Tortoise Soup (Rachel Porter Mysteries)

by Jessica Speart

  I stepped over the ragtag piles of wire, plaster, broken glass, and papers that were strewn about, and locked the door to what remained of the office. Jumping inside the Blazer, I hightailed it over to Lanahan’s lab. If he’d found that the tortoises had indeed been run over by the mine’s haul paks, it would give me a legitimate reason to head back to Golden Shaft and search the grounds to my heart’s content!

  I sped through Vegas and down the Strip, cutting off senior citizens who poked slowly along in rental cars. I waved in silent apology as they slammed on their brakes, surprised to find such discourteous behavior west of the Rockies. Siegfried and Roy fumed down at me in mute disapproval from atop their marquee as I beat a red light, scaring an unsuspecting tourist who’d stepped off the curb. Quarters and dimes flew out of his plastic bucket, glittering brighter than stars as they were embedded in steaming black asphalt by the trail of cars behind me. I spotted my ponytailed prophet with his crucifix still strapped to his back. He spotted me as well, stopping long enough to release one hand from his cross and flip me the finger, damning me to hell for eternity.

  My head told me to slow down, but my adrenaline kept my foot pressed to the pedal until the Forensics lab came into view, beckoning me like a beacon to a ship lost at sea. I rushed into the building and hurried down the hall, passing lab employees as quiet as the corpses they attended. I rounded the corner, the pounding of my heart echoing the beat of my shoes on the white-tiled floor. By the time I reached Lanahan’s office my pulse was tap-tap-tapping as fast as Lizzie’s feet. I poked my head into Lanahan’s office to find him hunched over his desk, working on a report.

  “I made it,” I croaked. My throat was still raspy and sore as I stepped into his lair.

  Lanahan glanced up and grimaced at the sight of my swollen, sunburned skin and frazzled mass of red hair.

  “My favorite woman. What the hell did you do to yourself? Stand in front of an atomic blast? Haven’t you ever heard of skin cancer, Porter? For chrissake, use a self-tanning lotion if you’re so concerned with being fashionable,” he lectured.

  “Thanks for the advice, doc. Next time I’ll be sure and take a beach umbrella along. So what did you discover?”

  Lanahan leaned back in his chair and laced his hands behind his neck. He gave me the once-over before shaking his head.

  “If nothing else Rachel, you certainly liven things up. There’s always some sort of surprise whenever I see you,” he replied.

  “Are you telling me the tread marks weren’t made by haul paks?” I asked. My heart dropped like a molten lump of lead, heavy with disappointment.

  “Let me fill you in on something, Porter. Right now, if I were to tell my employees who was sitting in my office, you’d probably be strung up like a plucked chicken and heaved above a large pot of boiling water.

  “What the hell did I do?” I asked, completely flummoxed by having added an angry mob of scientists to the list of people out to nail my rear end.

  “Sit down and I’ll walk you through it, Porter,” he ordered.

  Lanahan got up from his chair and poured two cups of java from the coffee machine. I watched, making sure he didn’t slip anything tasteless, scentless, and deadly into my brew before handing it to me. I waited until he took a sip of his coffee before tasting my own.

  “We examined those tortoises you foisted on me. It appears they weren’t killed by tires,” Lanahan began.

  “Jesus!” I exploded in disgust. “So you’re saying that they just dropped dead while they were crawling around in the desert and then were run over?” That was the lame explanation Brian would have handed me.

  “Hey! Do I have to call in my employees, or are you going to shut up and behave?” Lanahan threatened.

  I squirmed in my seat, trying to find a patch of skin that didn’t hurt, as I impatiently waited for him to continue.

  “I handed your stack of reptilian buffalo chips over to our rookie pathologist for analysis. It seemed a pretty cut-and-dried case. I figured all you were looking for was some official paperwork to nail the bad guys with.”

  He was right, which was why this momentary holdup was driving me crazy. I bit the tip of my tongue as he took the time to slowly stretch. If Lanahan was out to torture me, he was doing a good job. I decided to take my chances with his troops.

