Thicker Than Blood

by Penny Rudolph

  333

  Blue sheep marched across the top blanket of the pile of bedding that covered her. They were very like the blue sheep on the blanket that had covered her childhood bed. But those sheep had been pink.

  Rachel rolled over. She was wearing little beyond one makeshift bandage on her arm, another on her leg. Stretching, she was surprised that there was little answering pain from beneath the bandages. Then she noticed the two crushed pillows were stacked against the headboard next to her.

  And someone was frying bacon.

  “About time,” said Hank from the doorway. “It’s almost noon.”

  Over her third piece of toast, wrapped in the blanket of blue sheep, she explained.

  Hank’s face grew grimmer with each sentence.

  “So I did a stupid thing.”

  “Not stupid,” he said. “Insane.”

  “But I got the…oh, God, where is it? I tied it up in plastic.”

  “Over there.” Hank pointed at the kitchen counter. “It fell out of the car about the same time you did.”

  “What does it look like?”

  “Morton’s salt.”

  “Where are my clothes?”

  “Where all the good little clothes go when they die. In the trash.”

  “But I don’t have many others here,” Rachel wailed.

  “They look like you wore them in the front lines in Iraq.”

  “I don’t think so,” she said. “I didn’t have that much gas.”

  His blue eyes glared at her and her flippancy fled. He began clattering dirty dishes into the sink.

  Clutching the blanket around her, she crossed the kitchen and put a hand on his arm. “I didn’t expect you back so soon. I should have left a note or something. I’m sorry.”

  Suds-covered hands gripped her shoulders. His voice was hoarse and harsh. “I don’t want to lose you.” His hard and insistent mouth gentled when it met hers.

  The blue-sheep blanket slipped. She again felt herself being carried. This time, she was connecting very well with reality. “The bacon will burn.”

  “I turned it off.”

  Her bare toes touched the floor by the bed. Kind, clumsy fingers tugged at the blanket.

  Chapter Forty-eight

  “Of course, it never entered your mind you could have been killed,” Goldie sputtered. They were in the cabin kitchen dyeing Rachel’s hair.

  “You’ll drip that stuff all over me and it’ll never come out.” Rachel’s words were muffled by the towel she was holding at her hairline.

  “You should have called me before you left,” Goldie shouted.

  “You would have told me not to go.”

  “And sure as God made little green grasshoppers I would have been right. That was the world’s dumbest move going down there alone. You not only deserved to get shot at, you deserved to get hit.”

  “It wasn’t much more than a scratch. What do you make of the plane being a crop duster?”

  “Just goes to show how sly folks can get when they’re huntin’ ways to put their paws on millions of bucks.” Goldie wrinkled her nose. “This stuff smells like it came from a mortuary.”

  Rachel lifted the towel and gasped for air. “You think it smells bad up there, you ought to try it down here.”

  “I have more sense than to give myself orange hair.” Goldie dabbed at Rachel’s head. “Ooh, I bet that feels good, just one cold drip at a time going down the back of your neck.” She turned to rummage in the drawers next to the sink. “If we had a plastic bag and a rubber band.…What the pink and purple hell are these?” She held up three paper packages marked Terumo ½ cc that obviously held syringes.

  Rachel peered from under the towel. “Looks like hypodermic needles.”

  “What the hell are they doing in that drawer?”

  “Don’t look at me. I may have some bad habits, but shooting up was never one of them. Someone must’ve left them here. Some former guest was a doper? The owner’s a diabetic? How would I know?” Rachel retreated again beneath the towel.

  “Put that little orange head of yours in the sink. Well, it ain’t exactly orange any more.”

  “It’s supposed to be brown,” said Rachel. “Dark brown.”

  “Well, let’s see now. Looks kind of green to me.”

  Rachel’s head came up out of the sink, eyes wide.

  “That’s a real interesting expression. The white is showing all the way around your eyes.” Goldie rinsed Rachel’s hair and handed her a fresh towel.

  “Hank took the stuff I found in the plane to the same chemist who analyzed the others.”

