Side Effects

by Michael Palmer

  Over and over again, in a voice as soothing as a warm tub, the cold spoke to her of hopelessness and sleep. Kate flexed her hands and her feet, struggling against the downy comfort of the lies and the inertia.

  Remain still and you will die. Surrender to the cold and you will never see Jared again, never get the chance to tell him how much his letter and his decision mean to you. She tried pushing herself along with her feet, but could not bend her knees enough to get leverage. She had to see him. She had to tell him that she, too, was ready to make choices.

  Aroused by the aching in her legs and the far deeper pain in her side, she twisted and wriggled onto her belly. She had been wrong to allow Willoughby to nominate her without trying harder to see things from Jared's perspective. She had been wrong. Now she could only admit that and hope Jared believed it had been he, and not the devastating events, who had helped her see the true order of her priorities. She was less than halfway from the far end of the pipe. The fog seemed to have lifted. She could now make out the silhouettes of trees against the white sky. A few more feet and there was enough light to read the numbers on her watch. Eleven fifteen. She had been entombed for over an hour. Was Zimmermann still out there? Could he possibly have stayed around in the snow and the cold for over an hour?

  Driven by the need to see Jared again, to set matters straight, she worked herself arm over arm along the icy metal. A foot from the edge she stopped and listened. Beyond the soft wisp of her own breathing, there was nothing. Had an hour been long enough? Wouldn't Zimmermann have left, concerned about having his car attract attention?

  Finally, she abandoned her attempts at reasoning through the situation.

  If he was out there, waiting, there was little she would be able to do.

  If he wasn't, she would overcome whatever pain and cold she had to and make it home. There were amends to be made. With a muted cry of pain, she curled her fingers around the edge of the culvert and pulled. + "We're sorry, but we are unavailable to take your call right now. Please wait for the tone, leave your name, number, and the time, and Kate or Jared will get back to you as soon as possible."

  "Kate, it's just me again. Ignore the previous two messages. I'm not going to stay at the office, and I'm not going to speak with Reese. I'm coming home. Please don't go anywhere. Thanks. I love you."

  Something was wrong. In almost five years of marriage, Jared had never felt so intense a connection to his wife. With that heightened sensitivity and three unanswered calls home had come a foreboding that weighed on his chest like an anvil. The feeling was irrational he told himself over and over again, groundless and foolish. She was at a neighborss or on a run. With his MG still in the office garage, where it had been all week, he had taken her Volvo, but still, there were plenty of places to which she could have walked. He left the city and crossed the Mystic River Bridge, the rational part of him struggling to keep the Volvo under seventy. She was fine. There was some perfectly logical explanation why she hadn't answered his calls the past hour and a half.

  He just hadn't hit on it. Certainly, his concentration and powers of reason were not all they could be. It had been one hell of a morning.

  The call to California, the sound of Lisa's voice, had left him at s once elated and sickened. His father had lied. He had lied about Lisa and possibly about Stonefield as well. Jared cringed at the thought of how close he had come to siding with the man. Silently, he gave thanks that he had made his decision, set down on paper his commitment to Kate, before he had learned the truth about his father. The man had been paying Lisa off all those years. That conclusion was as inescapable as it was disgusting. They were some pair, his ex-wife and Winfield. One totally vapid, one totally evil. Some goddamn pair. Then there was Stacy. As he weaved along past Route I's abysmal stretch of fast-food huts, factory outlets, budget motels, garish restaurants, and raunchy nightclubs, Jared ached with thoughts of her. What did she believe had become of her father? Would there ever be a way he could reenter her life without destroying whatever respect she had for her mother, possibly thereby destroying the girl herself?

  Kate would have a sense of what was right to do. Together they could decide. Damn, but he had come close, so close, to blowing it all. The house was deserted. Kate's running gear was gone, and so was Roscoe. It had been several hours since his first call-far too long. He checked the area around the house and yard. Nothing. There were but two choices, wait some more or call the police. The heavy sense of apprehension, so ill-defined while he was in Boston, seemed more acute. There was no sense in waiting. As he walked to the phone in the kitchen, he glanced out the front window. Three neighborhood children, all around eight, were trudging up the driveway pulling a sled. On the sled was a cardboard carton. The path to the front door, only as wide as a shovel, was too narrow for the sled. Two youngsters stayed behind, kneeling by the box, while the third ran up the walk. Jared met her at the door.

