The Judas Virus

by Don Donaldson

  Then she saw the house number. “That’s the Sepanski home.”

  They pulled into the empty driveway, stopped short of a big oil stain on the pavement, and got out. Beyond a chain-link gate, the driveway continued into the backyard, to a small garage also in poor repair. There was no car back there either.

  “Doesn’t look like anyone’s home,” Michael said. “Hope they still live here.”

  Chris stepped up on the dust-covered porch and pressed the doorbell, which she could hear ring inside.

  No one responded.

  She tried again.

  “It’s only four o’clock,” Michael said, looking at his watch. “They’re probably still at work.”

  “Maybe I should have called ahead,” Chris said. “But I thought she’d be more likely to talk to us if we just showed up in person.”

  “There’s no reason yet to doubt that. Let’s go take a look at Iliad, get something to eat, and come back. That’ll give them time to have dinner, too. Be better not to interrupt them in the middle of a meal.”

  Chris agreed, and they returned to the car.

  Using the Newark map they’d bought at a gas station and the map Chris had printed from the Internet showing the location of the Iliad plant, they arrived there less than twenty minutes after leaving the Sepanski home. The plant was in a light industrial area not far from Newark Bay, where concertina wire and loading docks meant more than aesthetics. Remaining in the car, they studied the place.

  Housed in a neat three-story brick building with a row of Bradford pears growing from iron-grated holes in the sidewalk, the Iliad building was an oasis. Though the structure was no architectural gem, the front entrance was flanked by a pair of obelisks carved into the stone trim work. Each obelisk was capped by a Horus eye, and there were three rows of hieroglyphs cut into the lintel stone.

  “I don’t get it,” Michael said. “What’s Iliad got to do with Egypt?”

  “Look up there,” Chris said, pointing through the windshield at some more carved work up near the roof, well above the big white letters that spelled Iliad.

  “Nile Fishing Nets,” he read. “It’s a retrofit. I guess it was cheaper to set up here than in some exclusive industrial park.”

  A small white truck that resembled the kind used by wholesale meat distributors to make restaurant deliveries passed by, temporarily blocking their view of the plant. On the side, green lettering identified it as an Iliad truck. It turned and went through the gate in the chain-link fence on the far side of the plant.

  “The place looks pretty normal,” Michael said.

  “Yeah, where’s their sign that says, ‘Rogue Business. Faked FDA Reports Our Specialty’?”

  Michael grinned. “It must be inside.”

  Suddenly, Chris’s door was yanked open, and a man looked in.

  “Can you folks spare a couple of dollars? I need somethin’ to eat.”

  Red-eyed, sallow-skinned, and festooned with a stringy gray beard, he looked as though he’d been on the street a long time. Somewhere in his travels he’d found an aviator hat, which he was wearing with the flaps down. An acrid odor of urine, tobacco, and wine filled the car, making Chris’s eyes water.

  “I know I shouldn’t have opened your door like that, but my experience has been that if I’d merely tapped on the window, you’d have ignored me. It’s got somethin’ to do with havin’ glass between us.”

  “I’ll make you a deal,” Chris said. She pointed at his grocery cart, which was loaded with clothes and cardboard. “I’ll give you the money if you’ll stand over there while I get it.”

  “Where would we be without the art of negotiation?” He pulled his head back and retreated to the cart.

  Chris dug in her bag, but could only find one single in her wallet. Instead of just giving him that, she pulled out a five, left the car, and handed it to him.

  Seeing that it was more than he’d asked for, the old man grinned, and it was not a pretty sight. “You’re a good person,” he said. “Anybody asks me, I’ll tell ’em so.”

  “Then we’re even.”

  “You be sure and keep your car door locked. Never can tell when somebody on the outside will try to open it.”

  Chris got back in the car and locked the door.

  “Sorry about that,” Michael said. “I noticed earlier that the doors unlock when you put it in park. I’ll have to be more careful. Why’d you give him money? He’ll probably just drink it up.”

  “When someone says they need money for food, it’s hard to say no. It’s up to him how he chooses to spend it.”

  “Speaking of food, I could use some myself.” He pointed at the Iliad building. “Did you want to go inside?”

  “I’d like to spend a few hours going through their files, but I suppose they have a policy against that sort of thing. So I don’t see any point in going in. I was just curious to see what it looked like and where it was.”

  Having no idea where they should eat, Michael headed for an area of strip malls and other high-density commercial activity they’d passed on the way to the Sepanski home. But before he reached it, he saw a little neighborhood restaurant called the Newark House, which had a Cape Cod look about it—gray cedar shingles, a white picket fence along the sidewalk, yellow and purple tulips in the flower beds.

  He looked at Chris. “How about here?”

  “Looks good.”

  And it was. Michael had the best salmon he’d ever tasted. The small steak Chris ordered was cooked to perfection and came with garlicky new potatoes that were so good she thought about the old vagrant they’d met at Iliad.

  “I feel guilty eating like this when that old man has nothing. I should have given him more.”

  “I was thinking about him, too. I should have kicked in something instead of just sitting there.”

