Body Search

by Jessica Andersen

  Dale flushed and rubbed his unshaven jaw. “Sorry. I’m in a mood. It’s good to see you, Churchill.”

  Tansy had thought herself beyond shock. She was wrong. “Dale? You know this man?” That was a foolish question. Of course Dale knew the stranger, it was becoming clear that he knew everyone on the island.

  “Yeah.” He glanced down at her. “I promised you an explanation. Well, here’s the short version. I was born here. My parents and my aunt died in a boating accident when I was seventeen, and my uncle Trask took it out on me. Churchill was a friend of my parents. He helped me escape to the mainland and put me through college and med school, for which I am eternally grateful.”

  Yet Tansy noticed little warmth on Dale’s face when he scowled down at the older man. She waited a heartbeat. Then another. Tell me, she wanted to scream, tell me more. Let me in! But the words had never worked before. They weren’t likely to now.

  Finally, she turned back to the medical instruments. “Fine. Nice to meet you, Mr. Churchill.” She slapped the cases shut. “Come on. Let’s get over to the clinic.”

  Ignoring the men, she grabbed two equipment cases at random and hauled them to the front door. She paused at the sight of the shiny new black SUV in the driveway.

  Someone on this island had money, it appeared.

  “Frankie will get the rest of your boxes,” Churchill murmured behind her as the driver’s door opened and an enormous woman in chauffeur’s livery emerged to tower over the vehicle. She didn’t say a word as she brushed past Tansy and picked up the remainder of the equipment cases in a single load.

  The word Amazon came to mind. So did bodyguard.

  Who the hell was this Churchill? Tansy shot Dale a look, but he avoided her silent question by bending to shift one of the cases in the trunk. She scowled and ducked into the SUV when Frankie held the door open. The black interior smelled of new leather and money. A lethal-looking Doberman sat in the front, between the seats. It faced the passengers and curled a tan lip when Tansy slid inside.

  She would have preferred a white VW Rabbit with plates that read I’m late. That, at least, she would have understood. The feeling that she was headed to the worst sort of tea party intensified, as did the nagging fear and her headache, though the cut on her head had scabbed without needing stitches.

  As the vehicle bumped back the way they’d come, Churchill spoke as though resuming an interrupted conversation. “This outbreak business is bad, Dale. Bad. The docks are losing money every day we’re closed, and my customers on the mainland are finding other places to buy their lobsters.”

  Tansy remembered the name Churchill on the bow of the lobster boat. Though it surprised her that Mickey and Churchill both seemed more concerned with the lobstering than the patients, she supposed the inhabitants of Lobster Island must live—and die—by their catches.

  “That’s why I’m here, Walter. The outbreak isn’t typical. There shouldn’t be new cases, or as many fatalities. But I’m curious.” Dale leaned forward to address the man in the front. As he did so, his hard thigh brushed against Tansy’s leg and she moved away, hating the flush of contact. “Why did I hear about this from Mickey? You knew where to find me, and you know I’m a doctor. An outbreak specialist. Why didn’t you call me for help?”

  Churchill glanced back. “Because until three people died this morning, I thought it was under control. And because I didn’t want you coming back here.”

  Dale cursed. “Because of Trask.”

  The older man shook his head. “Because of you, Dale. You don’t belong here. You never did.”

  The SUV pulled into the motel parking lot. Anticipation, and perhaps relief, surged through Tansy when she saw an agitated, gesturing crowd gathered around a windowless Jeep. An older woman in wrinkled scrubs dashed out of a motel door and hurried to the crowd.

  The scene screamed medical emergency! Tansy’s pulse jolted. Medicine. Knowledge. She could do this.

  Here, she could be in control.

  She had the door open before the vehicle stopped rolling, HFH training kicking in when nothing else made sense. “Come on, Dale. We have work to do!” Feeling naked without her field rucksack, which had gone down with the plane, she sprinted across the parking lot to the growing crowd.

  Behind her, Churchill yelled a question and Dale called back, “Yeah. Call the FAA about the crash and call Zachary Cage at Boston General. Tell him I need more field equipment, clothes and another plane. Pronto.”

  Intent on the patient, Tansy ignored her partner and pressed through the crowd. When she saw the man at its center, she stopped dead.