  Goldie planted her back against the kitchen counter and crossed her arms, scowling.

  With no warning, Rachel burst into tears. “How can any of this be? What’s happened to Pop? And Clancy?”

  Goldie put her arms around her until the sobs subsided.

  Rachel wiped her eyes with a corner of the towel. “If that number I gave you is some sort of serial number, we can find out who owns that plane.”

  The phone rang. Twice, then twice again. Both women froze, staring at the black instrument on the table until it began for the third time—the signal she had arranged with Hank.

  Rachel picked it up. “Goldie’s Dye House,” she announced into the receiver, then listened intently. “You’re kidding…but that’s crazy.… No, I’m not going anywhere. Goldie thinks thumbscrews would be a suitable punishment if I so much as open the door.… Okay.” She hung up.

  Goldie was looking at her expectantly.

  “The lab test. He got them to rush it.”

  “And?”

  “It’s sodium selenate. The same thing that killed Lonnie, the same stuff that was in Jason’s envelope. And here’s maybe the oddest thing. Selenium killed a bunch of ducks at a wetland over near Salinas. My friend Bruno thinks he’s going to lose his farm because of it.”

  Goldie shook her head when Rachel finished explaining. “This gets weirder by the minute.”

  They hashed and rehashed things until every possible explanation was limp and tasteless as old chewing gum.

  “Selenium has to be an ingredient,” Rachel said, “in whatever Harry Hunsinger was concocting in the lab. And that plane must have been smuggling selenium.”

  “Selenium’s not illegal,” Goldie said. “Why bother smuggling it?”

  “Because they were using so much of it someone would get suspicious if they bought it?”

  “You could be onto something there,” Goldie agreed.

  “Maybe we should try to get hold of someone at the water agency. See if they have any idea why someone would be after me.”

  Goldie wasn’t sure. “Making drugs, hiding plane wreckage. Too many people at that water agency were in on that deal. Say we call the wrong person and he passes the information along to whoever’s hunting you.”

  “Damn,” Rachel said, and was silent a long moment. “But I know someone over there who I would bet wasn’t involved in that scheme.”

  “Of course Hank wasn’t,” Goldie said. “But he’s already doing all he can to find out what’s going on.”

  “Hank doesn’t have the clout to ask the hard questions. This guy does.”

  “Who?”

  “Andrew Greer. He’s just been appointed general manager—Jason’s job. Hank and I met him at the Pig. He was with Charlotte.”

  Goldie was pouring two glasses of orange juice. “That woman who killed herself? Or didn’t?”

  Rachel nodded gravely.

  “He’s new? They hired this guy since everything happened?”

  “Nope,” Rachel said. “According to Hank, he was manager of human resources or something like that.”

  “Then what makes you so sure he’s not mixed up in it?”

  “Because he’s black.”

  Goldie took a swig of orange juice. “I hate to tell you this, honey. There actually are one or two seriously bad black guys.”

  “This Andrew Greer didn’t work in the field, or in
the lab. Harry didn’t need him. Aside from that, only about a dozen blacks park in my garage. And most of them are women. One black guy among all those whites—they wouldn’t have trusted him with even a hint.”

  Goldie thought about that. “Okay, maybe you should call him, tell him what’s in that so-called warehouse. But don’t tell him where you are.”

  “Why should he believe me? Especially when I begin with ‘You don’t know me and I can’t tell you who or where I am.…’”

  “Maybe Hank could talk to him.”

  “I’d rather not ask him,” Rachel said. “For one thing, he’s been calling in sick. Sort of odd if he suddenly turns up saying bizarre things. For another, InterUrban is Hank’s whole career. If this guy Greer turns out to be a jerk, doesn’t believe him, Hank could lose his job.”

  Goldie put her hands on her hips. “So why we discussing this if it’s impossible to talk to this guy?”

  “Because there is someone who could talk to him.”

  “Who?”

  Rachel nodded to Goldie’s raised eyebrows. “You.”

