Cold Plague

by Daniel Kalla

  “Was the house locked when you came home?”

  “We never lock our house.”

  No surprise, Avril thought. She tried another approach. “Did you find anything else out of place?”

  “What do you mean, out of place?”

  “Anything moved or broken?”

  “Broken?” He frowned. “No, nothing. Only the luggage was gone.”

  Avril nodded. “And did she take a car?”

  He shook his head. “Someone must have driven her.”

  “Or she hired a car.” Avril knew there were a few people in the area who ran under-the-table taxi services, primarily during what little tourist season they had in the summertime. It would be easy enough to check. She jotted a note to herself to do so. “Earlier, you said that you thought your drinking was the reason she left you. But not now?”

  “No.”

  “Why?”

  “Her parents.” Pereau held open his hands. “I assumed all along that she would have gone home to her parents in Saint Martin Terressus. That’s where she always went.”

  Avril understood. “Yvette had left you before?”

  Pereau closed his eyes and nodded. “But she always came back.” Avril said nothing and he continued. “Usually within three or four days. This time, I waited over a week before I called them. They had not seen her, either. Not even a phone call.”

  Avril had to agree the act seemed out of character for a woman who had fled to her parents’ house after all previous fights with her husband. “You’ve checked with other friends?”

  “We live outside a small town, Detective,” he explained, unaware that Avril had grown up in a neighboring town of similar size. “Yvette does not have many friends, but those who will take my calls”—he looked at his hands again—“say they have not heard from her, either.”

  “I will need their names,” Avril said.

  “Of course.”

  She wrote the list as he dictated the names to her.

  “M. Pereau, I have to ask,” Avril said unapologetically. “You don’t know of any men with whom your wife was friendly?”

  Pereau chuckled softy, as if responding to a private joke, but his expression was devoid of indignation. “Not lately.”

  “When, then?”

  “Seven or eight years ago.” He shook his head and sighed. “Yvette is a lovely woman. And we’ve been together almost twenty years….”

  “Who was he?”

  “Nobody. A summer student who was helping on the farm. A mere tryst.” He waved it away with his shaky hand. “It’s long forgotten.”

  Clearly it wasn’t. Despite his casual response, Avril could see in the farmer’s eyes that the wound was still fresh. “Do you know his name?” she asked.

  “Pascal…” He looked up at the ceiling as if struggling to produce the name that was probably etched in his brain. “Etellier. Pascal Etellier.”

  “Do you know where M. Etellier lives now?”

  Pereau rolled his eyes and grunted in contempt. “Somewhere miserable, I hope.”

  Avril decided to take one final stab with Pereau. “Do you know Pauline Lamaire?” she asked.

  “The violinist from Montmagnon?”

  Avril held her breath. “That’s her.”

  “Only by reputation. I’ve never met her, but I understand she hasn’t been well lately. I hear she no longer plays the violin.”

  “No, she doesn’t,” Avril said, burying her disappointment. She put down her pen and rose from her seat, preparing to end the interview. As she walked around the desk, Pereau remained in his seat, staring at the floor. “What is it, M. Pereau?”

  He didn’t make eye contact. “I don’t know if it is even worth mentioning.”

  “It always is,” she said, standing over him.

  “Yvette became so fearful after, you know, the people from the ministry came,” he said. “I think the whole trauma made her a little paranoid.”

  Silent and still, Avril waited for more.

  “Yvette grew more and more suspicious that someone was deliberately doing this to us. Trying to ruin our farm. Ruin us.”

  “Why would someone want to ruin you?”

  “That was my question, too, but she could never answer.” He exhaled, and Avril resisted the urge to recoil from the pungent smell of stale alcohol. “She remembered seeing a person leaving our barn a few weeks before the first cow fell sick.”

  Avril leaned back against her desk. “And Yvette thought it was related?”

  “Not at the time, no. She wasn’t even concerned. We have people coming and going, dropping off supplies and so forth, all the time.” He shook his head. “But Yvette didn’t recognize the woman. And the more suspicious she became, the deeper her belief grew that the visitor was somehow related to the illness.”

