[Kate Lange 01.0] Damaged

by Pamela Callow

  John closed his eyes. “Anna,” he said heavily, “we never had the chance.”

  “But when he first started bringing those dead prostitutes in—”

  “He was psychopathic even then. He’s been a psycho all his life. Look at how he got kicked out of the surgical residency program. The only way to stop him would have been to call the police. You know we couldn’t afford to do that.”

  “You mean you couldn’t,” she said bitterly. “You’d lost a few too many times at the blackjack table, right, John?”

  Her dig hit home. He flushed. “Don’t be ridiculous. If we’d involved the police, they would have begun investigating BioMediSol. They would have found out that some of those body parts had not been donated.”

  She exhaled in frustration. “Then what the hell do we do now?”

  “I’ll deal with Kate. You handle Craig.”

  “Jesus, John, he’s a friggin’ serial killer!”

  “Anna, you have to be calm about this.”

  “How can I be calm? He’s out of control. We could be next!”

  She was right. He needed to be dealt with. “Look, just get him to the upstairs embalming room and inject him. Then stick him in the crematorium.” He leaned back in his chair. “Simple.”

  She exhaled deeply. “Okay. But you better be there, too. He’s a maniac.”

  “Fine. Tell him to come for 8:00 p.m.”

  Chapter 47

  Friday, May 18, 4:45 p.m.

  The fog flirted with the Narrows. It billowed up from the outer harbor toward the slim band of water, dulling it. Within minutes it would enshroud the bridge that connected Halifax to its twin city, Dartmouth.

  Kate turned on her headlights and took the exit to Windmill Road. It was one of Dartmouth’s working-class areas, lined with small but neat houses and low-rent apartment buildings clad in brick. The neighborhood was inhabited by blue-collar workers, single mothers and retirees whose final years were not tinged with gold. Windmill Road was modest, not destitute. But despite its ordinariness, violent crime was growing at an alarming rate. If there was a murder or assault, chances were good it took place in the north end of Dartmouth.

  Vangie Wright’s sister, Claudine, lived in an apartment building perched on a slope that rolled down to the water. The building was called, fittingly enough, Blue Water apartments. What the name lacked in imagination was made up for by the view.

  Kate parked her car and headed into the foyer. Checking the security code she had written down, she punched in the number and waited for Claudine to answer.

  It had been a stroke of luck to find Vangie’s sister. After her narrow escape from the funeral home last night, she had called Shonda, worried that she’d be so high she wouldn’t be of any use. But Shonda hadn’t answered.

  Kate spent the night in suspense, wondering what the reaction of Craig Peters and Anna Keane had been when they realized someone had placed a fake order with them. The clock had started ticking the minute the delivery man was not met.

  She just prayed that Anna Keane would not notice that BioMediSol’s files had been breached.

  The clock would tick in double time then.

  Kate spent the morning in LMB’s library, pretending it was business as usual. At lunch, her assistant handed her a pink message slip with Randall’s name. He’d called first thing this morning, Liz told her.

  Kate sat behind her desk and stared at the phone. Had Randall found out that she’d broken into Keane’s Funeral Home? The only way he could possibly know was if Anna Keane had told him—which meant he was in collusion with John Lyons.

  Yet, with their rivalry, it seemed improbable. Although, they could have started out as partners…

  She shook her head. She’d found zero evidence to connect him to either BioMediSol or TransTissue. But she didn’t dare call him back. She still didn’t trust him. And he always seemed to figure out what she was hiding.

  She called Shonda repeatedly throughout the day, her anxiety growing as Shonda’s cell phone replayed the same message: “The customer you are trying to reach is not available.”

  At 4:39 p.m. Shonda answered the phone. She was wary, tight-lipped. But she did tell her that Vangie had a sister named Claudine. The last she’d heard she was living in Dartmouth.

  It seemed ironic that after all the risks she had taken to get her hands on BioMediSol’s paper trail, she had found Claudine’s phone number with a quick flip of the white pages.

  * * *

  Friday, May 18, 5:10 p.m.

