The Blacker Death: An Ebola Thriller (4 page)

“We’re still trying to nail that down. We’ve got the time-stamp on the footage, but the waiter wasn’t sure and the hostess had no idea. It could be anywhere from five to forty-five minutes.”

“Did you interview the cook?”

“The cook?”

“Yeah, the cook. Maybe no one else in that place keeps track of time, but he’ll know exactly how long it takes to make Crab Cake Benedict, and I can tell you when it was delivered. We can narrow it down from there. I put it on the company card, by the way.”

Roberts cleared her throat to keep from laughing while Fink jotted down the note.

“What about the flower?” I asked.

“He said he doesn’t remember any flower,” said Fink. “The lab boys are doubtful we can come up with anything to tie it to him.”

“Did Gyro have a cell phone?”

“He did. His call log showed one incoming call. We tracked it down. It’s a house phone in the hotel lobby.”

“Any footage covering the house phones?”

“No.”

“So, we’ve got opportunity but no motive, and nothing but circumstantial evidence so far?” I said.

“Pretty much,” Fink replied.

“What about the tickets?”

“What tickets?”

“He said they were in town to catch a show. Did he have any tickets on him?”

Fink looked down the inventory sheet and shook his head. “Not on them, and not on the list of room contents.”

“Did you find their car?”

“No car.”

“Maybe you should have someone call around to see if they had tickets waiting for them at the door.”

“What’s the big deal about the tickets?”

“Did they have any luggage?”

“No, they didn’t,” Fink said.

“So, no play tickets to the play they were going to see, no bags for the night they were spending at the hotel, and only one room for four guys. Makes perfect sense to me.”

I told Fink I had some things to take care of, but I didn’t. I just wanted to take a walk and get some fresh air. Roberts and I got into the elevator together.

“Sorry, I stepped all over your interrogation, Roberts,” I said.

“That’s all right, Bam. You did okay. How’s Billy?” she asked.

“Not good.”

“Is there anything I can do?”

“I don’t know, maybe take a run over there. It might cheer him up to see a pretty face.”

“What about you? How are you doing?”

“I’m all right. I just get tired of putting sticky notes on Fink’s thick skull.”

“What do you mean?”

“If the only evidence is circumstantial, we’ve got to break Carmine’s story so it looks ridiculous to a jury.”

“You know you’re wasting your time with Carmine, right? We’ve got no motive, and unless they turn up a witness or direct evidence, the D.A. won’t even charge him. The best we can hope for is jail time on the weapons offense.”

“With liberty and justice for all. Hey, do you want a cat?”

“Not really.”

“Well, think about it. He’s dumb, but he purrs a lot.”

I left the building and walked to the Christ Church graveyard at 5
^th
and Arch Streets, paid my two bucks, and found a bench inside. I did some of my best thinking around dead people. Ben Franklin is buried there. He’s a good one. Resolve to perform what you ought. Perform without fail what you resolve. I’m pretty sure he said that. It was one of his thirteen virtues, one of mine too.

I spent the rest of the afternoon there, watching tourists and wondering how this world got so messed up that someone with as much ruthless business smarts as Anthony Garotto would handpick a bozo with as little brains as Carmine DiPasquale to drive down from Brooklyn on a business deal and in fifteen minutes whack the guy he was supposed to be dealing with. It made as much sense to me as Billy’s getting Ebola. It was an African disease, not something that shows up in a swanky Philly hotel.

I hadn’t come up with any answers by 5:30 p.m., and I was hungry. I walked down the mall past the Liberty Bell looking for a hot dog stand. Three panhandlers later, I found one out in front of Independence Hall. Two chilidogs and a Coke were a big step down from Crab Cake Benedict, but I ate them just the same.

I headed back to the car and drove to the hospital. Billy dragged himself away from his hospital dinner to say hi.

“What’s on the menu, Junior?” I asked.

“I don’t know, some kind of meat.”

“I see they got the cable hooked up.”

“Yeah, thanks. They dropped off a laptop too.“

“You keeping busy?”

“More or less. I could use a set of free weights.”

“I’ll see what I can do.”

“How’d it go with Carmine and his lawyer?”

“Could have been worse.” I filled him in.

“A fucking murderer, and he’ll get a $15,000 fine. That’s not justice.”

“We’re still working on it.”

“I should be out there helping.”

“You want to help?”

