Isolation Ward

by Joshua Spanogle

“And balder,” Brooke said. Score one, Brooke. We smiled at each other.

  “I should be going,” Alaine said abruptly. “With . . . with the developments, there are going to be a lot of changes in the lab. If there is even a lab left . . .”

  “You’re not going to the cemetery?”

  “I need to get back to the lab.”

  “Why? The most important person in your life—”

  “Nathaniel, come on. You haven’t forgotten everything, have you? I’ll be lucky if they haven’t started planting flags in the space while I sat here crying.”

  Curtly, I said, “I wouldn’t worry. At least your boyfriend controls your funding stream, right?”

  “Not all of it.”

  “Maybe you can set up shop under Otto Falk’s umbrella.”

  “Chimeragen wanted the work to be independent. The FDA wanted it to be independent, too.”

  Step one toward independence, Alaine, would be breaking the engagement with the Aryan prince.

  We began our good-byes. Brooke and Alaine shook hands again. Surprisingly, Alaine embraced me hard, pulled me close. Her mouth was next to my ear; I felt her breath. “They know you broke in,” she whispered. “Stop this.”

  CHAPTER 70

  Alaine broke away from me and hurried across the courtyard in the direction of the medical campus. I shot a quick glance at Brooke, her eyebrows raised in question.

  “I’ll be back,” I said, and hurried after Alaine. My pace fell in with hers. “Who knows I broke in?”

  She didn’t answer, just kept walking.

  “What’s going on?”

  She kept her eyes on the ground. “Nathaniel, stop.”

  “What happened to Harriet Tobel?” I insisted.

  “Stop!” She almost spat the word. She looked quickly back at the crowd, then continued her pace. I followed the look and saw Ian Carrington talking to Otto Falk. But he wasn’t looking at the shorter man; he stared over his head, at us.

  My last image of Alaine was dark hair, dark suit, as she disappeared around a yellow sandstone building.

  Slowly, I made my way back to Brooke. Ian, I hoped, thought Alaine and I had just opened some old lovers’ wounds, which wouldn’t have been entirely untrue in my case, at least. But I could tell he was still looking at me, and I realized how stupid I’d been to pursue her like that.

  By the time I reached Brooke, she was already talking to someone else. In almost any situation, a beautiful woman standing alone is like a hundred-dollar bill lying on a street in Manhattan: it’s only a matter of time before someone picks her up.

  The gentleman involved in this pickup looked to be about two hundred years old, so if it came to blows, I was relatively sure I could take him. Brooke introduced him as a former professor of classics. His time in the sun ended, the professor excused himself.

  “What was that all about?” Brooke asked.

  “Just fighting the last battles of our breakup.” I could tell Brooke wasn’t sure whether or not to buy it, but she kept quiet.

  On our way off the quad back to the car, I scanned the dwindling crowd for any sign of Otto Falk and Ian Carrington. I didn’t see them.

  “She’s very pretty,” Brooke observed as we crossed in front of a patch of flowers near the parking area.

  I didn’t respond.

  “The love of your life, right, Nathaniel?”

  “I don’t know,” I said.

  “She’s a bit cold.”

  “For God’s sake, Brooke.”

  “She’s worried about getting back to the lab to protect her job.”

  “Wouldn’t you be?”

  “No. Not today.”

  We had taken Brooke’s BMW to the ceremony and planned to take it to the burial itself. As she opened the car door, Brooke said, “You know, if you’re still in love with her, you have to either admit it to yourself or get over it.”

  “I’m not in love with any—”

  “In this case, I’d suggest you get over it.”

  She slammed the door and blazed the engine. I got in.

  Okay, I admit I might have been defending Alaine Chen a little too much. But I appreciated that she warned me, and felt stupid about assuming that what she wanted to tell me had to do with the relationship.

  To smooth Brooke’s feathers, I said, “I’m not in love with her.” I don’t think she believed me, since she laid a little rubber tearing out of the parking lot.

  “We had reconnected, Nate, come to some sort of friendship. At least I thought we had. God, I let myself get a little vulnerable with you, and you end up throwing it back in my face.” By vulnerable, Brooke meant that she let me stay at her place, let me make her breakfast. This jealousy surprised me, though.

