aftereffects from a 55-year-old bomb testing—perhaps “Project Erebos” itself—produced psychological problems in a group of vacationers from Chicago?

The notion was absurd, but so was the current situation of spontaneous mental breakdowns across four friends at the exact same time, changing their personalities into something deeply disturbed.

Professor Theodore Harding, the book's author, taught history at the University of Michigan. His photo showed a man in his fifties with black-rimmed glasses, no smile and a dark beard with patches of gray.

Kelly made it her mission to meet this man, talk with him and learn.

Rodney came home late that evening, disheveled with cuts on his face. He smelled terrible—lately he had been showering infrequently, indifferent to personal hygiene.

He told Kelly he'd gotten into a bar fight after work. He described the incident with an alarming enthusiasm, recounting every punch. “I took out some teeth, bent a nose, blackened a few eyes. It's about sending a message. Works better and faster than texting.”

She knew better than to get on his case about the violence. Two nights ago, under similar circumstances, she criticized him for handling a conflict with his fists, and he had replied, “It's the only real law in town.”

As he peeled off his shirt, she approached him casually although her heart was beating hard.

“I'm going to visit my parents for a few days,” she announced. “I'm taking Christina with me.”

He dropped the shirt to the floor, his version of a laundry basket. “Your parents? We just saw them when Christina stayed over there.”

“Yes,” she said, having anticipated his reply, “but I barely got to spend time with them. We were just dropping off and picking up. My mom—she's having trouble with her eyesight. Glaucoma. She has a doctor's appointment—”