Chris backtracked to the hallway, tears glistening in her eyes. She looked at Fairborn’s body, then stepped past it and went down the hall.
“Chris, don’t go back there.”
But again she paid no attention.
Seeing that the door at the end of the hall was standing open, she went past the kitchen and entered the Fairborns’ bedroom, where she saw with relief that there was no body on the bed. But the room had been ransacked—drawers pulled out, socks and underwear scattered over the carpet. On the floor was a small jewelry box, its contents apparently plundered except for an earring that lay nearby.
Where was Ann?
Chris moved toward the open closet door, afraid of what she might find inside, but unable to keep from looking. She stood for a second at the edge of the open door, then slowly leaned around it. And found what she feared she might: Ann Fairborn, sitting on the floor, back against the wall, blood trailing down her face from two obscene entry wounds in her forehead.
“Chris . . .” Michael touched her arm. “Really, we shouldn’t be in here.”
In shock over the brutality the Fairborns had suffered, Chris let him guide her from the room and out onto the porch.
“Why them?” she said.
“A chance occurrence,” Michael replied. “Just shitty luck that the creep responsible chose this house.”
“She was the sweetest woman. And he was unique, and so brilliant. This is monstrous.”
“Let’s go to the car, where you can sit down.”
In the car, while Chris sat pitched forward, her head on the steering wheel, Michael dialed 911 on his cell phone.
“This is Dr. Michael Boyer. There’s been a double murder at . . .” He glanced at the house number above the front door. “Sixteen twenty-three Parham Road.”
“DID YOU KNOW that when a phone line is cut, outside callers get a busy signal?” Chris said, driving back to Atlanta after being detained at the Fairborn crime scene for over an hour by the county sheriff.
“First I heard of that was when the sheriff mentioned it.”
“The line being busy . . . and their car in the drive . . . I thought it was just a normal day for them. I never expected . . . I don’t ever want to go through anything like that again.”
“It’s not the best morning I ever spent either,” Michael agreed. “We seem to be surrounded by death . . . the five at Monteagle, that guy Lansden, and now this.”
“What are you saying?”
“That it’s a lot to bear. What did you think I meant?”
Chris didn’t give him an answer, and Michael didn’t press her for one.
They drove for a while without talking, but Michael could tell Chris was thinking hard about something.
Then she said, “Do you have time for us to run by Emory Hospital?”
“I’m available. What are we doing?”
“I want to talk to Lansden’s neurologist again about his death.”
“Why?”
“I know this is probably off the wall, but think with me . . . The key to figuring out what happened to the Kazak virus samples is learning the name of the man who was there with Lansden. And I believe we could have done that today by getting Lansden to spell it a letter at a time, either by pointing to them on something or blinking yes or no as we recited the alphabet. But before we can get there, he dies.”
“Okay, so?”
“While we were there the first time, they filmed the session. Before we left, Fairborn stole the tape, or at least borrowed it without asking.”
“Did he tell you why?”
“No. But he must have believed he could learn something by reviewing it. And now he’s dead. Suppose someone doesn’t want the man who was with Lansden identified.”
“I don’t know what to say.”
“I wonder what happened to that tape.”
“You’re suggesting Fairborn was killed just so someone could get their hands on it?”
“Isn’t that possible?”
“I agree the odds are long on all this simply being the result of random events, but highly unlikely things happen all the time. And there’s every indication the Fairborns were killed by a burglar—the missing shotgun, for example. That was certainly taken by the killer. And when we were in the study, I saw a copy stand on his desk, but no computer. So that was probably taken, too.”
“In the bedroom, I did notice an emptied jewelry box with one earring the robber missed.”
“There you go.”
Chris lapsed back into thought. A few minutes later, as she changed lanes to avoid a slab of rubber from a shredded retread, she said, “Suppose the killer just took all those things to hide his real intent?”
“If that’s true, someone could also be watching you.”
Chapter 29
“HERE SHE IS,” Chris said, seeing McKee get off the elevator in the Emory stroke unit shortly after they’d paged her.
“Dr. Collins, it’s good to see you again.”
She introduced Michael, and the two shook hands.
“You know, a very peculiar thing happened yesterday,” McKee said to Chris. “After you spoke with Dr. Lansden, I went to get the tape from the session, but it was gone.”
“I’m sorry about that. Dr. Fairborn took it. He wanted to review it at home.”
McKee was obviously irritated. “He should have requested a copy. I’d have been happy to provide it.”
“It’s all moot now. He and his wife were murdered last night.”
McKee grew pale. “That’s awful.”
“I can’t give you all the details, but his death following so closely on Dr. Lansden’s makes me think the Fairborns were killed during an attempt to steal that tape. So my question to you is, was Lansden’s death suspicious in any way?”
“What do you mean?”
“Could it have been caused by someone?”
“There was nothing to suggest that.”
“Have you arranged for an autopsy?”
“There was no need. And no one to pay for it.”
“Where’s the body?”