  John Lyons sat in his car. He studied Kate’s house from across the street. Nice neighborhood, but the house needed a bit of work. Whoever bought it would have to put a chunk of money into it.

  Every few minutes he spotted Kate’s dog. The white husky would stand against the living room window and stare straight at him. As if he knew John was waiting for his protégée.

  Why hadn’t she just accepted the settling of TransTissue’s case gracefully and moved on? She had potential. He bet that she could have had a good career at LMB.

  But not anymore.

  He glanced at the clock on his dash. It was 5:10 p.m. What was taking her so long? She’d left the office half an hour ago.

  If he sat by the curb much longer, people might get suspicious. For once he regretted his luxury vehicle.

  His cell phone rang. He jumped. Jesus. He was tense.

  It was probably his wife, Lorraine. Wondering if they were still going to the casino tonight.

  He needed to act normally. And give himself an alibi. He pressed the phone to his ear. “Hello.”

  “Lyons.”

  His heart jolted. “Barrett.”

  “We need to meet. Now. How soon can you get back to the office?”

  His brow broke out into sweat. Damn. He knew from the tone of Barrett’s voice that the game was up. CreditAngels must have contacted Barrett. They’d been threatening to, but he didn’t think they’d do it. He thought the money he’d given them as a good-faith payment would keep them quiet.

  He didn’t want Barrett to think he could be ordered around so easily. But he needed to put out this fire. Fast.

  Before everything came crashing down.

  But what if Kate tried to contact Barrett before John had a chance to deal with her?

  He thought quickly. He’d wait for Kate a bit longer. She must be on her way home. Then he’d handle Barrett.

  “I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

  * * *

  Friday, May 18, 5:10 p.m.

  The security door buzzed and Kate let herself into the hallway of Blue Water apartments. She took the small elevator to the second floor. The smell of bacon frying tantalized her nose. She heard a baby crying.

  She knocked on 214 and the door opened immediately. A small woman with skin the color of almond biscotti answered. A TV babbled in the background.

  “Ms. Wright?” she asked.

  “Yes.” Her face had a wary look that Kate was becoming all too familiar with. She reminded Kate of a fawn, her delicate frame poised to flee.

  “I’m Kate Lange.” She smiled and held out her hand. “Thank you for agreeing to see—”

  “Who’s that, Mama?” A tiny little girl poked her head around Claudine’s legs. She had rows of little pigtails all over her head. Inquisitive brown eyes stared up at her. Kate wasn’t good at guessing kid’s ages, but she thought she was about six.

  “Hi. I’m Kate,” she said to the little girl.

  “I’m Tania.”

  “Tania, you go watch your brother,” Claudine said. “I’ve got to talk to this lady for a few minutes.” Kate wondered how such a tiny child could be responsible for watching anything.

  “Do I have to?” Tania said. “He’s so annoying.”

  Claudine gave her a warning look. “Do as I say.”

  Tania turned reluctantly from the door, throwing one last look over her shoulder at Kate. Kate gave her a sympathetic smile. She remembered with a pang what it was like babysitting her
younger sister.

  Claudine held the door open. “Come in.”

  She walked into the apartment. It was smallish and cheaply furnished, but clean and bright. Tania scrambled over an old velour couch and whispered something into the ear of a little boy who looked twice her size. A cartoon blared but they both ignored it.

  Claudine threw them a stern glance and turned to Kate. “We can talk over here.” She pointed to a table and chairs set up by the galley kitchen. “Coffee?”

  Kate smiled. “Yes, please.”

  Claudine poured two mugs and brought them on a tray with a small pitcher of milk, a sugar bowl and a plate of sugar cookies. She had obviously set it up in anticipation of Kate’s visit.

  “Thank you.” Kate added some milk and sugar to her mug and took a sip.

  Claudine sat down close to her. She cupped her mug between her slender hands. “You said you had some questions about Vangie?” Her voice was low.

  “Yes. First of all, did she ever use the name Mary Littler?”

  Claudine shook her head. “Not that I know about. She always stuck with Vangie.”