  “Those torts looked pretty well crushed to me. Maybe your rookie made a mistake. How can he be so sure it wasn’t a truck that killed them anyway?” I demanded.

  Lanahan glared at me a moment. “Because there was no bleeding in the capillary areas. That’s why.”

  I looked at him blankly.

  Lanahan took a sip of his coffee and rubbed his eyes. “If a truck had caused their death, there would have been internal bleeding. There was none. Their hearts had already stopped pumping by the time those tire tracks were made,” he explained.

  “Maybe it was cyanide ingestion,” I suggested. “Did you check for that?”

  “Yes, Madame Curie,” Lanahan retorted. “The tortoises were handed over to our toxicologist, who examined tissue samples for a multitude of poisons. They came up spanking clean. Ted even checked to see if they might have died from lack of water. But the critters were relatively well nourished.”

  I made one last valiant stab at remaining outwardly calm. That lasted all of two seconds before I erupted in a firestorm of frustration.

  “All right! I’m impressed. You’re thorough. You checked everything out. That’s great. But dammit, something killed those tortoises and I refuse to believe it was nothing but old age!”

  “Very perceptive, Porter,” Lanahan shot back. “You’re so smart, you want to tell me what it was that did these critters in?”

  I opened my mouth and shut it just as quickly.

  “That’s what I thought.”

  I pounded my head against my own mental brick wall, having little choice but to sip my coffee and wait until Lanahan was good and ready to pick up where he’d left off.

  “X-ray machines are potential sources of radioactivity. You’re aware of that, right?” he asked.

  I nodded my head. At this point, I would have agreed to almost anything in order to move him along.

  “Since our toxicologist and chemists work around X-ray machines, they’re required to wear special badges that can tell whether or not the radiation inside our equipment is contained. The patches are then turned in every thirty days to a company where they’re analyzed.” Lanahan paused dramatically. “Well, all our badges were sent in a few days ago.”

  He hauled himself up and headed back over to the coffeepot, where he refilled his cup.

  “This morning I got a call informing me that our lab has a potentially huge problem on its hands. In fact, huge is a mild way of putting it. Through the roof would be more exact.” Lanahan’s eyes pinned me down as if I were a mouse about to be dissected. “It seems that badge number 27325 was turned in showing a massive exposure to radiation. That just happens to have been Ted’s badge. It’s the type of news that gives everyone in here a heart attack, Porter. Especially me.”

  I held my breath, trying to figure out what he was getting at and how the hell I was involved. Lanahan slowly stirred sugar into his coffee, the clanging of the metal spoon loud as a warning bell.

  “The first thing I suspected was that something had gone wrong with the shielding on one of our X-ray machines,” he continued. “So we went into every room where Ted had been working and methodically swept it with a Geiger counter. When we hit the toxicology lab, the Geiger spun right off its scale.”

  Lanahan’s body shook as if something had crawled on him that had to be knocked off. “We got our asses out of that room as fast as we could. Our entire staff was also rushed outside, where they kept themselves busy plotting what hotshot lawyer in Vegas to call in case of contamination.”

  “What happened next?” I was afraid to think of where all this was leading.

  “You mean before or after my coronary, Porter?” Lanahan asked, run
ning his fingers through his hair. A few strands came out and he held them toward me accusingly. “Look at this! Not only am I losing my hair, but it’s also turning white!”

  “It was already white, Henry!” I cried out in exasperation. “I’m begging you, get to the point and tell me what this is about!”

  Lanahan rested his elbows on his desk and leaned in close to me, his eyes riveted on mine. “What this is about are those damn tortoises, Rachel. They’re radioactive enough to glow in the dark.”

  I tried to speak, but nothing came out, my mind having momentarily melted into a giant pile of toxic slush. I’d heard what Henry had said, but none of it made any sense.

  Lanahan’s voice cut through my haze. “I need to know where you got those tortoises.”

  His eyes remained focused on mine like twin barrels of a shotgun cocked and ready to fire.