“I don’t know. Maybe it’s still here, maybe it’s been transferred to a funeral home. That’s not my area.”
“I understand. Thanks for talking to us.”
As McKee walked away, Michael said, “Boy, you really laid it on her.”
“I didn’t know how else to make her really think about the circumstances of Lansden’s death.”
A few minutes later, outside the hospital’s front entrance, Chris dug in her bag for her cell phone.
“Let me guess,” Michael said. “You’re calling the medical examiner.”
“I want his opinion on what killed Lansden.”
Hugh Monroe was appropriately skeptical of what Chris told him, but more importantly, he agreed to locate the body and have it transported to the morgue so he could perform the autopsy she wanted.
“Okay,” Chris said, putting her phone away. “Let’s go see if Ash has the hanta antibody results on my father’s blood.”
WHEN THEY REACHED the Monteagle virology lab, one of Ash’s lab techs said he’d already gone to lunch. After what they’d seen at the Fairborns’, neither Chris nor Michael felt like eating, so they bypassed the serving lines in the cafeteria and went directly to the seating area, where they saw Ash sitting with Carter Dewitt and Henry Bechtel, VP for legal affairs.
“I don’t want to talk in front of those other men,” Chris said.
“I’ll go over and arrange for us to meet Ash in his office when he’s finished here.”
“No, wait, Bechtel’s leaving. So’s Dewitt.”
They headed for Ash on a route that would put a couple of tables between them and the two VPs when they passed, a
distance that required only a nod of acknowledgment.
Watching them heading his way, Ash wondered if Chris had heard about Fairborn yet. She was wearing a serious expression, and her eyes looked a little red. He needed to be careful now. She was probably going to ask him about the hanta antibody test on her father.
He’d been thinking about how to handle that, and it seemed best to just admit the truth. If he lied and she became suspicious, she could draw a fresh sample from Wayne and take it elsewhere for testing. What a screw-up that had been. They’d all been told at that first meeting Wayne had some kind of respiratory illness when he’d lived in New Mexico.
“You’re not eating?” he said, when Chris and Michael reached him.
“We saw some things this morning that dulled our appetites,” Michael said, pulling out a chair and sitting down.
Chris did the same.
“What do you mean?”
Chris told him about the murders, Lansden’s death, and the tape Fairborn took. “Michael thinks the Fairborns were killed by a burglar who had nothing to do with Lansden. But I’m not so sure. I’m wondering if the killer was after that tape.”
“What did the police think?” Ash asked.
“I haven’t told them any of this. I didn’t think about it until they let us go, and we were on the road home.”
“And you haven’t called them?”
“It could just be my imagination. I’m at least going to wait until I hear what the ME finds when he does the autopsy on Lansden.”
An autopsy.
This was something Ash hadn’t expected. While Lansden was sleeping, he’d plunged a syringe into the injection port of his IV and slipped him a bolus of potassium chloride, a common substance that would stop his heart. And untraceable in an autopsy. So there was nothing to worry about there. But this whole enterprise was getting very treacherous.
“I don’t mean to sound like I’m pushing you,” Chris said. “But have you finished those hanta antibody tests on my father’s blood?”
“Got the results about an hour ago.” Then, even though it was just going to add to his problems, he said, “That infection he had in New Mexico clearly must have been hanta.”
“So Fairborn was right,” Chris said.
“And I’ve got some other news. Michael, you particularly are probably not going to be happy about this, but you saw Bechtel and Dewitt just leave . . . Before lunch, they came to my lab and picked up all the blood and tissue samples from everybody associated with Wayne’s transplant. Said they’d sold the rights to the therapeutic virus to some pharmaceutical company. Under the terms of the sale, I’m to have nothing more to do with the virus.”
“Did you get it sequenced?” Michael asked.
“Unfortunately, I’ve encountered significant problems with that, so it’s still undone.”
Michael scowled. “Who bought the rights?”
“They didn’t tell me.”
“How can they take all that material out of the public domain?” Michael said. “What happened here has stopped xenotransplantation plans all over the country. We have to know exactly what occurred.”
Ash threw up his hands. “Hey, don’t kill the messenger.”
When he lifted his hands, Chris saw something that shocked her. On the side of his right wrist, where he obviously hadn’t noticed it, was a smear of brown paint, the same color as the paint that was on Sam Fairborn’s ear the day before he was murdered.
Wanting to get out of there, Chris reached for her pager and looked at the display as though a call had come in. “I’ve got to go. Eric, thanks for the news. Michael, would you drive me back to Good Samaritan?” Without giving him a chance to remind her that they’d come to Monteagle in her car, she walked off.
Puzzled, Michael came after her.
“Chris, what were you talking about back there? You drove us—”
“Not here.”
Michael followed her into the hall, where she took him to a corner that would allow them to talk privately.
“Ash has paint on his wrist the same color as the potting table Sam Fairborn painted yesterday before he was killed. With the cool temperatures we’ve been having, that painted table might not have been completely dry last night.”