  "Mr. Samuels, it's Roscoe, " she panted. "We found him in the snow."

  Jared, a dreadful emptiness in his gut, raced past the girl to the sled.

  Roscoe, packed in blankets, looked up and made a weak attempt to rise.

  His tail wagged free of the cover and slapped excitedly against the cardboard. "His leg is broke, " one of the other children, a boy, said simply. Jared held the dog down and pulled back the blanket. Roscoe's right leg was fractured, the bone protruding from a gash just above the knee. "Come kids, " he said, scooping up the box. "Come inside, please, and we'll take care of Rose. Do you think you can take me to where you found him?"

  "Yes, I know, " the little girl said. "We have teacher's conference today, so no school. We were sledding down the hill to the bridge, and there he was, just lying in the snow. My mom gave us the blankets and "It looks like he's been hit by a car, " Jared said. "Kids, this is important did any of you see Kate-you know, my wife? " The children shook their heads. He reached down and stroked the dog's forehead Blood trickled from the corner of his mouth where his teeth had torn through "Well, let's get some help for Roscoe, then we'll go back to the spot where you found him." He felt consumed by feelings of panic and dread, and struggled to keep a note of calm in his voice. Frightened confused children would be no asset to him-or to Kate. Minutes later three of them, Jared and two of the youngsters, were in the car. The third had been left behind to keep the dog still and await the arrival of the veterinarian. "Okay, kids, " Jared said, "you said you were sledding near a bridge. The stone bridge over the little stream? " Both nodded enthusiastically "Good. I know just where that is."

  The short drive over the narrow, snowy road seemed endless. Finally, Jared parked the Volvo at the top of the hill and then half ran, half slid to the indentation in the snow where the children assured him they had found Roscoe. He had thought to take his parka but had not changed his slacks or loafers, and the trek from the spot into the surrounding woods was both awkward and cold. The snow around him was, save for his own footprints, smooth and unbroken. After a scanning search, he made his way back to the road and started down the hill. At his request, the children followed, one on each side of the road, checking to be sure he had not missed anything. At the stone bridge, he stopped. There was evidence of some sort of collision at the base of the wall. A piece of granite had been sheared off, and a gouge, perhaps two feet long, extended along the wall from that point. He searched the roadway and then looked over the wall.

  The snow on one side of the shallow brook seemed disrupted. In the very center of the area, he saw a flash of bright yellow, partially buried in the snow. Ordering the children to remain where they were, he raced down the steep embankment to the water. It was Kate's cap, quite deliberately, it seemed, wedged into the snow. Then, only a few feet from the cap, he saw a swatch of another color. It was blood, almost certainly dried blood smeared across a small stretch of packed snow.

  There had been some kind of struggle. The marks around him made that clear Had Kate been dragged off somewhere? He looked for signs of that, but instead
noticed footprints paralleling the stream just beyond the bridge. Slipping in and out of the water, he ran to the spot. There were, he was certain, two sets. He looked overhead. The children, following his progress, had crossed the road and were peering down at him from atop the wall. The girl, he knew, lived just past the end of the road, half a mile, perhaps a bit more, away. "Crystal, " he called out, "is your mommy still home?"

  "Can you two make it back home to her?"

  "Yes."

  "Please do that, then. Tell her Kate is lost and may be hurt. Ask if she can drive out here and help look for her. Okay?"

  "Okay."

  "And Crystal, you all did a fine job bringing Roscoe in the way you did.

  Hurry on home, now."

  Jared stayed where he was until the crunch of the children's boots had completely vanished. Then he closed his eyes and listened within the silence for a sound, any kind of sign. He heard nothing. Increasingly aware of the cold in his feet and legs, he stepped in the deep tracks, fearing the worst, and expecting, with each stride, to have his fears become reality. A hundred yards from the bridge, the tracks turned sharply to the left and vanished into the stream. "Kate? " He called her name once and then again. His voice was instantly swallowed by the forest and the snow. "Kate, it's me. It's Jared." There was a heaviness, a fastness, to the place and a silence that was hypnotic. As he trudged along the side of the stream looking for renewed signs, he felt the silence deepen. Then suddenly, he knew. He felt it as surely as he felt the cold.