  My moral compass was gyrating as wildly as Lanahan’s Geiger counter must have been when it hit those torts. Though I felt no loyalty to Golden Shaft, I needed to know what exactly was going on. From past experience, I knew that once the information leaked out, another agency would quickly step in and take over the case. I had no doubt that I’d be kept out of the loop.

  I put on my best poker face. “What will you do with whatever I tell you?” I asked.

  “I’ll turn it over to the local FBI,” Henry stated.

  “Have you told them about this yet?” I pondered what my old boss Charlie Hickok would do.

  “No. I wanted to speak to you first,” Henry responded, watching me closely.

  “Then you still have the carcasses?” I asked, wondering what the hell I was thinking.

  Henry stared at me a moment before answering. “Some men in special-protection suits came in early today and hauled the stuff off for further testing. They need to confirm that my Geiger counter isn’t screwy and that I’m not some paranoid nut whose bolt has been loosened once too often,” he replied. “Other than that, the room has been sealed. As for Ted, I gave him the rest of the week off. I hate to think what he would have done if I hadn’t.”

  “Then my name hasn’t been mentioned to anyone?” I persisted. A surge of adrenaline began to work its way through me.

  Henry sat back in his chair, his fingers drumming on his desk as if it were a tom-tom.

  “Are you involved in this somehow, Porter?” His eyes narrowed in on me. “Or are you just crazy enough to try and take on whatever this is by yourself?”

  “I know this is going to sound crazy, Henry. But give me a week before you hand my name over to the FBI or whoever the hell was here,” I pleaded, barely able to believe my own audacity.

  “Where did you get those tortoises?” Lanahan growled.

  “Okay. Five days tops, and I’ll tell you all I know,” I countered.

  “Listen to me, Porter. Once the testing on those reptilian frisbees and their tissue samples is finished, the FBI will be on me like white on rice,” Henry protested.

  “Can’t you just slide over the fact that I gave you the torts? Maybe say they were anonymously dropped off at the lab’s door?” I implored. I couldn’t believe what I was asking. Even worse, I didn’t care. “Give me four days’ head start. That’s all.”

  “Are you crazy, Rachel? How do you know this doesn’t involve terrorists?” Lanahan demanded. “My guess is that the tortoises went in search of water and ended up drinking from a radioactive source. Which means who the hell knows what some bunch of loonies is up to.”

  I had no idea. For all I knew, it was the work of a local militia group or even well-connected ranchers burning with a cause. In fact, the more I thought about it, the more I realized that the tortoises could have stopped to drink just about anywhere. It might have been nothing more than a matter of timing that had caused their deaths to occur at the mine.

  “Give me three days, Henry. I swear to you that I’m not involved. But you’re right: I do want the chance to look into it, and once the FBI gets my name, I’ll be locked out of the case for good.” I hoped that he would understand.

  Henry ran his hand over his head. He pulled out a few more loose hairs and placed them on his desk like a phalanx of toy soldiers.

  “Forty-eight hours, Porter,” Lanahan rumbled. He stared forlornly at the visible sign of age creeping up on him. “I’ll try to stall until then, but I can’t make any promises. After that I want every detail you’ve got.”

  “I promise, Henry.” I held my hand up in an oath and crossed my heart as I edged my way toward the door.

  “And by the way, Porter—try to not get yourself killed. We don’t need any extra bodies on our slabs,” Lanahan added.

  “Then you like me. You really like me,” I joked.

  “Nah. It’s just that we’re already overworked. Besides, there’s a need even for people like you around.” Lanahan gave a tired smile.

  “What’s that mean—crazy?” I queried.

  He turned his attention back to the work on his desk. “Be careful, Porter. You’ve got a lot of fire, but that doesn’t mean you won’t get burned out.”

  I just hope it didn’t burn me up.

  The sun was already beginning to set by the time I walked outside. I had forty-eight hours. I took it on faith that Lanahan’s clock was starting as of first thing in the morning.

  The idea of heading home without Pilot held all the allure of spending an intimate evening with Frank Sinatra—the furry one. I pointed my Blazer back towards the Strip, intent on drowning my sorrows.

