Lethal Dose (7 page)

13

Doug Hughes twisted the handset on his front door and pushed, all in the same motion. The handle didn't turn, and he almost smacked his face into the door. He tried the handle again. Locked. He rang the doorbell and waited. Nothing. It was just after five on Monday—no reason for Elsie to be out with the kids. He dug in his pocket, fished out a key, and opened the door. The house was quiet.

“Hello,” he said, a slight lilt to his voice. “Honey? You home?”

Silence.

A small, scarred wooden table sat in the foyer, and he dropped his keys on it. The day's mail, usually stacked neatly and waiting for him, was nowhere in sight. He opened the front door and checked the mailbox. It was full. He closed the front door and set the mail on the table next to his keys. Something wasn't right. Unless the kids had some sort of sports or after-school activity, Elsie was always home when he arrived from work, and tonight was no different from any other: The train had dropped him at the station precisely when it did every night. He was positive their calendar was clear. And where were the kids? He slipped off his shoes, calling again for his wife and kids.

Silence. Not a sound.

His wife had been under the weather for the last week, quite sick actually, but if she was heading out to the doctor's office, she would have called. He stopped at the garage door and peeked in. Her vehicle was parked next to his. He felt his heart beating faster and a steely taste in his mouth. Panic. He moved quickly through the house now, checking each room as he went. The main-floor family room was clean and quiet, the television and audio system both turned off. The kitchen was exactly as he had left it, the glass from his morning fruit shake still in the sink. He ran up the open staircase to the upper floor, glancing in the kids' rooms as he moved down the hall. Nothing. Everything clean and quiet. He grasped the handle to the master bedroom and turned. The knob rotated easily and the door swung in a couple of inches.

“Elsie,” he said quietly as he entered the room. The bed was ruffled and he could see the outline of his wife under the covers. He took a deep breath and exhaled. She was sleeping. Probably had a neighbor or one of her friends pick up the kids so she could sleep off whatever bug she was fighting. He walked across the room, his stocking feet making no sound on the thick nylon carpet. He reached the edge of the bed and folded the covers back.

And then he screamed.

Doug Hughes screamed again and again as he staggered back from the bed, knocking over the night table and spilling a full glass of water. Staring at him with bloated eyes, one popped completely out of its socket, was a dead person. His wife's face was a strange shade of purple, her lips almost black. A thick, vile liquid was oozing from her mouth onto the sheets. Her mouth was set in a horrific grimace, as though her last breath had been in total agony. A pungent odor drifted to him and he vomited onto the carpet. It was an odor he had never smelled before. It was the odor of death.

He grasped the phone with unsteady hands and dialed 911. “My wife is dead,” he said when the operator came on. “My wife is dead. Oh my God, my wife is dead.”

He dropped the phone on the floor, then fainted.

14

“What killed her?” Gil Jacoby asked. Elsie Hughes's death, although not a homicide, had been assigned to his department and he'd drawn the short straw. No one in homicide wanted to deal with any infectious-disease death, let alone one this ugly.

Katie Wood, the chief medical examiner for Austin, Texas, snapped off her protective gloves and deposited them in the biohazard trash just outside the autopsy room. She shook her head as she removed her plastic hair net. “I'm not sure, but I know what it looks like and I hope I'm wrong.”

Jacoby was suddenly awake. The tone of the ME's voice was not good. “What?” he asked.

“You'll have to wait a few minutes,” she said. “I've got to shower.” She left the detective standing in the anteroom, wondering what had just happened. He was even more concerned when another employee showed up a few minutes later in full protective gear and removed the trash can that contained the gloves and hair net. Another person, dressed from head to toe in rubber and plastic, placed a strip of yellow tape across the door to the autopsy room. Neither spoke to him.

“What's going on?” he asked when Wood returned. Her short dark hair was still wet.

She pointed to another room abutting the examining room and they entered, shutting the door behind them. “This is serious,” she said, pouring two coffees and offering one to the homicide detective. “Right from the start I suspected this was something different, dangerous. The symptoms the victim exhibited were synonymous with some sort of hemorrhagic fever. Pharyngitis, conjunctivitis, and bleeding from openings in her body.”

“Whoa, talk English, Doc. What did you just say?”