  “You gotta be kidding. ‘Hello, I clean toilets at the water agency and I just thought you might like to know you’ve got a drug smuggling plane in your warehouse and maybe a killer or two on your payroll.’”

  “Goldie, he’d listen to you because you have no connection except the wastebaskets.”

  “I couldn’t keep it all straight in my head. I’d forget something.”

  “I’ll go over it with you. We can make notes.”

  “How do we know this Greer guy would even talk to me?”

  “You could go see him face to face.”

  “Honey, you seem to be attributing a whole lot of virtue to being black.”

  Chapter Forty-nine

  Marty was awake and wearing real pajamas. Navy blue ones with white piping. That was reason enough to do it, he told himself. He had a horror of dying in a piece of blue-dotted cotton that tied in the back.

  The early morning sun was just beginning to seep in under the dingy curtains. He’d slept better than he had in the hospital, but now he had to do some real serious thinking.

  He tried to lever his feet to the floor but pain spiked from his side to his shoulder and back again. He nodded stoically. Cracked a rib or two and probably your damn skull, Marty told himself and tried again. This time he made it, but his face was pale from the effort. He glimpsed himself in the mirror and grimaced.

  You can do it. He’d been telling himself that since he had lowered himself one step at a time on a back stairway from the hospital’s third floor, then forced himself to limp another two blocks before he called a cab.

  In the cramped little kitchen, he ignored the sink full of dishes from God knows when, and bent, wincing, to remove a three-pound can of Chase and Sanborn from a cabinet. Having measured and poured, he leaned against the cabinet, scratched the bald spot that was beginning on the top of his head, and listened to the water chug itself into coffee.

  When the machine had given its last chug, he poured a cup, limped to the living room and sank into the homely, worn, wonderful chair in his dusty, rumpled living room. Thank God he was home. But he couldn’t stay there any more than he could stay at the hospital. And he had to find Rachel.

  He pulled the phone toward him and began dialing. It was barely six-thirty.

  333

  Rachel awoke with an amorphous memory of something terrible. It was still dark. The moon had found her through the top of the window, enveloping her in a pale circle of light. The fear that swept her along like a dry leaf in the path of a hurricane seemed to have been with her forever. She could hardly remember what her life was like before.

  She kicked the twisted blankets loose from the mattress and lay there puzzling it over, watching the moon-shadow trees tease the cracks in the ceiling until they faded with the rising sun.

  333

  “You look glum,” Hank said that night. “Is that what happens when it’s your turn to cook?” They were eating dinner in the cabin’s tiny kitchen.

  Rachel’s movements were like those of a windup doll. All evening, the only sound had been dishes scraping against each other and the clamor of a rain that had begun in earnest.

  Her hand descended on the table, making the knives and forks chatter. “I can’t take much more of this,” she said, voice almost a sob.

  “I know.” Hank took a sip of tea. It was watery and lukewarm, and a few fragments of tea leaves swam on the surface, but he barely noticed.

  “Why is it happening to me?”

  “It sort of fits together, that maybe someone saw you take something from the plane wreckage and didn’t know it got ruined by bleach in the trunk of your car. Except why would anyone be smuggling sodium selenate? It’s not an illegal chemical.”

  Rachel was carefully examining the cracks in the kitchen table. “Three other things don’t fit. Big things. Monstrous things. Lonnie and Jason and Charlotte.”

  Hank’s normally affable face had the look of someone who has waked one morning to find the sun going down. “I know,” he said for what seemed like the trillionth time. “Charlotte didn’t have anything to do with the drugs.”

  “Why not?” Rachel asked. “Appearances can be deceiving. Not every drug lord has a mustache.”

  Hank rubbed his chin. “Charlotte hated anything to do with drugs. Her daughter OD’d on PCP or some such thing and died.”

  “How awful. You’re right. That probably rules her out.”

  The ate in silence until, a bite of dinner halfway to her mouth, Rachel dropped the fork to her plate. “My car was parked on the road near where that plane crashed. If the pilot saw me around the wreckage.…” She reached for the phone. Dialed information. Then dialed again.