  Kate was somewhere nearby. She was nearby, and she was still. He called to her every few feet, as he ducked under a huge fallen tree and followed the stream bed in a sharp bend to the left. Then he stopped.

  There was something different about this place. Far to his right, embedded in the steep slope that he guessed led up to the road, was a drainage pipe. At the base of the pipe were footprints. "Kate? " He closed his eyes and almost immediately felt a strange sense of detachment. She was not far, and she was alive. He felt it clearly. It was as if their lives, their energies, were joined by a thin, silken strand of awareness. "Jared? " It was a word, but not a word, a sound, but not a sound. His eyes still closed, he exhaled slowly and then listened. "Jared, help me." Her voice, it seemed, was more within him than without. He worked his way along the embankment, calling her name.

  Then he shouted it several times into the long, empty culvert. Finally, hoping for a better vantage point, he hauled himself up to the road. She was there, face down, a third of the way down the slope on the far side, still clawing, though feebly, at the snow. Jared leapt over the edge, sliding and tumbling down to her. Gently, he turned her onto his lap.

  Her hair was matted and frozen, her face spattered with blood. Her warm-up suit, shredded in spots, was stiffened with ice. Her eyes were closed. "Katey, it's me, " he said. "I've got you. You're going to be all right."

  He worked her hair free from where it had frozen to her face. Her breathing was shallow, each expiration accompanied by a soft whimper of pain. "Honey, can you hear me?"

  Her eyes opened and then slowly focused on his face. "Oh, Jared… please… Roscoe…"

  He kissed her. "He's hurt, but he's okay. Dr. Finnerty's coming to get him. What about you? Have you broken anything?"

  Ribs, she managed in a voice that was half groan, half cough. "Lung… may… be… punctured."

  "Jesus. Kate, I'm going to lift you up. I'll try not to hurt you, but we've got to get up to the road."

  With strength enhanced by the urgency of the moment, he had no trouble lifting her. Negotiating the steep, icy slope, however, was another matter. Footing was treacherous, and every two or three baby steps upward, he was forced to set her down in order to regain purchase.

  Inches at a time, they moved ahead. When he finally heaved over the top of the slope onto the roadside, Jared fell to his knees, clutching her to his chest and gasping for air. Helplessly, he sat there, warming her face with his breath and watching the minute but steady rise and fall of her chest. Then through the silence surrounding their breathing, he heard the soft hum of an approaching car. Moments later, a beige station wagon rounded the bend ahead of them. In the front seat were a woman and two very excited children. "Way to go, Crystal, " Jared whispered. He put his lips by Kate's ear. Help is here, honey. Just hang in there.

  Help is here."

  Her eyes opened momentarily. Her lips tightened in a grim attempt at a smile. Zimmermann did this, " she said. Jared paced from the small, well-appointed quiet room out to the hall and back. Mary T. Henderson Hospital was reputed to be among the best community hospitals in the state, but it was still a community hospital, only a fraction of the size of the Boston teaching facilities. Nearly three hours had passed since the surgeon, Lee Jordan, had taken Kate into the operating room.

  Jordan was, according to the emergency room physician, the finest surgeon on the hospital staff. Jared had to laugh at his total surprise when the distinguished, graytempled man his mind had projected as Lee Jordan turned out, in fact, to be a slender, extremely attractive woman in her mid-forties. Would he ever truly overcome all the years of programming?

  Kate's wound was a bad one. The gash, Jordan had explained, required debridement in the operating room, and in all likelihood, an open-chest procedure would be needed to repair the laceration to her Jared had been allowed to see Kate briefly during the wait for the OR team to arrive, but there had been no real chance to discuss any details of William Zimmermann's attempt on her life. An officer from the Essex Police Department had come, taken what little information 7! was available from him, and left with promises of state police involvement as soon as Kate could assist them with a statement. Meanwhile, it was doubtful that Jared's word would be enough to issue an arrest warrant. Jared was studying the small plaque proclaiming that the quiet room was the gift of a couple named Berman when Lee Jordan emerged through the glass doors to the surgical suite. Her face, which had been fresh and alert on her arrival in the emergency ward four hours before, was gray and drawn, and for a moment, he feared the worst. "Your wife's okay, " Jordan said as soon as she was close enough to speak without raising her voice. She appraised him. "Are you?"