  “He could be someone’s father.”

  It wasn’t hard for Michael to see the connection between that comment and Chris’s family situation. Unsure of what to say, he sorted through the available responses. “He’d certainly be better off with his family, if he has any.”

  “Then why isn’t he there?” Chris said, her eyes sparking.

  Despite knowing it was somewhere in the area, Michael had stepped into the trap. Trying to climb out, he said, “Maybe he’s mentally ill.”

  “He didn’t sound that way to me. His comment about the glass between us making it easier to ignore him was pretty perceptive.”

  “Chris, the man is a total stranger. We can spin all the stories we want about how he became what he is, but only he knows what happened.”

  The sparks in Chris’s eyes died. “Of course you’re right. And he’s not Wayne, either, is he? Let’s not talk about that anymore.”

  Trying to kill as much time as possible, they lingered over coffee and dessert, which meant they didn’t leave the restaurant until a little after six.

  “Maybe we should wait a bit longer before we go back to the Sepanskis’,” Chris suggested. “I’d like to swing by our motel first anyway.”

  Because they’d made no arrangements ahead of time with Frieda Sepanski, there was no way to know when they’d get to talk to her. So they’d only bought one-way plane tickets to Newark, figuring they’d just scramble for a flight home when they were ready. Aware that they’d have to spend at least tonight in Newark, they’d taken rooms at a Hampton Inn.

  By the time they reached the motel and spent a few minutes in their respective bathrooms, it was late enough for another visit to Bingham Street. They arrived there shortly after dark and were encouraged to see a car in the driveway and lights on in the house.

  Once again Michael let Chris take the lead. She rang the doorbell as before, and they waited expectantly for a response. After a brief interval, the inner door was opened by a heavyset
woman with long black hair and wearing a gray print dress cut loosely to hide her shape. She made no effort to also open the storm door.

  Believing this was the woman they sought, Chris said, “Mrs. Sepanski, I’m Chris Collins, and this is Dr. Boyer. I spoke to you a few days earlier about Eric Ash.”

  The slightly puzzled expression on the woman’s face changed to irritation.

  “I told you I didn’t want to talk about him.”

  “Please, it’s very important, and we’ve come all the way from Atlanta to see you.”

  “Well, you shouldn’t have. I didn’t tell you to do that.”

  “We think he may have been involved in the deaths of several people and that he’s a dangerous man who needs to be stopped. Please talk to us. Help us stop him.”

  “I don’t know all that much.”

  “Whatever you can tell us, so we can understand him better, will help.”

  Frieda had been responding quickly. Now she hesitated. Chris hoped it was a sign the woman’s resistance was weakening.

  “Please,” Chris prompted.

  “Show me some identification,”

  Chris got her wallet from her bag and produced her driver’s license and Good Samaritan employee ID, which she held against the storm door.

  Michael did the same with his IDs.

  Frieda reached out, unlocked the storm door, and pushed it open.

  It was a house without a foyer, and when they entered, it was directly into a sitting room containing cheap furniture arranged with no understanding of decorating principles or no money to carry them out. But it was clean. Whatever they’d had for dinner smelled good.

  “Please have a seat.”

  Chris went to the gold sofa, and Michael took the green upholstered chair beside it.

  Without the storm door between them and in better light now, Chris saw that Frieda’s pale complexion was not as flawless as it first appeared, but had the texture of finely ground corn meal. Fidgeting like a squirrel, she offered them some coffee. Both declined. With her hostess obligations out of the way, Frieda sat in the upholstered chair on the other side of the coffee table. “What did you want to know?”

  Before Chris could answer, a man with a cane shuffled into view and stood in the doorway that led to the back of the house.

  “I dropped my medicine in the bathroom,” he said to Frieda.

  Frieda got up and went to him. “This is my husband, Ruben.”

  Ruben’s eyes were heavy-lidded, and his complexion was the color of nonfat milk. Frieda didn’t introduce Chris and Michael, but Ruben seemed too sick to care.

  “I’ll get his medicine and be right back.”

  She quickly reappeared and returned to her chair.

  “Did Ash have anything to do with the fraudulent hep C vaccine data?” Chris asked.

  “It was his project”

  “Does that mean yes?”

  “You can’t ever tell anyone we spoke. Promise me that.”

  “I promise.”

  She looked at Michael.

  “You have my word.”

  “If anyone asks me, I’ll deny we ever met. I’m not going to be dragged into anything beyond this conversation.”

  She sat there fidgeting, her eyes darting back and forth between her two visitors. “Of course Ash knew the data were faked. He and Paul Danner, Iliad’s CEO, were close friends, so I should have realized that telling Danner wouldn’t lead to anything. And it didn’t. He told me to keep quiet about it, threatened to fire me. But I couldn’t look the other way. So I contacted the FDA and was let go.”

  “Isn’t there a whistle-blower law to shield people in those situations?”

  “It’s not that kind of law. It just allows whistle-blowers to sue the defendant company on behalf of the government and share in the proceeds of the suit when the fraud costs the government money. This one didn’t cost the government anything. So I wasn’t protected in any way.