  “It’s not that,” I said. I told her what Alaine had said, omitting, of course, any of the “You’re a good man, Nate McCormick” talk.

  She processed that for a moment. “I’m embarrassed.” Then she changed the subject. “So Chimeragen is involved in something. It was either them or someone having to do with Dr. Tobel’s HIV work. Who else would really care that you broke into the lab? Why else would Alaine know? Do you think the rape is the key?”

  “A key. Yes.”

  “I do, too. I think they broke into your car to take the tape. Not for your couture.”

  I smiled at her. “Thanks.”

  By that time, we were well into the rolling hills surrounding the university. At this time of year, everything was dry, brushed an even amber. It was the grass—and the sunshine, and the metal—that gave California its moniker the Golden State.

  “Why wasn’t the rape reported?” Brooke mused.

  “Well, if the study itself is not being protected, then some person is being protected. Maybe Otto Falk has a predilection for the brain-dead. Maybe Ian Carrington does. Do you remember the dimensions of the man in the tape?”

  “No. The angle was weird. He could have been short, I guess.”

  I thought about that for a second. It still didn’t add up. “These guys are smart. Why wouldn’t they have turned off the camera? Or taken the tape out?”

  “Maybe they didn’t have time. Maybe they were surprised. Or someone was outside. Or someone who was in on the game wanted some blackmail material.” She didn’t have to say that someone might have been Harriet Tobel.

  The cars ahead of us turned onto a side road toward the cemetery. We followed. “Besides, it wasn’t Falk. It was an orderly. The guy who did this was an orderly.”

  “Or it was someone who wanted us to think he was an orderly.”

  CHAPTER 71

  As we followed the cars down a small road shaded by eucalyptus trees, I thought about my last conversation with Harriet Tobel, trying to tease out anything useful. Chimeragen, the outbreak, her ragging on me about being too ambitious. Nothing jumped out at me. I played the conversation again. In the context of extraordinary circumstances, the exchange itself was pretty damned ordinary. All of it, except for . . .

  “You moron,” I said to myself.

  Brooke heard. “What do you mean? I’m just following the cars in front—”

  “No. Me. When I was talking to Dr. Tobel in the café, you know what set her off? What made her clam up and get weird on me, then just take off?”

  “The outbreak?”

  “No. It was when I mentioned Casey’s name. A switch flipped. I can’t believe I didn’t think of it before.”

  For a moment, Brooke didn’t seem to understand. Then, well, a switch flipped, and I saw recognition dawn on her. “There’s someone we need to talk to,” I said. “Someone, actually, you need to talk to.”

  CHAPTER 72

  After the last symbolic handful of dirt was thrown onto Harriet Tobel’s coffin, Brooke and I quickly left the cemetery. In the car, I dialed the national 411 directory and got a number and address I’d lost when my things were taken. Rosalinda Lopez.

  The address wasn’t immediately familiar to Brooke, but she thought she knew the general area, so it
was my task to find it on a map. I paged through the atlas and finally came up with the street, which, according to my chauffeur, was in one of San Jose’s less desirable neighborhoods.

  We hurtled down the 280, Brooke’s hair a golden halo in the sun and wind. If there hadn’t been so much death around, I might actually have taken some pleasure in that trip. As it was, I couldn’t shake the gnawing in my gut.

  We discussed what Brooke was to say to the former employee of Santa Ana. I thought it would be better that she do the talking, since Rosalinda seemed to like me about as much as a root canal.

  When we finally arrived in the neighborhood, I was surprised at how benign it looked. If this was poverty, it didn’t look half-bad: nice little suburban places with yards, palm trees, an orange tree here and there. Sure, there were the houses with cushioned couches in the front yard, with cars up on blocks. But this place didn’t hold a candle to poverty in Baltimore or Atlanta. Maybe it’s an issue of space, which is at such a premium in eastern cities that all the crackheads and thugs get squeezed into the streets. Here, they could spread out a little.