  “Did she tell you anything about the woman?”

  “Only that she was an attractive young woman in jeans,” he said. “I assumed she was a courier for one of our suppliers, but Yvette thought she was too elegant.”

  Avril nodded. “Your wife thought that this anonymous woman had somehow infected the cows?”

  “It’s ridiculous, I know. Yvette wanted to go to the police.” Pereau uttered a self-conscious laugh. “I convinced her it was madness.” He looked away and added, as if speaking to himself, “You couldn’t infect cattle with mad cow disease, even if you wanted to.”

  Avril stared at the farmer, wondering what to make of the revelation when a loud knock at the door drew her attention. “Excuse me, M. Pereau,” she said, as she hurried to the door.

  Detective Simon Valmont stood waiting for her in the colorless hallway, soup stains on his jacket and a broad smile on his face. “Sorry to interrupt,” he said without sounding apologetic. “It looks as though you and the farmer are having a good heart-to-heart in there.”

  “Wonderful,” she snapped. “All we need are candles and mood music.”

  “Don’t pounce too fast, Avril.” Simon laughed. “He might not be single yet.”

  “Oh?”

  Valmont dug in his pocket and produced a folded and slightly crumpled piece of paper, passing it to Avril. She unfolded it. Though the language was foreign, possibly German, she recognized the hotel receipt. “What is this?”

  “Elemental police work,” he said in a tone of feigned modesty. “I had to miss a couple of horse races, but I tracked down Yvette Pereau for you by her passport.”

  Avril shook her head in surprise. “Where did you find her?”

  “She flew last week from Limoges to Amsterdam, through Paris. Paid cash for the ticket. And then she stayed five days in the Hotel Zanbergen.”

  “Was she alone?”

  His smile widened. “Not according to the people in the rooms below and beside her.”

  19

  Chapelat, France. January 18

  Noah and Elise hardly exchanged a word during the smooth train ride from Paris back to Limoges. He stared out at the dark French countryside, his mind skipping from one unsettling subject to another. He thought of Duncan and Maggie and imagined how difficult his friend’s homecoming must have been. Noah was reminded how much he missed his own family. Especially Chloe. It seemed as though years, not days, had passed since they built sand castles, played in the pool, and rolled messy fajitas together. Though he desperately wanted to see his daughter again, Noah sensed that, contrary to Minister Montalva’s reassurances, his work was nowhere near finished in Limousin.

  Eventually, the gliding motion of the train overcame his racing thoughts, and he was lulled into sleep. He awoke to find Elise staring at him with a slight grin fixed on her full lips.

  Noah rubbed his eyes. “When does this plane touch down?” he said.

  Her smile grew. “I wish I could sleep like that.”

  “Was I snoring?” he asked sheepishly.

  “Not at all,” she said. “A whistle blew a little while ago. And at one point the brakes screeched. You did not budge. Me?” She touched her chest lig
htly. “I am a very light sleeper.”

  Noah grinned. “Anna used to say that she could detonate dynamite on her side of the bed without waking me. My daughter, Chloe, sleeps like that, too.”

  “I wake up every time someone rolls over beside me in bed,” she said, without a trace of embarrassment.

  “Elise, you were—I don’t know—quieter at our meeting with Javier than I expected.”

  “Was I?” She tapped her lip with her index finger.

  “I’ve come to expect more assertiveness from you.”

  She stopped tapping and frowned, but playfully. “You consider me pushy?”

  “No, but you usually stand your ground.”

  “And I did not in Paris?”

  “Not like other times.”

  She considered the comment. “Javier is not always the easiest man to please.”

  Ignoring the possible double entendre, Noah said, “He seemed very pleased with your work so far.”

  “You only saw his public face.”

  Noah remembered the Spaniard’s unyielding smile and realized, as he had suspected at the time, that Montalva would be less restrained behind closed doors. “So he’s not satisfied with our investigation?”