  Mickey.

  She held up a hand to stop Dale, but she was too late to spare him the sight of his cousin cradling a small child to his chest. Tears ran down the lobsterman’s wrinkled, wind-burned cheeks.

  “Mick, you have to give Eddie to me now.” The older woman in the scrubs— Tansy guessed she was Dr. Hazel—pried at the lobsterman’s fingers. “He’s in respiratory arrest. You have to let me help him breathe.”

  Dale made a low sound, almost that of an animal in pain. Hurting for him, hoping it wasn’t too late, Tansy stepped forward. Hands outstretched, she waited until Dale’s cousin focused on her. “Mickey, remember me? I’m Dr. Whitmore. We’re here to help. You need to let us help Eddie now. He needs to be on a respirator.” She refused to admit it might al ready be too late for the little boy who’d complained of stomach pains not an hour earlier.

  She’d missed it. How had she missed it?

  The torture in Mickey’s face clawed at her heart. The lobsterman shook his head. “I’ve got to protect him. He’s mine.”

  Then Dale nudged her aside. “I’ve got him, Mick. I’ll fix him for you. I promise. Trust me.” He reached for the limp body and Mickey finally handed the boy over.

  “He’s sick, Dale. My boy’s sick. You said nobody else would get sick once we stopped lobstering. But my Eddie’s sick.”

  “Get him inside Unit 2,” Dr. Hazel ordered, clearing a path through the murmuring crowd. “There’s a respirator in there for him.”

  Cradling his precious cargo, Dale jogged to the motel room behind Hazel. Tansy followed in his wake, her brain already churning with lists of diseases that looked like PSP but weren’t. Deadly diseases.

  Focused on the child and the need to hurry, she almost missed the small object that dropped from Eddie’s tiny hand. She scooped it up on the run. It was a dark-colored rock, the sort of thing boys picked up as treasures. Thinking he might want it back if, no when, he recovered, she shoved it in the pocket of her borrowed jeans.

  The door to Unit 1 opened and a dark-haired man poked his head out. As they rushed by, Tansy caught a flash of capped teeth and navy trousers.

  “Hey, Hazel,” the man called, seeming oblivious that Dale was giving Eddie mouth-to-mouth as they hurried into Unit 2, “is the mayor well enough to talk yet? I need to get these sales agreements signed, and—”

  Tansy slammed the door behind them, cutting him off midsentence. Big-shot real-estate developer, Mickey had said. Well, he could go build condos in hell for all she cared. They had a life to save.

  “How long has he been down?” Dale snapped as he placed the limp body on the edge of a motel bed.

  “Not long. He’d just stopped breathing when you arrived. We should be okay.” Hazel expertly fitted a tube into the boy’s throat and passed Dale the handheld apparatus. “You bag him, I’ll finish setting up the respirator.” She glanced at Tansy. “I’m Hazel Dodd, and I’m very glad you’re here. Walter Churchill asked for help a week ago, but the feds didn’t have anyone to send. Thank God Trask knew who to ask.”

  “Mickey contacted me,” Dale said curtly, squeezing the bag in shallow puffs to inflate Eddie’s small lungs just enough but not too much. “Not Trask.”

  “Because I knew you’d hang up on me,” said an unfamiliar voice from the doorway.

  Tansy whirled. An older man stood at the threshold, clutching a wool cap in his h
ands. Blond and blue-eyed, he could’ve passed as Dale’s father.

  Or his uncle.

  “Get him out of here.” Dale’s voice was as cold as she’d ever heard it. “Now.” But there was an echo of something else. Something young and wistful.

  Trask backed up a pace. His eyes flicked to Hazel, then slid away. He clenched his jaw. “I’ll go. But I wanted to say—”

  “I don’t care what you wanted to say,” Dale interrupted. One of his hands carefully bagged the small child, keeping him alive while Hazel adjusted the respirator. Dale’s other hand stabbed toward the door. “Get out.”

  “I want to apologize, boy. You could at least hear what I have to say.” Trask’s voice roughened and he twisted the cap in his hands.

  Tansy expected Dale to shut the other man out, as he’d shut her out so many times before. End the conversation. Walk away. In Dale’s world, silence was easier than sharing.