  6577 Urbani Road had a nice new Mazda in the driveway. Bad neighborhood indeed.

  “Looks like she’s home,” Brooke said. She got out of the car, and I watched her walk to the door, slim and tanned in a black mourning outfit, and ring the bell. She stole a look at me and smiled. I smiled back and, for a flash, became very worried. So worried, in fact, that I had my hand on the door handle, ready to get out and grab Brooke, take her away from all this shit.

  Before I could move, a shadow appeared behind the screen door. I saw Brooke talk, then stop talking. Then she disappeared inside.

  I tried to relax, laid back my head, closed my eyes, and let the sunshine in to crack the DNA in the skin of my face. It didn’t help: I was going out of my head with boredom and worry for Brooke. How these feelings are compatible, I don’t know. All I know is that it’s an unpleasant place to be.

  I realized I had no idea what was happening back east, so I pulled out the cell phone, checked the battery power. It was low and I had no charger after my luggage was stolen. Screw it, I thought. I’d borrow Brooke’s charger later.

  I called my trusty public health doc in Baltimore. Herb Verlach picked up, which was a good indication that things were, for the moment, calm.

  “Herb,” I said. “Nathaniel McCormick.”

  “McCormick . . . McCormick. There was a guy I used to work with called McCormick. Went to California and opened a water bed outlet.”

  “The one and only.”

  “How’s the water bed business?” Okay, Herb, you’re killing the joke.

  “What’s going on?”

  “All quiet on the Eastern Front. No new cases, and the cases we have in the hospital are recovering nicely. Except one. He looks like he might not make it. Twenty-six-year-old man from down in Laurel. Came in after you left.”

  “With Tinings, Reginald, and Fillmore, that will be four.”

  “So, they still teach addition in med school.” Zinger. Still, it was good to hear he was in relatively high spirits.

  I asked, “What’s our case-fatality rate?”

  “If this young man dies, about twenty-five percent.”

  “Pretty bad.” By way of comparison, SARS had a case fatality rate of about ten percent in 2003.

  “Yeah.” He cleared his throat. “Tim pulled out. He left Beth and Andy here, but he’s gone back to Atlanta with your division chief as of yesterday. There’s been an outbreak of West Nile down in Louisiana. He headed out for that.”

  “He told me.” It looked more and more likely that I would be called to Louisiana. As if it weren’t bad enough to be yanked off this case, the last place I wanted to be in late July was Louisiana. The weather’s so warm and humid, it feels like you’re walking around in an overused kiddie pool. I asked, “What’s the status of the Baltimore investigation?”

  “We ripped apart the Jefferson homes, and Dan Miller’s nursing homes. The labs here and in Atlanta are working twenty-four/seven, but we still don’t have squat. It’s weird, really weird, but it seems to have burned out. The attack rate is low now.”

  “We’ll get it eventually.”

  “I hope.” I considered telling Verlach about the PERVs, but decided I’d wait for the call from Ben Vallo. I asked him, “Are you guys cutting back?”

  “Hell no. But the urgency’s gone. FBI’s involved now, in case it’s a criminal matter, but even they’re being half-assed about it. A few retarded folks die—big deal. I think they were waiting in the wings until it jumped to the population, then they’d come in and cherry-pick.”

  “Is it in the media yet?”

  “About the FBI? Yeah. It’s in the papers this morning, but everyone’s downplaying it. The official line is that it doesn’t look like bioterrorism, but we’re investigating all possible causes.”

  “Read: covering our asses.”

  “Yeah. Anyway, it’s become a jurisdictional mess. Your friend John Myers was screaming at the feds this morning. He stormed out of the building.”

  I laughed.

  “Nate? It looks like your guy is the key.”

  “What guy?”

  “You know, ‘all roads lead to Rome’? Well, all roads are leading to Doug Buchanan. Or whatever his name is now.”

  “He’s the only constant, hunh?”

  “Yeah. Still no word on the murder yet.”

  I was a bit incredulous. “No word? The guy was gutted, Herb. His organs are floating out there somewhere. This was a big, sloppy murder and there’s no progress?”