  “I did not mean that,” she said. “His expectations are always high. He would like us to wrap this up as quickly as possible.”

  “And with as little fallout as possible for him and his commission,” he added.

  “Yes, that, too.”

  “How long have you known him?” Noah asked.

  “We’ve worked in the same department for over five years, but I’ve only worked directly under…with…Javier for the past fourteen months.” She studied her polished fingernails, rubbing her thumbs over the tips of the other fingers. “Javier cares deeply about his job and the people he serves.”

  What color is his toothbrush, Elise? Noah wondered without voicing it. He leaned nearer to her. “Are you as convinced as your boss that what we found at Ferme d’Allaire completely explains this outbreak?”

  She touched her lip again, considering the question. “Not entirely convinced, but I am more willing to consider the possibility than you seem to be.”

  For a moment, he wondered if she was right—maybe stubbornness was fueling his skepticism—but he shook off the doubt as quickly as it came. “I’ve been doing this for a while, Elise. Sometimes, even when the evidence is not there—or in this case, is there—you still have to trust your gut when something doesn’t seem kosher.”

  She tilted her head from side to side. “At what point do you accept the evidence?”

  “When I am convinced.” He leaned back in his seat. “Besides, we’re a long way from completing our investigation. We still have to speak to the families of the other two known victims, Benoît Gagnon and Giselle Tremblay.”

  “I agree.”

  “And I want to speak to the veterinary pathologist who examined the infected cows.”

  “You said that in Paris.” Her expression hardened. “You’ve seen the postmortem reports. They were conclusive.”

  “I don’t care,” Noah said. “I want to hear directly from the doctor involved. And I need to know what other tests were run on the animals’ blood and spinal fluid.”

  Elise opened her mouth but closed it without comment, just as an automated voice announced that the train was approaching Limoges. When the train rumbled to a stop in the station, they grabbed their bags and headed outside. There were no cabs waiting out front, and the air had not warmed one degree since they had left. Noah put his knapsack down on a wooden bench against the wall, opened the zipper, and searched through it until he found his new gloves at the bottom. He had just slipped the second one on when he noticed a man in a black suit stepping out of the station’s entry.

  Tall and heavy with a stooped posture, the man looked to be in his mid-fifties. From twenty feet away, they made brief eye contact, and then the man turned and headed in the opposite direction. Noah watched him go. Just before rounding the street corner, the man slowed a moment to bring a cigarette to his mouth. As he hunched over to light it, Noah had a sudden sense of déjà vu. His heart leaped into his throat. He had seen that same profile in silhouette, stooped behind the wheel of the French-style pickup truck parked outside his hotel.

  Noah dropped his half-zipped bag on the bench. “Hey, you!” he called out and raced for the corner where the man had just turned. He rounded it in time to see the man loping across the street. “Hey, hold on!” Noah shouted. “Attendez!”

  But the man did not wait. He reached the old pickup truck on the other side and flung open the driver’s door. With surprising agility, he hopped into the driver’s seat and slammed the door shut. The truck’s lights flicked on and its engine uttered a rattling roar.

  Noah ran onto the road and straight for the vehicle. When he was ten feet away, the tires screeched and it lurched out of the parking spot.

  Noah stood in the middle of the road, blocking the truck’s path and waving frantically for the driver to stop. But the truck wobbled as it veered to the left and then shot across the median into the oncoming traffic lane to weave around Noah. He spun to watch it pass. It backfired once with a loud crack and then left a plume of blue smoke in its wake as it bounced back onto the right side of the median.

  Elise caught up with Noah in the middle of the street. “Was it the man from outside the hotel?” she asked breathlessly. “The farmer?”

  His heart still thudding in his ears and nostrils filled with exhaust smoke, Noah simply nodded.