  That did it. Mary Littler was a fake name, Kate was sure of it. But just to make sure, she asked, “Did she have a tattoo of a hummingbird on her ankle?”

  “Yeah, she got it when she was seventeen. Why do you want to know? Have you seen her?” Her eyes searched Kate’s face anxiously. That question slaughtered any lingering doubts Kate had about Anna Keane’s guilt.

  She swallowed. She had been practicing what to say during her drive over, but telling Claudine that her sister’s body had been sold for parts stuck in her throat. “I believe she is dead.”

  Claudine looked down into her coffee. “I thought so.” She raised her chin and met Kate’s eyes. “She was pretty sick by the time I heard about it.”

  “Sick?” Kate stared at her. “With what?”

  Claudine pulled out a letter. “I never heard of it. Kratz-filled Jacob or somethin’. Here, you read it.”

  Kate unfolded the letter. The logo of the Nova Scotia Department of Health was at the top.

  “They sent the letter just after Vangie went missing.”

  “To you?”

  “They tried to reach Vangie but she was on the streets by then. I was her next of kin.”

  Kate put her coffee down and skimmed the letter:

  Dear Ms. Wright:

  The Department of Health has received information of grave concern to recipients of the human growth hormone. Our records indicate you received human growth hormone from a donor who subsequently developed Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease. You may be at risk for developing CJD. Please contact us immediately upon receipt of this letter.

  Kate put the letter down slowly. “Did Vangie know she’d been exposed to CJD?”

  Claudine shook her head. “No. But I think she had it. I seen her a few weeks before she went missing and she was acting strange. She’d been strung out for months, so I figured it was the crack, and I got real mad at her. I didn’t even know she’d gone missing till the police called me. One of her friends had filed a missing persons report.” She sipped her coffee. Her eyes were sad. “When I got the letter, I called the health people. They told me some of the symptoms.”

  “And she got it from human growth hormones?”

  “Uh-huh. Vangie was real little. Kind of like—” She jerked her head in Tania’s direction. “We’re all little in my family, but she was the smallest. The doctors gave her these shots when she was eight. To help her grow.”

  But the shots had been infected with CJD. Kate’s mind whirled. If Mary Littler was really Vangie Wright, her infected body had been cut up and distributed by BioMediSol. Who knew if any of her body parts had been implanted into other people. People who had thought they would be healed, not harmed, by the surgery.

  “So she’s dead?” Claudine’s doelike eyes probed hers.

  “I’m afraid so.”

  “I thought she was. But I hoped—” Claudine looked down into her coffee cup. “I hoped maybe she’d gone into rehab somewhere and kicked the crack. She’d done it before.” Tears welled in her eyes. “But somethin’ told me she was dead.” A tear trailed down her cheek. She didn’t wipe it away. “She was my big sister. My half sister. She sent me money, you know, helped me get a job at the drugstore before she got so strung out.” She looked helplessly around her apartment. “I wouldn’t have any of this if she hadn’t helped me. And then when I tried to help her…” She wiped her cheek with the back of her hand. “I really tried to help her. But she wouldn’t listen…she just wanted the crack. She kept hangin’ up on me…”

  “I’m sorry,” Kate said softly. “You tried.”

  “But it didn’t make any difference. She’s dead, isn’t she?” Claudine looked at her, anger in her eyes. Anger not at Kate, but at herself.

  Kate understood it only too well. That was how she’d felt. Still felt.

  “You did your best.”

  Claudine looked away, out the window at the fog-brushed water. “Maybe.”

  “Maybe she didn’t want you to save her,” Kate said softly. Imogen’s angry eyes flashed through her head.

  “I don’t want to leave yet. Stop bossing me around, Kate. I can make my own decisions!”

  “Yeah, right. Like snorting up?”

  She’d looked away in shame. Then her righteous anger returned. “I like it! It’s not hurting anybody!”

  She’d run back to the porch of that house they’d gone to. The one with the party that all the kids wanted to be invited to. Kate had stared after her, fear battling with anger. Her sister had ignored her, was running off into a den of lions. Her sister didn’t want her to protect her anymore.