“Her throat was inflamed, as were the mucous membranes in and about her eyes. That's what forced her eyeball out of its socket.”

“Okay, but what makes this so dangerous?”

“Ever heard of Ebola?” she asked, sipping her coffee.

Jacoby instantly went white. “Of course. But that only happens in Africa. And it's spread by animals.”

Wood raised an eyebrow. “Very good, Detective. Ebola's not the only virus that causes hemorrhagic fever. There's one more: Marburg. They're both filoviruses, and they're both very dangerous and very communicable. Once I suspected I may have a filovirus, I stopped normal autopsy procedure, cut out a slice of infected tissue, and magnified the sample on our electron microscope. The viral particles are about fourteen thousand nanometers long and encased in lipids. The only reason I know it's not Ebola is that the particles are over a hundred and sixty nanometers in diameter, twice that of the Ebola virus. And I'm pretty sure they're not Marburg, either.”

“Then if the virus isn't Ebola or Marburg, it isn't a filovirus,” Jacoby said hopefully.

“I can't say for sure that it is or it isn't,” she said. “But we'll know soon enough. Can you find out for me if the victim has been in Africa recently?”

“Of course. I'll call her husband.” He started to stand up, but the ME put her hand on his arm.

“Use your cell phone, Detective, because neither you nor I are going anywhere until we find out if we've been infected.”

Jacoby slowly sat down. “How does that happen?” he asked after a few seconds.

“An hour from now, this place is going to look like something from one of those plague movies. Everyone in protective suits, washing every square millimeter of this place down with the strongest industrial cleaners on the market. They'll bring the necessary equipment with them to run an immunohistochemical procedure once they've fixed a skin biopsy with formalin. It's a pretty definitive test. And if whatever killed her turns out to be a filovirus, we've got a real problem.”

“What's that?”

“This facility is rated Biosafety Level Two. Somehow they'll have to get her body to the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases in Fort Detrick, Maryland. It's the only Biosafety Level Four facility in the country.”

“Holy shit,” Jacoby said. “What about us?”

The ME looked grim. “That's a good question, Detective. A very good question indeed.”

15

BioTech Five was a three-level maze, filled with lab rats in white coats scurrying from office to office, notes in hand. It took Jennifer Pearce almost fifteen minutes to find her assigned lab. Everything looked similar: banks of windows, long desks covered with beakers, and small offices, most stuffed with paper overflowing from desks, bookshelves, and filing cabinets. When she finally found her space, she was greeted in a reception area by a woman in her mid- to late twenties.

“Are you Dr. Pearce?” she asked, her voice encumbered with a touch of accent.

“Yes,” she replied, trying to place the accent. “And you are?”

“Kenga. Kenga Bakcsi. I'm the executive administrator for your group.” She stood and held out a hand.“Welcome toVeritas.”

“Thanks,” Jennifer said, shaking the woman's hand. She noticed the manicured nails and tasteful bracelet. “Your accent is different. Australian?”

Kenga shook her head. “Not even close. Transylvanian.”

Jennifer did a double take on the woman. She was average height with off-blond hair, soft eyes, and cheeks angling down to a chin just a shade too small for her face. She was an attractive young woman with a warm smile and an almost shy demeanor.“You're kidding,” Jennifer said.“Transylvania. I've never met anyone from Transylvania.”

“Yeah, home of Count Dracula and his friends. Lots of them about. Vampires, of course.” Her eyes turned mischievous. “Actually, Transylvania is part of Romania now, so you don't hear it referred to by its original name too often. But enough of that. Your staff is waiting to meet you.”

Kenga led Jennifer down a short hall, bare of any pictures or plaques. Jennifer smoothed her light green pantsuit with her hands and ran her fingers through her hair as she walked. She didn't mind meeting new people or even speaking in public, but she knew there would be some tension in the room. Twenty-some people all waiting to meet their new boss. For all they knew, she could be Ms. Ogre with a pocket full of pink slips. They reached the end of the hall and entered a casual boardroom. A long table with enough chairs for all the staff centered the room, while a collection of whiteboards covered the walls. Most were filled with writing and chemical formulas. She immediately recognized some of the work. It was specific to the beta-amyloid approach to Alzheimer's. This was obviously their meeting room, where the team brainstormed new ideas. She liked that—it indicated there was good communication within the group.