Billy nodded, “You bet I do.”

“Can you access our network?”

“I logged in to check my email earlier, so I guess so.”

“Then, put your little laptop to good use. Find out all you can about Gyro: his family, his friends, business associates, everything. There’s something we’re missing here, something big.”

“You got it, Grandpa.”

I stopped at a pet store on the way home and picked up a couple cans of cat food, a food dish, cat litter, a litter pan, and a catnip toy. If none of his friends wanted Gyro’s body, they sure as hell weren’t coming for his cat. I didn’t really want a cat either, but sometimes you just go with the cards you’re dealt.

He and Shep were waiting for me at the door when I got home. Looking at them sitting there together, Shep wagging his big tail and the cat purring a mile a minute, made me think I should revisit my beliefs about cats and dogs getting along. The three of us ate dinner in the kitchen. I nuked what was left of a soggy hoagie from a couple days ago. Shep had his usual dried food covered in beef gravy. The cat ate something that smelled like the back alley of a second-rate seafood place.

I set out the litter pan on the screened-in back porch and showed the cat how to work the screen door if he wanted to go prowling. It was pretty simple. The door swung both ways. Most times, I left the inner door to the kitchen open in case it got cold and Shep wanted to come inside. I set it up that way for him so he could come and go as he pleased. He liked to wander in the woods, but he never went far. I guess somewhere inside that dog’s head was his own invisible fence.

The cat watched Shep push through the door into the backyard and disappear into the woods. He stretched out on the rug, and I went to bed.

The following morning, I came downstairs and turned on the Saturday cartoons for Shep. That was the only time he liked watching TV. Other than that, he’d either bark or go outside and sulk. I couldn’t really blame him. Most of the stuff on TV was crap. He looked a little confused that there was no sofa for him to stretch out on, but he managed to find a spot on the floor with a good view.

When I went into the kitchen to start the coffee, I found the cat’s little present for me in the middle of the floor — a dead mouse. I threw it out back and started breakfast: bacon, eggs, and hash browns. That and cereal were the only things in my repertoire. Shep wandered in from the living when he smelled the bacon and lay down with his big head on my bare feet. The cat pushed his way back onto the porch through the swinging door with the dead rodent dangling from his mouth. He dropped it beside me and meowed. Thoughtful. I was beginning like the little guy. I threw a few extra pieces of bacon on for them and we had ourselves a feast.

The phone rang about eight o’clock.

“Matthews,” I said.

“It’s me, Bam.”

“Billy. What’s up?”

“Are you anywhere near your PC?”

“No, but I can be. Hang on.”

I put my plate on the floor with what was left of my breakfast for Shep and the cat to fight over, and retrieved my laptop from the living room. I fired it up and got back on the phone.

“Okay, got it,” I said.

“Log into the Citrix server. I’m on node fifteen. I set the password to ‘Grandpa.’”

It took a minute to connect over the Wi-Fi. When the shared screen on the computer back at the Six popped up on my laptop, I said, “Okay, I’m in. What am I looking at?”

“It’s a newspaper article from last month.”

I scanned the article. The police had found a man dead of an apparent drug overdose behind a place in Northeast Philly called Rocket Sandwich Shop.

“Yeah, so?” I said.

“Rocket Sandwich Shop is one of the places Gyro owned.”

“Really? Who’s the stiff?”

“The detective assigned to the case is away for the weekend. I’ll find out Monday.”

“Call Northeast Detectives and ask for Captain Bellows. Tell him I sent you. Tell him we need a name and address pronto.”

“You think there’s a connection?”

A hundred people died of drug overdoses in Philadelphia last year. That’s one every three or four days, not an uncommon thing, and not likely connected to Gyro’s death, but Billy sounded a hell of a lot better about life than he had yesterday.

“Could be,” I said. “Good work, Junior. How are you feeling this morning?”

“A little tired. I was up most of the night.”

“Listen. Take it easy. I’ll stop over later. Maybe I can smuggle in a real burger past the astronauts.”

“Fries too?”

“You got it.”

I had a few errands to run and nothing else planned for my day off. I didn’t feel like going to the range, didn’t feel like taking a jog, and didn’t feel like mowing the lawn. I was feeling a little tired, too, to tell the truth, so I decided to get the errands over with. First stop was the local Salvation Army store to look for a new Hawaiian shirt. I found one that I figured I could learn to love someday and bought it. My next stop was a place called the Trading Post that sold used and reconditioned furniture. Fifty bucks later, I had a new sofa that would be delivered Monday. My last stop was the liquor store.