“You think Ash—”
“I don’t know what to think, except I’m running into too many coincidences to believe they’re all unrelated.”
“But I’ve known Ash for years.”
“What does he do in his spare time?”
Michael thought a moment. “I don’t know.”
“Where did he grow up?”
“You’ve made your point.”
“I wonder if he ever worked at the CDC . . . say about twelve years ago.”
“Let’s go up to Human Resources and see if we can get a copy of his CV. They must have one on file.”
IN THE CAFETERIA, Ash was concerned about the way Chris had abruptly cut off their conversation. She’d said she was paged, but there was something about the way she glanced at the display, looking toward it, but not at it. If he could roll back the weeks, he would, and this time he’d ignore the opportunity that had been dangled in front of him. But that wasn’t possible. He’d made his decision, and now he’d just have to play it through. But Chris Collins had better watch her step.
DEANNA HUNT, THE director of Human Resources, made no attempt to hide her interest in Michael. It was in her eyes, her posture, and the way she touched him when she spoke. It irritated Chris. And the fact that it irritated her, irritated her even more. She had no claim on Michael, so why did she care if this woman was acting like a thirteen-year-old girl?
“You just wait right here,” Deanna said, “and I’ll get you a copy of that CV.” As she left her office, her eyes raked Chris with a cold look.
Unschooled in the rules of feminine warfare, Michael had no idea Deanna had just thrown the gauntlet at Chris’s feet.
“Nice office,” Michael said. “Wonder where she got that.” He gestured at the wall behind Deanna’s desk, where she’d hung a long fabric tube that appeared to have been woven from old burlap bags and had colored knitting needles sticking out all over it.
“I hear the Georgia psychiatric hospital has an arts program,” Chris said.
Michael was still trying to figure out if she was serious about that when Deanna returned.
She gave him a stapled set of papers and a big smile. “Did you notice I didn’t even ask why you wanted this?”
“Chris and I have a little bet about how many publications he has.”
Deanna turned to Chris. “Doctors at play. How interesting.”
“I guess we better go and take a look at this,” Michael said. “Thanks for the help.”
“If you ever need me, you know where I am.”
In the hall, Chris muttered, “If you ever need me, you know where I am.”
“What?”
“Nothing. Let’s go to your office and take a look at that CV.”
“BORN IN CLAYTON, Alabama,” Chris said.
“Sounds small and remote,” Michael replied.
“Undergraduate degree from the University of Alabama, PhD in molecular biology and virology from Cal Tech. One post-doc at the University of Chicago, another in Germany. Four years on the faculty at Florida State, another three at Iliad Pharmaceuticals, then he came here. No mention of any stint at the CDC.” She flipped the page and scanned the contents. “And a really impressive list of publications in the best journals, including three in Science and two in Nature. You just can’t get in those journals.”
“I knew he was good. If he wasn’t at the CDC, then I guess he wasn’t the one in Kazakhstan with Lansden.”
Chris shook her head. “I don’t know . . .”
“What’s
the big picture here? Let’s say Ash was with Lansden and that he has the samples of the Kazak virus . . .”
“Keep going.”
“Did he accidentally infect the people who died with it, and now he’s trying to cover up his involvement?”
“How could this accident have occurred?” Chris asked.
Michael shrugged. “I’ve gone as far as I can.”
“I can’t take it any further either, but it could be something like that. In any event, we should tell the police about that paint.”
“What if we’re wrong?” Michael said. “We don’t know it’s the same paint.”
“If it’s not, there’s no damage done.”
“It could embarrass one of our colleagues. And you have to admit, we’re just groping in the dark here. And think about this. If he’s responsible for infecting the dead with Kazak hanta, wouldn’t he have lied about the anti-hanta tests on your father? By telling you that Wayne has those antibodies in his blood, he provided support for Fairborn’s theory.”
Chris thought about that a moment, then said, “He didn’t have much choice. If we ever decided to get a second opinion with a fresh sample, we’d not only learn the truth then, but would know he lied.”
“On the other hand, if we got different results on a second test, he could just say he made a mistake due to deteriorated reagents, something like that.”
“As good a virologist as he is, he’d always run positive controls to prove the reagents were working. We have to tell the police about that paint.”
Michael raised his hands in resignation. “Make the call.”
Chapter 30
DETECTIVE LENIHAN FROM the Fayette County Sheriff’s Office was a big man with a square head and an equally rectilinear body, so that he reminded Chris of a refrigerator with a TV sitting on it. She and Michael were meeting him at a restaurant about a mile from Monteagle to make sure no one saw them together. Because it was too late for lunch and too early for dinner, they had the place practically to themselves.
Chris had thought that detectives were supposed to have poker faces, but Lenihan’s skepticism at her story had been plainly visible in his from the moment they’d met. So she wasn’t surprised when he said, “To be frank with you, Dr. Collins, this isn’t what I’d call a hot lead. This guy Ash . . . how could he even know that Fairborn had a tape of the interview with the man who had the stroke? Did you tell him?”
The Judas Virus Page 24