The chairs were mostly filled, every eye on her as she entered. She scanned the room quickly, assessing her staff. Most were in their late twenties to early forties. They were dressed in everything imaginable, from the standard white lab coat to ripped blue jeans. She liked that as well. Stifling creativity was a problem in the industry, and lax dress codes indicated an easygoing atmosphere, conducive to independent thinking. She stood at the head of the table.

“Good morning. I'm Jennifer Pearce. Not Dr. Pearce. Not Ms. Pearce. Just Jennifer. And the first thing I'd like to say is that no one in this room is going to lose their job or be transferred.” She could almost hear the collective sigh of relief as she continued. “But that said, things are going to change. I have some ideas I've brought with me from Marcon, and I'd like to incorporate them in how we do things. If you guys are okay with change, we'll get along wonderfully.”

Ten minutes later, she thanked them for their attention and left the room with Kenga. Her assistant had a smile on her face.

“That was good,” she said as they walked. “Our previous team leader was a tyrant. He had no people skills. Not a good choice to head up an entire division.” She pointed to an office on the left, a window office considerably larger than the rest. “This is yours.”

Jennifer was tempted to ask what had happened to her predecessor but kept the question to herself. She entered the office and glanced about. It was spacious for a researcher's office, about twenty feet long by fifteen feet wide. The entire twenty feet bordering the exterior was windows. The blinds were up, and she walked to one of the windows and looked out. The view was good, similar to Bruce Andrews's, except one floor lower. She could see the edge of the Coliseum and a portion of Abady Festival Park. The walls were clear, ready for her degrees and diplomas, her teak desk clean and highly polished. A Pentium computer was tucked under the desk and a laptop sat in the work area. The interior wall was all bookshelves, mostly filled with medical and pharmaceutical texts. She glanced at the titles, glad that she wouldn't have to lug all her books from home.

“What do you think?” Kenga asked.

Jennifer sat in the high-backed chair and smiled. She set the mouse in the center of its pad and placed a pen at a forty-five-degree angle next to the mouse pad. “I like it, Kenga. I like it a lot.”

“Would you like some coffee?”

Jennifer gave her a gentle admonishing look. “Kenga, if I want coffee, I'll get it. Your job is to administer this group, not get me coffee or doughnuts.”

It was Kenga's turn to smile. “I think this is going to work out just fine,” she said.

Jennifer nodded. “Me too.”

16

It was a perfect day, sun beating down on the city and the harbor, the mercury stuck at eighty-five. A wisp of wind came in off the ocean, cooling the sunbathers a touch but not enough to send anyone packing from the beaches to the parking lot. No one was complaining: This was San Diego in mid-July. Life was perfect.

Jimmy Gamble worked the counter at the post office in Grossmont Center, just east of San Diego State University. He enjoyed dealing with people and found the job rewarding—or as rewarding as working for the U.S. Postal Service can be. He arrived for work on Thursday, covering the ten-to-six shift, his favorite. Early mornings were for birds looking for worms, not for people who enjoyed a few cups of coffee before working the postage meter. He pinned on his name tag and stepped up to the counter.

Something on the floor near the cash register caught his eye. A prepackaged book of ten stamps was lying on the floor. He took a couple of steps, stooped over, and picked it up. He glanced back at the wall, where hundreds of similar packages hung in neat rows and columns.
Now, how the hell did that get there?
He shrugged, brushed off the dust, and slipped the renegade package onto the most accessible peg, then returned to his counter and opened for the day.

The sixth customer in his line asked for a package of ten stamps for mailing a standard letter, and Jimmy pulled the package off the wall and set it on the counter. The man also had two small packages: one for Phoenix, the other for Boston.

“That will be twenty-three dollars and sixteen cents,” Jimmy said, printing a receipt and making change.

“Thank you,” the man said.

“You're welcome, Mr. English,” Jimmy said, reading the name off the return address on one of the packages.

The man did a double take at the sound of his name, and Jimmy pointed at the return address. English smiled at the extra initiative the postal employee had taken and returned to the July sunshine. The smile was still on his face as he climbed behind the wheel of his Cadillac and steered for Maderas Golf Club.

It was a perfect day for golf. What the hell, it was a perfect day.