  “Sheriff’s Department, Milligan.” The female voice that answered sounded vaguely offended.

  “Do you log calls requesting license plate checks?” Rachel said quietly into the mouthpiece.

  “Maybe.”

  Rachel took her checkbook from her purse, studied its calendar, then gave the date and her own license number. “Did you run a check on that license that day?”

  “I can’t give you that information.”

  “Why not?”

  “Not public information.”

  “All I want to know is whether a check was made. No details.” The phone line buzzed with static. Rachel pressed on: “Either a check was made or it wasn’t. Nothing private about that. You guys use radios that can be picked up by anyone.”

  “Hang on.” Computer keys clicked. “1SQZ753? Sure enough,” the voice drawled. “My shift. Must’ve done it myself. Oh, yeah. They said somebody found a key belonged to the guy with that license number.”

  333

  Goldie sat at the steering wheel while the cleaning crew climbed into the van. They had worked hard that night, had even covered for her because her mind just wasn’t on polishing floors. Now, with the job done, the van was rocking with leftover energy.

  “Quiet!” she yelled. She couldn’t go see that Andrew Greer. Sure, Hank had a career to worry about and all she had was a job. But what if Greer called her boss?

  She tossed some scraps of paper and a brown and shriveled apple core into the bag that hung from the dash. Fingers plucked at her sleeve and she turned to see Peter’s placid round face turned up to hers.

  “Stop it,” she said peevishly. “You think I can drive with you pinching me? Get back in your seat.”

  He dropped his eyes and obeyed.

  She started to pull the van into the street, then backed it again along the curb and turned.

  “I’m sorry,” she announced. “I’m just in a rotten mood. Anybody want some ice cream?”

  Amid a chorus of giggles, she parked at a Dairy Queen and took orders.

  When she returned with a cardboard tray of cones, Peter was still eyeing her warily. “I said I was sorry.”

  Solemnly, he reached for a cone. “You won’t be mad if I show you some
thing?”

  “Of course not.”

  “I think maybe you should see it. Maybe I shoulda throwed it away, but it was in such a funny place. Maybe I shoulda put it on the desk, but that lady isn’t here anymore.”

  “What lady?”

  “The one that’s gone. I was running the sweeper in the pretty office, and you know how it sometimes messes up the rug. This time it pulls the rug way up and way far underneath was this.” He took a sheet of paper from his pocket, unfolded it and handed it to Goldie.

  She stared at it and dropped the tray of cones on the pavement.

  333

  Virginia Wexford was not amused. It was hard enough to suddenly have a new boss. Not that anyone could be as demanding as Jason had been.

  She’d been up half the night, holding her little granddaughter’s hand while the child threw up, while her own daughter snored away across the hall.

  She had told Barbara not to marry that idiot electrician. He drank and she knew he drank before she married him. A wonder he hadn’t electrocuted himself. Good riddance. Her daughter was a good looking, intelligent woman. She could have found a good husband. She could have joined the church singles group.

  Virginia separated the papers on her desk into neat stacks. She’d built her career on orderliness, ninety-two-words-a-minute typing speed, and the ability to wear the same expression through tragedy, comedy, and past everything in between.

  Andrew was a very nice person. He just had no idea how to run InterUrban Water District. Virginia would have to get him trained fast.

  And now, unannounced, without a proper appointment, was this woman in jeans—jeans yet!—demanding to see him. And Virginia probably wouldn’t get out of the office until seven. This was not the way things were going to happen. No, sir.

  She looked at her watch. Andrew was off the phone. Her feet made no sound on the thick carpet she had helped Jason select when he first became general manager. New ones always wanted to redecorate—like dogs doing their business on a fire hydrant, was Virginia’s opinion. She had survived three general managers. She would survive a fourth.

  She cleared her throat, moved to Andrew’s elbow and spoke quietly. If you didn’t sit. If you made them look up at you at close quarters, they almost always gave in.