The Angel Maker lbadm-2

by Ridley Pearson

  "HIV," Sharon said. It was no guess. They didn't come to your door on a Saturday morning over measles. "Yes, but we needn't jump to conclusions."

  "AIDS," she whispered softly.

  "What we need," the man continued professionally, "is a fresh blood sample. There's no need to jump to any conclusions until the results of those tests are in. No need at all," he emphasized. "The computer has been wrong once. It could certainly be wrong a second time."

  "i/in shown as positive," she stated. "It's only a computer. We need to run the tests again. I'm a doctor. We can take your blood now, or you can come downtown later in the week. It's entirely up to you." The doctor added, "it won't take us five minutes, if you'd care to get it over with now."

  "Are you expecting anyone?" James Dean asked.

  She shook her head. She found it difficult to speak.

  The doctor said encouragingly, "One thing in favor of doing this now is that you will get the results much sooner."

  "Let's do it now," she said. "How long until I know?"

  "A few days. Four or five working days, usually."

  "Oh, God. That'll seem like forever."

  The doctor addressed his assistant, "I've left my case in the van. Go and get it for me." It was an order, not a request, and it struck her that there was no love lost between these two.

  James Dean stood and left through the back door, leaving the laptop computer standing on the carpet. "Our apologies for coming to your back door," the doctor said. "We've found most people would just as soon not explain anything to the neighbors. We try to park in the back and keep a low profile."

  Again, she couldn't find any words. She nodded, just barely holding on. A lifetime lost? "It's probably nothing more than a computer error. Really."

  "That's what your voice says, but that's not what your eyes say," she wanted to tell him. He knew something, all right. He was as nervous as she was.

  His lips tensed and his eyes hardened, and for the second time she felt a nauseating fear. She put her hands into her lap so he wouldn't see them shaking. "I wouldn't worry," he said. "Yes, you would. If you were me, you would." She stared at him. "You frighten me," she said without meaning to. "It's the possibility of the matter that frightens you, not me," he explained in that harsh, grating voice he seemed stuck with.

  James Dean returned with a small soft-plastic case and handed it to the doctor. It had tiered shelves, like a fishing tackle box. He tore a plastic bag off of a disposable syringe and took hold of her wrist to time her pulse. His fingers were ice cold. He did some more preparations below the lip of the table, out of sight from her, and then slipped on a pair of surgical gloves.

  He's afraid of contamination, she thought. She felt dizzy.

  He swabbed her upper forearm with alcohol and then wrapped surgical tubing tightly around her upper arm. He asked her to make a fist. She looked away. These days, she hated the sight of needles. "I'll need to take three samples," the doctor explained. "But just the one needle. it shouldn't hurt too much."

  He pricked her arm then. She jumped with the sensation. All the ramifications, all the possibilities of what had been said here in the last few minutes swam through her head. Her life was finished. Contaminated. Contact with anyone at The Shelter would be minimized and eventually terminated. Worse than a leper. Society would shun her. She would eventually fall victim to the virus. They all did. There would be AZT-at a few thousand dollars a month! There would be counseling. There would be tears and lost friendships. There would be a long, grueling illness, weight loss, and death. She started to cry.

  As she blinked away her tears, she focused on the contents of his medical case. She noticed an electric shaver, some leather strapping that looked more like a muzzle-a dog's muzzle? Next to it, a choke collar chain! This man wasn't a doctor, he was. "A veterinarian?" she asked.

  At that same instant a stunning warmth surged through her system.

  It flooded into her like hot water. She knew that feeling only too well. Valium and some kind of narcotic. A slam like codeine. They weren't taking her blood, they were drugging her.

  She snapped her head around in time to see the last of the injection administered. She looked up at the doctor-the veterinarian! — whose full concentration remained focused on the injection. She glanced up at James Dean, realizing now, for the first time, that they had not given her any identification. He was smiling at her. He had a mouth full of the worst teeth she had ever seen, like a rotten picket fence.

  She tried to pull her arm away, but it barely moved-ninety-five pounds of dead flesh. She felt too slow, too heavy to offer much resistance. She felt terrified. She felt marvelously content. She felt tired, incredibly relaxed. "You're going to be fine," he said in a fuzzy voice as if miles away.