  “About a week after I was fired, things began to happen. The windshield on our car was smashed one night, then a few days later, we came home and found white paint thrown all over the back of the house. Two days after that, when I got off work from my new job and went to get my car, I found that someone . . .” Her face twisted in disgust. “Even thinking about it again nauseates me. Someone had smeared feces all over the dashboard and the seats. And the car was only three years old. You can’t clean that stuff off of fabric. We had to have the seats replaced.

  “The parking lot attendant remembered seeing someone hanging around the car a few hours earlier. From his description, it had to be Ash. We told the police who was responsible, but they couldn’t do anything because we had no real proof it was him.

  “For the next week everything was okay. Then one night a siren woke us up. It died right in front of the house, and we heard shouts and the gate opening. Ruben looked out to see what was going on, and the garage was on fire. They said it was obviously arson, but once again, there was no proof who did it.

  “Do you know what that’s like . . . never knowing what’s going to happen next . . . to be afraid to go to sleep at night or leave your home, wondering if it’ll be there when you come back? It was destroying my mind and my marriage. So Ruben decided to take care of things himself. That was before he got sick. He was big and strong then.

  “He took a baseball bat over to Ash’s home and confronted him, told him that if one more thing happened, he was going to break Ash’s legs. And that stopped it. A few months later, Ash left town. That’s why you can’t tell anyone we spoke about this. I can’t have that happen again. Ruben is too sick now to protect us. We’re not even able to keep the house up like we should.”

  “I’m sorry for what happened to you, and that Ruben is not well,” Chris said. “Please don’t think badly of me for asking more questions, but why do you think Ash left Iliad?”

  “After the hepatitis C problem, I heard the company lost a lot of business. People just didn’t trust their products. There were a lot of layoffs. I guess they just couldn’t afford to keep Ash on, or he left for a better-paying job.”

  “Sounds like that would have been a good time for a company name change. I wonder why they didn’t do it?”

  Frieda shrugged. “I wouldn’t know.”

  “Have you heard any gossip about how the company’s been doing lately?”

  “It’s been a long time since anyone I know has worked there. But if it’s gossip you want, you should talk to the Red Baron.”

  “Who’s he?”

  “A vagrant who’s been in the area for years. People call him that because he always wears an aviator hat, you know, the kind with flaps.”

  “That must be the man we met today,” Chris said.

  “Where?”

  “In front of the Iliad plant.”

  “He lives in the alley around the corner. There’s an old broken cement culvert there he uses for a home. I always felt sorry for him, so when I could, I’d give him a little money. And sometimes he’d say things about the company only an insider would know. I once asked him how he did that, and he said you’d be surprised what you can learn if you take the time to notice what’s going on around you. I’m sure that included going through the company’s trash bin. Some people think he’s crazy, but he isn’t.”

  With nothing more to ask, Chris stood up, and Michael did the same. “We’ve taken too much of your time.” Chris moved to Frieda and offered her hand, which Frieda took in her own. “Thanks so much for talking to us and being so candid.”

  “I don’t see how I’ve helped you any,” Frieda said as they all moved toward the door.

  “You’ve given us a better understanding of the relationship between Paul Danner and Ash.”

  “Is that significant?”

  “It
could be. And we now know how vindictive Ash can be.”

  “That’s why you’re not ever going to say we spoke. You promised . . .”

  “You can count on us.”

  “I hope he gets what he deserves.”

  A few seconds later, as Chris and Michael were leaving the porch, Frieda reopened the storm door and leaned out. “Be careful.”

  In the car, Chris spoke first. “What do you think now about the guy who attacked me?”

  “Hiring an assassin is a major step up compared to what Ash did to her, but I think he’s capable of it. Now what?”

  “Let’s find the Red Baron.”

  “I was afraid you’d say that.”

  Chapter 35

  THE STREETLIGHTS IN the Newark warehouse district stood as silent sentinels, illuminating a shunned world.

  “She said he lived in a culvert in an alley near here,” Chris said, as Michael edged the car past the deserted Iliad plant. “But I haven’t seen any alleys along this street. Take a right at the corner.”

  Michael did as she asked, and they found pothole heaven, lined with low buildings of corrugated metal alternating with two- and three-story brick structures that looked as old as the Roman coliseum and in only slightly better repair.

  “It looks like there’s an opening between buildings down there on the right,” Chris said, pointing. “It could be an alley.”

  Driving slowly so he could maneuver the car around the craters that pocked the street, Michael proceeded toward the dark void Chris had indicated.

  And she was right. It was an alley. He pulled the car into its mouth, and they both leaned forward to see what the headlights would show them.

  “There,” Chris said, pointing at a cement oval Michael had already seen for himself at the end of the short alley. The culvert was turned so they couldn’t look into it, and its left end was snugged against the building beside it.

  Michael moved the car deeper into the alley, and a head popped out of the culvert. He wasn’t wearing his hat, but it was obviously the Red Baron. Letting the car run and leaving the lights on, Chris and Michael got out and walked to the culvert.