Shep met me with his leash in his mouth as I pulled up in front of the garage. He always took the direct approach. I liked that about him. So, after carrying the case of beer and the liquor bottles into the house, and throwing my new shirt into the washer, we went for a walk. I liked walking with Shep. It gave me time to think and him time to chase rabbits. The leash was just for show. We always took the deer trail through the woods that led from my property onto the adjoining land owned by the Castors, one of the biggest peach farmers in the area. Together, we owned a big enough piece of woods for deer, wild turkeys, fox, and other small animals to live on in an area surrounded by suburban blight. Bill Castor put up new “no hunting” and “no trespassing” signs every year, and he and his boys kept an eye on things to keep poachers away. We had a gentleman’s agreement about sharing those woods. He hunted them, and I got to walk in them with Shep.

I was standing at one of Bill’s hunting blinds waiting for Shep to come back from chasing something into the bush when my cell phone rang. FBI rules: you always carry your piece, and you never leave your phone behind. I whistled for Shep and answered the call.

“Matthews.”

“Bam, it’s Tom, Tom Stalter.”

I felt really cold all of a sudden, even though it was working up to another hot and humid day.

“How’s things at the CDC?” I said.

“We haven’t done anything yet today to embarrass ourselves.”

“Good for you. What’ve you got?” I asked.

“Nothing on the Philly sample. I just thought you might like to know that we finished up one from Florida for a guy who had flown back from Liberia and came in to a hospital last week in Sarasota with symptoms. They thought for sure he had Ebola, but his blood-work was negative.”

“That’s nice, but what does that mean for Billy?”

“Just that nothing is certain until the final results come back, that’s all.”

“So, I should tell him not to worry?”

“You can tell him it doesn’t help.”

“Thanks. I’ll let him know.”

“That’s all I had, Bam. I should get back to it. We’re swamped.”

“How many possible Ebola cases are you people working on right now?”

Tom took a minute. “Sixty-eight in-house,” he said, “and we just got two more calls this morning for samples being shipped here from overseas. It takes a day for each, so we’re a little backed up right now.”

“Can’t you do more than one at a time?”

“We do, but we’ve only got five PCRs dedicated to running the test, so we’re looking at a ten-plus day backup unless we fast-track the sample or farm it out. The CDC has a Laboratory Response Network throughout the country that handles most of the domestic testing. We started shipping foreign samples to them last week to bring our response time down.”

“What’s a PCR?”

“They take the blood sample, add an enzyme to convert RNA to DNA, add a primer to target the Ebola genetic code, and run the whole thing through a machine called a PCR. That creates a reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction, RT-PCR. It amplifies and copies the virus so it can be detected more quickly. The process takes about twelve hours.”

“Sorry I asked. Let me ask you something, are either one of those two new samples from Belgium?”

“Belgium? No. One is coming from the Congo and the other is from Luxembourg because they don’t have the facilities.” He paused a minute, then said, “That’s funny.”

“What’s funny?”

“Luxembourg is right next to Belgium. Why did you ask if any were from Belgium?”

“Because that’s where the dead guy is from. Maybe you should fast-track that Luxembourg one too.”

“Maybe we should.”

I asked Tom to keep me in the loop and hung up. I whistled for Shep again, but he was long gone, so I headed back to the house and called Jimmy Barnes at West Detectives. He didn’t used to believe in days off. I was hoping things hadn’t changed.

“West Detectives,” he answered.

“Jimmy, it’s me.”

“You could’ve told me you changed your cell number, Bam.”

“Oh yeah, I did that after the divorce. Changed the home number too.”

“Divorce? I didn’t know you and Pam had split up.”

“I guess it’s been a while.”

“I guess it has. Look, I’ve been trying to reach you but the pricks at your office wouldn’t give me your number. They said they’d pass along the message.”

“It’s probably in the suggestion box by my desk.”

“The circular one?”

“That’s the one. You want to go first or should I?”

“It’s your dime,” he said.

“The CDC’s got another possible Ebola case right next-door to Belgium. Was your guy in Luxembourg recently?”

“Don’t know.”

“What about Africa?”

“We’re still checking on that, but I don’t think so.”

“Okay, your turn now,” I said.