  Helpless. Powerless. Nothing she could do. Across the room she saw a shadow move along the floor and believed at first it was another effect of the drug, but realized all at once that it was her housemate and hoped that she might yet be rescued. Agnes came around the corner, her seventy-year-old blind eyes open wide in curiosity.

  "Help!" Sharen forced out numbly. Loudly enough to be heard?

  Had any sound come out at all?

  The invasive warmth loosened every muscle. it felt like love. Pure and perfect love. Liquid love. Her eyes grew hot, and her lids fell like dark blue curtains. Agnes? Was Agnes out there? Anything but this, she thought. "Give me more," she felt like saying. "Sharon?" It was Agnes.

  Sharon Shaffer struggled to open her eyes, but only managed one last fleeting glimpse of the woman's silver-blue hair and pale white skin. Someone was dragging her.

  The last thing she heard was the doctor's angry whisper-like cracking ice-as he demanded of his accomplice: "Who the hell is that?"

  Homicide Lieutenant Phil Shoswitz loved baseball. He arranged his working hours around Mariners' home games and captained the police softball team. One of his favorite and most overused jokes was that he was the only guy on the force who was a captain and a lieutenant at the same time. His office, which remained constantly cluttered with stacks of pending case files, since Boldt's last visit had become something of a combination baseball locker room/ museum. Its walls were crowded with autographed artifacts, photographs, and shelves of championship trophies.

  As Boldt shut the door, one of the boys called outa warm greeting. You don't know how many friends you have, he thought, until you return to a place after a long absence. He hadn't realized how good how right-coming back here would feel. "Thanks for coming," Shoswitz said in his typically tense voice. "I know it's a Saturday, but this is important." He had a dark complexion, a long, thin face, and ever-vigilant eyes, not unlike the hardened criminals he dealt with so regularly. A high-strung type, he chose his clothes poorly and shaved too fast. Married once, he was a weekend father now-at least if he wasn't stuck with a Saturday rotation. He had been a fair detective but was a brilliant lieutenant. Some people were made for a position of authority and a series of endless meetings. "What are you and Matthews up to? First, she pays you a visit at The joke. Now I get some inquiry from a place called …" he checked a memo on his desk, "Bloodlines. A woman named Dundee is asking if we've got a cop named Boldt on our line-up. I in wondering: Do we?"

  "What'd you tell her?" Shoswitz said, "That's not an answer to my question.,Is that why the stern face?"

  "That's why."

  "maybe we should get Daffy in here."

  "maybe we shouldn't. She's a cop, Lou, but she's not an investigator. You're an investigator, but you're not a cop-not active anyway."

  "Ergo: We make the perfect team," Boldt said sarcastically. "I decide the teams around here. I may manage from the dugout, Lou, but I manage. I don't need my players out on the field calling plays. Especially players who are sitting up in the stands, by choice."

  "Foul ball," Boldt teased.

  Shoswitz didn't appreciate it. "You learn to watch the foul balls. Sometimes they pull fair."

  "Bloodlines was just a quick li
ttle question-and-answer session, Phil. If I hadn't said I was a cop … "What's Matthews working on, Lou?"

  Boldt felt that sinking sensation of losing your balance when it's too late to do anything about it. He had committed to Daphne, but he didn't want that to be the same thing as committing to Phil Shoswitz. If he handled this incorrectly, he would end up back on the force but off Daphne's investigation-if she was even allowed to continue with the case. Shoswitz was a tough negotiator. Boldt gave him the details, starting with Cindy Chapman's appearance at the homeless shelter, up to and including the "coincidence" that four out of four names were in the Bloodlines' database. For now, he left out Dixie's matching tool markings, saving himself a trump card in case he needed it. He concluded, "You see why we were hesitant to bring this to you? We're a long way from any hard evidence. Bob Proctor wouldn't give me five minutes with what I've got." Proctor was the King County prosecuting attorney.

  Shoswitz stared off blankly, deep in thought. He mumbled something about

  "Matthew's responsibility to involve the department."