  20

  Beverly Hills, California. January 18

  Wellness. Nikolas Cupierdo sometimes still winced inwardly on hearing the name of his own spa. If my buddies in South Philly could see me now…, he had thought more than once. Still, Cupierdo was a born salesman. He had made it to Rodeo Drive, riding a health-and-fitness wave that he was oblivious to before arriving in L.A. With a combination of street smarts and an almost prophetic ability to predict the next fad—and helped by the unfounded rumors that he had trained Demi Moore and Bruce Willis in the nineties—Cupierdo had reached the top of the wellness industry. He now counted some of Southern California’s richest and most famous among his faithful clientele.

  As Cupierdo surveyed his large but cramped storeroom—filled with boxes of vitamin supplements, herbal remedies, and high-end exercise accessories—he realized with deep satisfaction that he needed to find more space in a neighborhood that carried one of the most prestigious zip codes in the country.

  “There’s no room to breathe in here,” Michael Jefferson grunted, pulling Cupierdo out of his thoughts. The astute young African-American who had become Cupierdo’s most trusted employee threw his hands up in the air. “Nick, where the hell are we going to put ten thousand bottles of water?”

  Cupierdo flicked a finger at the existing stock. “Time to get rid of this stuff.”

  “You smoking something you’re not sharing?” Jefferson chuckled. “This is our bread and butter, dude. What else can you mark up three hundred percent and still sell out of?”

  “The Lake!”

  “Great, more water.” Jefferson scoffed. “What flavors does this crap come in?”

  “Natural. No flavors. And it’s not just any water, Mikey.” Cupierdo smiled. “We’re talking about a purity no one has ever before seen or tasted.” His eyes lit up, and he slipped into salesman mode. “Picture this, Michael. Antarctic water protected by miles of ice for millions of years. Water that has never been in contact with human pollution. Not so much as a single molecule of smog!” He held up a single finger. “Not only that, this water contains a unique concentration of minerals and organic acids. It’s as natural a health product as you will ever unearth.” He stressed the last word for effect.

  “Yeah, yeah,” Jefferson said, unimpressed. “You really believe that shit?”

  The excitement drained from Cupierdo’s face and his hands dropped to his side. “To be honest, I don’t care if the bottl
es are filled from a rusty tap in Cleveland.” He thumbed at the door leading out to the lobby. “Point is, they will believe it. And they’ll beat down our door for a sip of this stuff.”

  “At a hundred bucks a bottle?”

  “One fifty,” Cupierdo corrected. “And that’s just the introductory price. I’ve already got commitments for most of the stock before it’s even arrived. I might have under-priced it.” He laughed. “Trust me, Mikey, we’re going to have a hell of a time keeping up with the demand.”

  21

  Limoges, France. January 18

  As soon as they reached the Grand Hotel Doré, Noah said a quick good night to Elise and headed straight up to the same room he had stayed in before leaving for Paris. At the small desk in the corner, he sat nursing a Coke from the minibar and trying to figure out what the pickup driver was doing at the train station. Was it just a coincidence? he wondered. If not, then how did the man know where to find them? And most disturbing, why did he run?

  Realizing he could not answer any of the questions, Noah decided to update his own notes and tackle a few nagging concerns. He rose from the chair and walked to the corner of the room where his notebook lay under the stack of articles, faxes, and printed e-mails, too bulky to carry to Paris for a one-day trip. He’d left the papers and notebook in the room, taking only his lightweight laptop computer with him.

  Noah picked up the stack and carried it back to the desk. He dug through the files, looking for the article he had read on biochemical markers of vCJD. He found the paper and scanned through it until he spotted the section concerning phosphorylated tau protein. The article confirmed that all previous cases of vCJD had shown pronounced elevation of the protein in the sufferers’ brain tissue. He considered Dr. Gellier’s explanation that the Limousin victims had died so quickly that there had not been time to accumulate the chemical, but he still wasn’t satisfied.

  Noah moved the other papers out of the way and freed his notebook from the pile. He flipped it open and leafed through the pages, looking for a fresh sheet. It took him a moment to realize that Chloe’s happy-face clip-on bookmark was missing.