  All I needed to do was find out what had happened to three hundred and fifty desert tortoises, discover the source of some radioactive water, reclaim my lost dog, and resolve a conflicted heart. At the moment, it was easier just to order a drink.

  There is no such thing as a quiet bar in Vegas. I headed inside the MGM Grand and followed the neon rainbow past the Emerald City Casino to the Flying Monkey Bar, where I sat beneath a laser thunderstorm and listened to a witch maniacally demand, “Surrender, Dorothy!” over and over as I downed a vodka martini.

  Although Vegas is a city without a past for people who want to forget theirs, tonight it wasn’t working. At least not for me. Having few other options, I waved good night to the Wicked Witch and headed back outside.

  When I arrived home, I was pleasantly surprised to find that my landlord had been busy at work. Along with my front door, the living room window was now miraculously repaired. Though Lizzie’s lights burned bright, I decided to stay in my own place tonight.

  I wended my way past the bits and pieces of rubble that I was beginning to view as a new form of interior design. Padding into the kitchen, I fixed myself a makeshift martini and then headed for the bedroom. I hoped to find the red light blinking on my answering machine, but all was quiet on the electronic front. Which meant that Brian had yet to find Pilot. Or that a trigger-happy guard had gotten to him first.

  I didn’t want to think about that as I turned on the tap in the tub, stripped off my clothes, and stepped in. I didn’t want to think about much of anything as the water worked its way up my toes, past my thighs, encompassing my waist and engulfing my breasts like a slow and tender lover. I laid my head back against the cold white porcelain rim, feeling depressed. For the first time, I was beginning to realize that too much of what I’d been taught as a child was a lie. Things don’t get any easier as you get older. They just get tougher. The darkness at the end of the tunnel gets darker, and it gets harder and harder to find your way home.

  The night air chilled my skin as I stepped out of the tub. I dried off thinking of Annie McCarthy. Annie had had the courage to follow her heart and her man to Nevada. Could I be equally brave and admit that right now I needed to speak with Santou?

  I gathered my nerve and went into the bedroom, where I picked up the phone and dialed his number before I could change my mind. Each ring of the phone danced through my veins. My heart hammered as the receiver on the other end was lifted, and I waited to hear Santou’s warm drawl.

  “H
ello?”

  The voice was feminine, as cool and light as a mint julep on a hot southern day. My own voice caught in my throat, the heat vanishing from my veins as an Arctic chill quickly set in.

  “Who is this, please?” she asked.

  Oddly enough, I had the same question. Only I didn’t bother to ask. I slowly set the receiver down. And then I remembered: Annie had followed her fiancé to the Nevada desert, and look where it had gotten her. I wasn’t about to make the same mistake.

  I didn’t bother to check and see if I had dialed the wrong number. I crawled into bed and sipped the remains of my martini, hoping to keep my nightly demons at bay. A trail of coarse hairs clung to the sheets and worked their way up to my pillow. I didn’t brush them off but took what comfort I could at the sight of them. Right now, they were all I had left of Pilot.

  I’d been able to turn out the lights when Pilot had been around. That wasn’t about to happen tonight. Even so, I fell into a restless sleep where no amount of light could keep the night’s darkness from creeping in, until I was confronted by demons from the outside world as well as within. Strangely, they were beginning to look the same.

  Sixteen

  I woke up feeling as if I’d never slept, my mind groggy and my body begging to stay in bed. I decided to make my first call of the day with the sheets pulled up to my chin.

  “Golden Shaft Mine.” Dee’s voice clipped the words like a machine gun rattling off rounds of ammo.

  “It’s Rachel,” I replied. “I have to speak with Brian. I don’t know if you heard, but my dog dug his way onto the mine’s grounds.” My stomach tightened into a knot.

  “There’s no way Anderson’s going to speak with you,” Dee tersely replied. “He’s tied up in top-level meetings all day. But I can tell you this much—as far as I know, your dog hasn’t been found.”