  Boldt fired back, "You just said she doesn't qualify as an investigator-which is unfair, mind you, since she took highest honors at the academy." He suggested, "She only came to me because she knew I would listen objectively."

  "Objectively?" he asked. "She doesn't want objectivity. She's into the overwork phase. She's going through 'mental pause." That incident with the knife set her way back. She's still not over it. You know how it goes: When you start to fight back you go too far. She's haunted by that incident. She wants to prove herself as a detective, wants to be more than a psychologist. She's itching to get out of the office and into the squad car. She tried to talk her way out of something and it didn't work, so now she wants it again, wants a chance to prove to herself that she's over it. I see what you're thinking," he added, heading Boldt off, "but it isn't that easy. I can't very well recommend her for another rotation when she's the only shrink on the force. That's her specialty-that's what we took her on for, even if she is qualified for investigations. Besides she hasn't asked for any kind of active duty., "What if she did? What if I signed back up on the condition that we be allowed to partner together on this harvester investigation? Fifty-fifty partners, no seniority on my part, but I would be there to help her out, maybe work her through this. At this Same time, she'd agree to continue to handle the more pressing aspects of her job as departmental psychologist. "You've thought this out, haven't you?" Shoswitz said. "I know you, Phil. If I sign back up, You'll yank me over to some murder-one ticket, and I'll never see this thing again."

  What thing? You're the one pointing out the of evidence in this thing.lac@ Give me the manpower and authority to run with this. Give me a few weeks to come up with something to convince Proctor we have a case. If I can't, I'm yours-I'll see out my twenty."

  "One week, no more."

  "He's stealing organs, Phil. At least three kids are dead. The deaths are a direct result of his work, and that makes it multiple manslaughter, at least. How many more are there? I thought that was the point of Homicide. Three weeks."

  "So it's hardball, is it?"

  "Is it?"

  "I want you back. That's no secret. I suppose that's half the problem," he said, allowing a rare smile. "But I'm not going to deal like this."

  Boldt interrupted. "What a crock! You make deals like this every waking hour."

  Shoswitz's face turned red and his nostrils flared. "Two weeks and that's final. Is this the new you?"

  "Maybe it is," Boldt admitted. "I'm not feeling real 'new' at the moment, actually. Babies tend to make you feel ancient."

  "You don't even have a formal complaint, do you? Is this on the books as a crime?" "I'm complaining," Boldt said, carefully avoiding the second answer. "The problem with you is you only see your side of things," Shoswitz said in a frustrated voice. "Now you're sounding like Liz."

  This elicited a smile from the lieutenant, and Boldt could feel he had won. Shoswitz glanced over Boldt's shoulder. Boldt saw a flicker of distraction in the lieutenant's eye and knew before turning that it would be Daffy. He turned to see her coming at them like a freight train-no stopping her. A beautiful freight train at that. A nice engine. She opened the door without knocking. In a desperate voice she said, "A friend of mine's been kidnapped. I need your help." Pamela Chase climbed into her car, having decided on a drive because it was raining again and she couldn't stand it another minute inside her apartment alone. The occasional round-trip flight to Vancouver airport that she performed for Tegg did little to assuage her overall feeling of emptiness. Begrudgingly, she lived alone. Alone with her weight problem-with what she had come to think of as her ugliness.

  A low ceiling of thick storm clouds blotted out the night sky and dumped more rain onto the drowning city. Four years of drought, now this! She didn't know exactly where she was going, but like a dog on a scent she followed her instincts away from the deafening drumming of the rain on her small balcony with its plastic fern and blown-out lawn chair. Another few minutes and that rain would have driven her right out of her mind. She pulled up to a red light and studied her reflection in the windshield. Mirrors were not popular in her apartment. She searched her face, trying to see it as beautiful, as Elden claimed to see it. She ignored the heavy checks and the squinty black eyes, the lifeless hair and spotty eyebrows. She saw someone else entirely. She briefly forgot all about her childhood-her parents' malicious remarks about her weight problem, her being left behind to "study" when her family went on social outings, the kitchen cabinets being locked, her being fed different size servings and different food than her siblings.

  The neighborhood changed. Suddenly she left behind the stores and fast-food chains, the plastic marquees and 49-cent, LETTUCE signs, and was surrounded instead by towering trees, manicured shrubs, and elegant homes.