  “Hey, I’m not the police. I only know what they tell me. Some fingers are pointing at Jefferson, but the doc has his alibis lined up. Anyway, I handed over your report to the FBI. They said they’d follow up with you and take it from there.”

  “Follow up out here?”

  “I guess.” He paused. “To be honest, I’d get out of there or at least avoid those guys. Who knows how ferocious they’ll be?”

  “I’ll take it under advisement. Thanks, Herb.”

  I hung up the phone. Now, a good employee would call Tim and tell him he’d be on a plane that evening and be in Atlanta bright and early the following morning. He’d spend the rest of the day typing up a report on the past few days and e-mail it to him. But I was discovering just how poor an employee I was. I was also royally ticked about events back east. They were pulling everyone off the Baltimore outbreak, as if it didn’t matter anymore. Maybe Verlach was right: a bunch of retarded people die, and no one cares. But if two rich suburbanites die of encephalitis outside of Shreveport, call in the troops. I was angry. Gladys Thomas and Bethany Reginald deserved better.

  I waited. The boredom again, the worry. I seriously contemplated calling Tim just to have something to do, but stopped myself before doing something that insane.

  I looked around the inside of the car. Brooke—lovely Brooke—had taken the keys, so I couldn’t listen to the radio. I satisfied myself with the map.

  By the time Brooke reappeared on the sidewalk outside the house, I’d managed to get myself a nice sunburn and had become an expert on the layout surrounding Rosalinda Lopez’s house. As she slid into the car, I said, “Did you know that Mercado Street dead-ends, picks up, dead-ends again? It does it six times.”

  “Great, Nathaniel.”

  I didn’t say anything, but let her sit in the car, start it, and decide when to speak to me. Ten seconds passed, and I couldn’t hold out any longer. “Well?”

  “You were right. Casey worked at a hospital.”

  CHAPTER 73

  “She was really scared, Nate,” Brooke said.

  “Rosalinda?”

  “Yes. Really scared. She made me swear not to tell anyone we talked.”

  “You told me.”

  “You know what I mean.” Before going north to the hospital, we stopped at Brooke’s place to let the dogs out and so Brooke could change clothes. Black is great for funerals, not so
good for hospitals. It makes sick people nervous. “Somebody frightened her. It’s why she quit the home after Gladys’s death. She said she couldn’t handle it anymore.”

  “Who was she scared of?”

  “She definitely wouldn’t tell me that. The only reason she let me know about Casey and where he worked is that she figured we could get that information anywhere. And I really rode her to do the right thing.”

  “Good work, Dr. Michaels.”

  “I feel guilty about it. If anything happens to her . . .”

  She let the statement hang as she opened the door to the apartment. Inside, the dogs heard the lock turn and began to bark.

  “Nothing’s going to happen to her,” I said.

  “What makes you so sure?” she shot back.

  Brooke went to the bedroom to change while I tried her cell phone charger in my phone. Got to hand it to the government for standardizing telecom contracts across the board. The charger fit.

  “They’re rolling back everything in Baltimore,” I called to Brooke.

  “What do you mean?” she called back.

  “Verlach said they’re working like mad, but that it’s not a priority anymore. FBI’s still involved, though.”

  “So it’s not as hot. That’s good.”

  “Doesn’t mean it’s not hot. It means it’s not important to them.”

  She stuck her head out. “It’s a good thing, Nathaniel. It gives us more freedom.”

  “More freedom to do what?”

  She didn’t answer.

  While Brooke changed, I took the dogs outside. They performed, and busily sniffed their creations. I took the baggie and collected. I reflected on that: the world was falling apart, and I was scooping poop.

  We were in the car, Brooke driving. Since it was getting late East Coast time and I still hadn’t heard from Ben Vallo, I decided to bother the microbiologist.

  “My favorite EIS officer,” he said. “Hey, listen, I need to mark my calendar: when do you finish with CDC?”

  Maybe sooner than you think, Ben. I said, “Funny.”

  “I know. I’ve been working on that one all day. Look, Southern blots are negative, so the PERVs aren’t there in any great numbers.”