  But as Hazel took over the bag and transferred Eddie to the mechanical respirator, Dale stayed put and swallowed, hard. “Apologize for which part? Are you sorry you blamed me for Aunt Sue’s death? Sorry you hated me? Or are you sorry that I stayed as long as I did?”

  A muscle pulsed in Trask’s jaw and his faded blue eyes narrowed. “Watch your mouth, boy. I did my duty by you.” When Dale snorted, Trask took a step forward, then stopped himself and cursed. “Never mind. It’s history. If you don’t want to hear it, that’s your choice, but I’ll say it anyway. I think you were right.”

  Dale went still. “Right about what?”

  Trask glanced over his shoulder at the crowd outside, stepped inside the motel room and shut the door. “I didn’t listen fifteen years ago because I couldn’t think of anything but Suzie. But things have been happening, Dale. Strange things.”

  “What things?” Dale swallowed with an audible click. “What are you saying?”

  Trask took a deep breath, glanced at the child on the bed and said, “I think you were right. I think Suzie and your parents may have been murdered.”

  Chapter Four

  Murdered. Though a shock, the word clicked in Dale’s head, unlocking a hurricane of jumbled suspicions, fears and resentments. But not grief, not really. The grief had been washed out of him years ago. Or else he’d pushed it so far down he couldn’t even find it anymore.

  But murder?

  He turned away on the pretext of checking Eddie’s pulse. It was steady. Saxitoxin, the main poison of PSP, didn’t usually stop the heart. The rare death came from system failure. The first symptoms of shellfish poisoning were a faint tingling of the mouth and fingertips, sometimes with a stomachache, and—

  And he was hiding behind the job. Funny, he usually left that to Tansy.

  “He’s breathing.” Hazel’s competent hands gestured Dale away from the patient. “All we can do now is wait until his body clears the toxin.” Or he dies, was the unspoken end to her sentence. “You’ll want to see the other patients, and my notes. But it can wait if you’d like a moment with your uncle.”

  First Mickey. Then Walter Churchill. Now Trask. Dale didn’t think he could handle another reunion. Even if he could, the last person he’d pick for a welcome home party was the uncle who’d crawled into a bottle the night the Curly Sue had gone down with all hands aboard.

  Seventeen-year-old Dale had needed Trask’s compassion, if not his love. Thirty-two-year-old Dr. Metcalf wanted nothing to do with either. He turned away. “No need. Let’s see the other patients.”

  “Dale…” Hazel touched his sleeve. “Maybe if you just listened—”

  “No.” He glared over his shoulder, trying not to see how drained his uncle looked. How much deeper the lines beside his mouth cut, how his hair had bleached to an old man’s white. “I don’t need to listen. Churchill showed me where the flotsam from the Curly Sue came ashore. And Trask assured me—with his fists, when necessary—that it was nothing more than an accident. Well, guess what? I’m a believer. Lobstering’s a tough business, and boats go down. Isn’t that what you told me, Trask? Aunt Sue and my parents sank. Period. End of story.” Dale pointed to the door. “I’d like you to leave now so my colleagues and I can save this boy’s life.”

  He felt a twist of guilt for using little Eddie as leverage, but the pressure building in his chest needed an outlet. If Trask didn’t leave, it was going to be him. And though Dale owed the old man for a black eye and a sore jaw, he liked to think he was better than that. He was better than Trask.

  Better than Lobster Island.

  Finally, he heard rubber boots creak on the cheap carpet. The door closed behind Trask, and Dale let out a breath, felt the tension ease slightly.

  “Dale,” Hazel said in a quiet, censorious tone, “you should talk to him.”

  Aware of Tansy standing beside the bed, eyes shadowed with questions mixed together with worry for the boy, Dale clenched his jaw. She shouldn’t have to learn about his past like this. He’d been wrong all along.

  He should have told her before they’d come to the island. No matter that she hadn’t returned his calls the night before they left, he should have pounded on her door until she let him in. He should have told her, made her understand how little she knew him.

  How little she would like the man he really was.