  This was familiar territory to her, not unlike her childhood neighborhood less than a mile away. This was where the money lived, the professionals, along the lake shore, away from the noise and exhaust.

  The Teggs owned three cars. Since they had only a two-car garage, and his was the one always parked in the driveway it was easy for her to determine Tegg was not at home. She drove by here often, waiting for the hours to pass, waiting for work. She lived for business hours. For Monday through Friday. For late-night emergency calls. For something more than the boredom of that apartment.

  She tried the clinic next, but he wasn't there either. The place was locked up tightly and the security was on. So where was he? Out at another of his social functions with her? The ballet? The opera? Out with the big names and big money? He loved that world.

  The more she couldn't have something, the more she wanted it. just like peanut butter. There was one way to make sure of his whereabouts. She pulled over at a Quik-Stop, bought herself a Reese's Peanut Butter Cup, and ran through the rain to a phone booth, getting soaked in the process. She thought about the voice she would use: Elden had taught her about image, about role-playing and acting. She summoned a convincing desperation, which wasn't too far from the way she felt anyway. The phone rang several times, which she knew from experience meant it wasn't the baby sitter answering, because the baby sitter always either occupied the phone line, keeping it tied up, or sat close enough to answer an incoming call on the first ring. The multiple rings confirmed her suspicions: The wife was home, Elden was not.

  The wife answered: "Hello?" she said in that snobbish accent she had perfected. "Mrs. Tegg, this is Pamela calling for Dr. Tegg."

  "Oh, hello, dear," she said, now in a patronizing tone that implied a warmth between them that didn't exist. It came out of the fact that this woman was friends with Pamela's parents and felt obliged to a pretense of a certain degree of amiability. Resentment was more like it-the two of them had squared off on several occasions. "He's not here, I'm afraid." "We've had an emergency call at the clinic nothing too bad-and Dr. Tegg isn't answering his pager," she lied in her most appropriate voice: conc
ern without alarm. "He's out at the farm, dear. Working. Incommunicado, I'm afraid. That's what he loves about being out there, you know? You'll just have to refer this emergency elsewhere," she said in a not-so-subtle tone of disbelief, Damn her, Pamela thought, it's getting so I can't fool her. The farm! Working? Without me? "Right," she managed to squeak out, strained though it was. She thanked the woman-she hated thanking her for anything-and hung up.

  It was a long drive out to the farm, tonight even longer because her mind wouldn't rest, filled as it was with the force of her substantial insecurity driven to discover what he was up to without her. Once off the Interstate, one road blurred into another. Trees. Darkness. The ceaseless rain hung in front of her like a curtain. Headlights flashed her windshield with silver. Taillights like animal eyes.

  The farm was located far off the beaten track in a section of national forest that had been given over to timber lease some years before, the only access a series of unmarked, twisting, hard-pack roads.

  She negotiated her way over these unmarked roads, across the narrow bridges, and finally pulled into the rutted lane that led to the property.

  To look at it, you might guess the place abandoned, except for the barking that emanated from the Quonset hut-the kennel situated fifty yards down a sloping grade to the right of the old cabin and driveway. A light was on in the cabin. He was here!

  She parked and hurried through the rain. Her wet blouse glued to her chest. Her jeans absurdly tight-were soaked from just below her crotch to her knees. Her hair was matted and a mess. She twisted the handle-it was locked. She crossed around to the cellar entrance and in doing so passed two glowing basement windows that had been painted over from the inside. She didn't need to see through these windows to know he was working inside. Now drenched, she approached the thick wooden door and pounded on it loudly. A moment later, he called out, "Who's there?" When she answered, he opened the door, The hall was dark, though to his left the impromptu operating room glowed brightly beneath the surgical lamps. He stood in shadow, his face partially hidden. She slicked back her hair and shook the water off her, Behind her, the loud barking continued inside the kennel. She glanced into the operating room where a sedated woman lay stretched out on the operating table, green surgical cloth covering her. Pamela experienced the horror of exclusion. He was prepared to do a harvest without her! Unthinkable! "So," he said in that grating voice of his, "you've come."