“Are you free anytime today?”

“Sure. What’d you have in mind?”

“How about dinner at Pico’s, say about seven?”

“You got it. See you then.”

I spent the rest of the morning and the afternoon doing nothing. About 4:00 p.m. I put on my new Hawaiian shirt and headed for the hospital to see Billy, stopping on the way to pick up a couple burgers, fries, and a shake from a local place called Fat Macks. They make the best burgers around. When I got to the fourth floor at the hospital, a spaceman was just getting ready to go in. I handed him the bag from Fat Macks and told him it was personal belongings for Billy. I guess they can’t smell much inside those space suits. He sprayed the outside of the bag with a disinfectant and took it in with him.

When Doc Williamson saw what he’d done, he chewed him out from behind the glass, and then he laid into me.

“You really shouldn’t have done that,” he said.

“It’s just a burger. What difference does it make?”

“A big difference, if he starts to show symptoms. We’re trying to keep it sterile in there.”

“I don’t get it. He’s not sick. What’s the big deal?”

“If he gets a cold or any kind of respiratory or other infection, it will weaken his immune system and make him more susceptible to complications from the disease, assuming he has it. That’s why we’re taking special precautions with every meal we serve him. Who knows what kind of germs that fast food is carrying.”

I said I was sorry, but when I looked over at Billy, he was smiling ear-to-ear, chowing down on that burger.

“How are
you
feeling, Agent Matthews?” he asked.

“I’m fine, doc.”

“Did you read that literature I gave you?”

“I’m working on it.”

“Did you take your temperature this morning?”

“Not yet.”

He lectured me, took my temperature, said it was normal, and lectured me again. I tried to change the subject.

“How’s Billy?”

“So far, so good.”

“Did you get in touch with the people on that list I gave you?”

“I spoke with three of them and left messages for the others.”

“What did you tell them?”

“I told them that the man at the hotel had an infectious disease, and that there was a slight possibility they may have been exposed to it. I asked them to come in for tests just to be sure.”

“Did you tell them what disease?”

“Only one asked. I told him it was malaria.”

“Malaria? So, you lied?”

“Agent Matthews, I’m not about to use the word Ebola when we’re not certain what it is. Malaria is a disease that can be readily cured if treated. People know that.”

“So, you lied?”

“Yes, I lied.”

“Good. I’m glad you’re on the case, Doc. You’ve got a good head on your shoulders.”

I went over to the booth to talk to Billy.

“Sorry about eating in front of you, Grandpa, but this is the best damn burger I’ve ever had.”

“No sweat, kid. How’s tricks? I see they brought in a treadmill for you.”

“Yeah, between that, the TV, push-ups, and sit-ups, I’m keeping busy.”

“I’m still working on those free weights.”

“Great. Is that a new shirt?”

“Got it this morning.”

“I never thought I’d see the day when you’d own two butt-ugly Hawaiian shirts.”

“I got rid of the other one.”

“That wouldn’t have anything to do with getting that guy’s blood on it, would it?”

I thought about my charred sofa sitting in the front yard, and said, “No. It made me look too much like Five-O.”

The conversation wasn’t headed to a good place. I could see that in Billy’s eyes.

“Dad was here earlier,” he said. “He told me that he and Mom are praying for me. She wanted to come with him, but couldn’t with Grandmom needing so much help.”

“Don’t worry, Billy. You’ll be okay. Did you find out anything more on that guy who OD’d at the sandwich shop?”

For the moment, Billy packed away the baggage that was weighing him down. That was a good sign. “His name is Vincent Taney,” he said. “I posted what I found on the Citrix server and set it up for mobile access so you get it on your phone. Same node, same password.”

“Thanks, I’ll check it out later. Keep digging. You’re doing good work, kid.”

I left Billy, left the hospital, and left Camden, taking the Ben Franklin Bridge into Philadelphia. I was early for my meeting with Jimmy, but I needed a drink, more than one. I’d been on the wrong end of a gun many times, been shot, been stabbed, gotten in quite a few jams in my day, but nothing like what Billy was facing. You come to expect a few curves balls in this business, but not for the pitcher to walk in from the mound, take the bat out of your hands, and beat you over the head with it. When I got over the bridge I circled underneath and headed down 4
^th
to South Street. That’s where Pico’s is. It isn’t a cop bar, but a lot of cops go there for the good food and the generous cop discount on drinks.