  “Sorry, Hazel.” He shook his head and avoided Tansy’s eyes. “I’m here to investigate an outbreak, not have a tearful homecoming in a place that ceased being home fifteen years ago. I’m not here to make peace with a bastard like Trask, and I’m certainly not here to ask questions about a boat that went down when I was a teenager. That’s all ancient history.” He glanced down at the bed. “My life started the moment I hit the mainland, and it won’t continue until I’m back where I belong. So let’s get on with this, okay?”

  Without another word, Hazel nodded and led the way out into the parking lot. Dale gestured for Tansy to precede him through the door, but she stayed where she was and narrowed her eyes.

  In her face he saw the one thing he’d feared all along.

  Disappointment.

  And though he’d always known it would come to this—that she’d hate where he’d come from, what he’d been— Dale couldn’t stop the quick slice of pain. He covered it with a scowl. “Come on. We have work to do.”

  Hazel was waiting for them at the door to Unit 3. With a shimmer of surprise, Dale realized she looked old, too. And smaller than he remembered, though he’d not thought of her in a long, long time. Hazel had returned to the island not long before his parents’ deaths, bringing her brand new medical degree to replace Doc Hawley when his boat had capsized off the point.

  Doc’s body had been recovered, Dale remembered with a twinge of resentment. His kin hadn’t been forced to bury an empty box.

  “What can you tell us, Dr. Dodd?” Tansy’s professional question jerked Dale back to the present. That’s where he belonged. In the present, not the past.

  “Just Hazel’s fine, dear.” The island’s doctor, who could’ve gone somewhere else with her Ivy League degree but had insisted on returning to this godforsaken place, pushed open the door and waved the others through. “We’ve had nine cases so far. Gerald Cohen came to my office last Friday, complain ing of a tingling, burning feeling in his fingers and lips. And you know these lobstermen…for him to come see me, it had to have gotten bad. They’ll ignore anything short of a severed digit or arterial spurts.”

  “Is this Mr. Cohen?” Tansy asked as they entered the room.

  “No.” Hazel’s mouth drooped and Dale again noticed how worn she looked. She had to be in her late forties, but she looked a decade past that. She’d been beautiful once. Now she was tired. “Gerry died that night. He went into respiratory arrest around five o’clock and I put him on a ventilator, but it was no good. His heart quit.”

  Tingling. Burning. Respiratory failure. Cardiac arrest. The symptoms were consistent with PSP, but only a small percentage of shellfish poisonings went into respiratory arrest. Here, it seemed like they all
did. It made no sense.

  Dale felt the first stirrings of interest. In his anger over Tansy, Trask and the enforced return to Lobster Island, he’d lost sight of their immediate purpose. An outbreak. Gratefully, he let his mind click over to analytical mode. In medicine, as in any investigation, there was little room for emotion. That was one of the reasons the job suited him so perfectly.

  “Tell us about this patient,” he requested, moving to stand near the bed and gaze down at the young woman lying motionless in it.

  “Miranda Davis. Sixteen years old. Her boyfriend, Curtis, brought her in this morning. She’s been on the respirator since noon today.”

  “So she should be coming out of paralysis in the next few hours,” Dale commented. Saxitoxin and the other shellfish poisons usually wore off in half a day.

  But Hazel shook her head. “No. I’ve had patients stay in arrest for twenty-four, even thirty-six hours, and counting. So far, only Traub Daniels has come out of it, and he’s breathing on his own but still unconscious. The others died.” Hazel took the teen’s hand and ran a thumb across a single broken nail. “One patient passed away just an hour ago. Mary Darling. Her baby is only four months old.”

  Though he’d taught himself to internalize human tragedy and use it to fuel his efforts, Dale couldn’t seem to rise above the sight of the teenage girl in the motel bed. Her chest rose and fell in a relentless, unnatural rhythm. He felt Tansy at his side and almost reached for her.

  But he didn’t. He couldn’t.

  The pressure on his chest increased and he was grateful that Tansy asked the next question. “You said her boyfriend brought her in. Can we speak with him?”

  Isolate the patients. Chart the course of the disease. Identify it. Find the source. Neutralize it. Their job was simple.

  And not simple at all.

  Hazel shook her head, the lines pulling tighter beside her mouth. “Curtis Flink. He collapsed a half hour after he brought Miranda in. He’s in Unit 5. His kidneys are failing.”