  "I… yes, I'm okay." He braced himself against the wall. "It's just that for a moment there I was frightened that…"

  Jordan patted him on the shoulder. "You married one tough lady, my friend, " she said. "There's frostbite on the tips of her toes, ears, and nose, but it looks like she came in from the cold in time to save everything. The tear in her lung wasn't too, too big. I sewed it up and then fixed that gash in her side. She's in for a few pretty achy days, but I hope nothing worse than that. You'll be able to see her in half an hour or so. I've asked the nurses to come and get you."

  "Thank you. Thank you very much."

  "I'm glad she's all right, " Dr. Lee Jordan said. It was after five by the time Jared arrived home. Medicated and obviously affected by her anesthesia, Kate had managed only to squeeze his hand and acknowledge that she knew he was in her hospital room. Even so, Dr. Jordan had warned him that she would, in all likelihood, remember nothing of the first five or six hours postop. Roscoe was another story. As soon as Jared arrived at the veterinarian's, the dog was up and hopping about his cage, mindless of his plaster cast and showing no residual effects from the anesthesia that had allowed a metal plate to be screwed in place across the fracture in his leg. After seeing Kate with half a dozen tubes running into and out of her body, the sight of the battered and broken animal was the last straw. Zimmermann would pay. Whatever it took, Jared vowed, the man would pay dearly. Exhausted from the day and, in fact, from almost thirty-six hours without sleep, Jared brought a bottle of Lowenbrau Dark to the bedroom, finished half of it in two long draughts, and then stripped to his underwear and stretched out on the bed. There was little sense, the nurses had told him, in returning to the hospital before morning. So be it. He would rest and read and say a dozen prayers of thanks for Kate's life and for Roscoe's, and for Joce
lyn Trent, and for being allowed to learn the sad truth about his father before it was too late. He had bunched up two pillows and was looking through the magazines on the bedside table when he noticed their telephone answering machine It had been on since Kate left for her run, and there were a number of messages. The first three were from Jared himself, another was from Ellen, and still another was from one of the firm's VIP clients, who had apparently been assured that Winfield's son wouldn't mind in the least being called at home. The final message was for Kate from a man named Arlen Paquette. "Kate Bennett, this is Arlen Paquette from Redding, " the man said in a rushed, anxious tone. "I won't be alone for more than a few seconds. I have answers for you. Many answers. Come to the subbasement of the Omnicenter at precisely eight-thirty tonight. Bring help. There may be trouble. Please, trust me. I know what we've done to you, but please trust me. He's coming.

  I've got to go. Good-bye."

  Jared raced for pen and paper, then he played the message over and wrote it down verbatim. Answers. At last someone was promising answers. He scrambled into a pair of jeans, a work shirt, and a sweater. It was already after seven. There would barely be time to get to Metro by eight-thirty, let alone to try and pick up police help on the way. He would have to hurry to the subbasement of the Omnicenter and rely on himself. The Omnicenter. He threw on his parka and rushed to Kate's Volvo. That was Zimmermann's place. The man would be there. He felt certain of it. "I'm coming for you, you fucker, " he panted as he skidded out of the drive and down Salt Marsh Road.

  Friday 21 December

  Like so many works of greatness, the formulas derived by William Zimmermann's father were elegant in their simplicity. Even without Zimmermann's help in translating the explanatory notes from the German, Arlen Paquette suspected he should have been able to follow the steps involved in the synthesis of the hormone Estronate 25 especially in the subbasement Omnicenter 7 laboratory, which was specifically equipped for the job. The message to call Cyrus Redding had been waiting at the front desk when Paquette returned to the Ritz from surreptitiously recording a conversation with Norton Reese during which the gloating administrator had incriminated himself and a technician named Pierce a number of times. The compact recorder still hooked to his belt, Paquette had entered the elevator to his floor. "I was beginning to think you had run away, " a man's voice said from behind. Startled, the chemist whirled.