  She’d banged on the door and forced Imogen to come with her, threatening to call the cops if anyone interfered. Knowing that she had sealed her fate socially. She was furious her sister had put her in this position. She’d never get asked to another party again.

  Both of them were simmering with rage when she peeled away from the curb.

  “I hate you. I hate you! Do you hear me?” Imogen had shouted. Her face twisted with anger.

  Kate had flinched. Never in her life had her sister said those words to her. After all they’d been through with their father, it’d been an unspoken pledge between them to never hurt each other. They had protected each other.

  Until that night.

  Imogen seemed to realize how deeply she’d wounded her. She retreated into sulky silence.

  Then she blurted out: “I need it, Katie. It makes me feel good. It makes me forget. Don’t tell Mom, please. Please.”

  Despair had flooded through Kate. She understood now her sister’s secretiveness. This wasn’t the first time. It wasn’t the second time, either. Her sister had been withdrawing for months. “You don’t need it, Gennie,” she’d said fiercely. “We have each other. You don’t need it.”

  “I do. I want it. Nothing else makes me feel like that.”

  Fear chased away her caution. “No! It’s wrong, Gennie. It’ll kill you!”

  “No, it won’t,” she’d said. “I’m going to do it whether you like it or not!”

  Then the anger came. How could her sister do this to her? She’d made her the bad guy. She’d made her a social pariah. Why couldn’t she see she was playing with fire? “Don’t do it again. I’ll tell Mom—”

  Something warm trickled down her sleeve. She looked down, her heart racing. The trembling of her hand had made the coffee slosh over the rim. Two separate streams of liquid ran down her wrist.

  She placed the mug on the table and hurriedly wiped her hand. Claudine had gotten up and returned with the coffeepot.

  Kate shook her head. She needed to leave before Vangie’s sister asked her for details. Claudine didn’t need to know what had happened to Vangie’s body. It had already been ravaged by drugs and disease. She didn’t need to know it’d been ravaged after her death, too. That the no-man’s-land Vangie had existed in for most of her life
had swallowed her up after death, leaving only traces of her.

  She stood. “Do you think I could borrow this letter and make a copy of it?”

  “Okay.” Claudine rose, looking doubtfully at the letter.

  Kate walked to the door. She had the paper trail she needed. Vangie hadn’t died in a car accident. And since Claudine hadn’t even known her sister was dead, she obviously hadn’t given consent to her body being “donated” to BioMediSol.

  But how had Vangie died? Was it the crack? Was it CJD?

  She had got in the car with some guy and no one had seen her again, Shonda had told her.

  Something bad had happened to Vangie. She needed to find out from Ethan what Vicky had learned about Vangie’s disappearance and convince him there was more to this than the police thought.

  “The police will probably be in touch with you,” she said at the door.

  “Yeah. They’ve spoke to me before. But they did nothin’.”

  The children turned on the sofa. “You goin’ Kate?” Tania asked. Her little brother stared at her, obviously used to letting his older sister do the talking.

  “Yes. It was nice meeting you.” She looked at Claudine. “You have lovely kids.”

  Claudine allowed a small smile that couldn’t hide her pride. “They’re okay.”

  “Take care.”

  She left the apartment and returned to her car. She had gotten what she came for. In more ways than one.

  She’d seen through Claudine’s eyes what the path of addiction led to. She had tried to stop her own sister from being lured down that path. Her sister hadn’t wanted to be saved.

  Her cell phone rang. She started violently. “Hello?” Her voice was trembling. She swallowed.

  “Kate. It’s Randall.” There had been no mistaking his impatience, but now he paused. “Are you okay?”

  Her breath caught. She wanted, more than anything, to tell him no. She wasn’t. The pain of her sister’s abandonment—for she now realized that was what her sister had done: she had abandoned the silent, struggling partnership they had forged after her father’s imprisonment for the oblivion of drugs—was spilling through the cracks of her reserve. Threatening to reveal the depths of her pain at being left alone. The sole survivor of the destruction her father had brought down on their heads.