by Jan Coffey
“Thank you,” she replied.
“Like I said, I think giving the police my name and number is the way to go. The investigating officers can always contact me if they need me.”
CHAPTER 19
Waterbury Long-Term Care Facility
Connecticut
“His name is Mark Shaw. And he agreed when I suggested giving his name to the local police.”
Sid and Desmond both looked at the doorway where Jennifer stood, telling them what she’d learned.
“Okay then,” Sid said with a shrug. “Why don’t we do that?”
“And wait another six years until someone gets motivated to help her?” she asked, walking into the room. “He wouldn’t be telling me to contact the police if he was up to no good.”
She moved behind Desmond, where she could see the screens. “Anything new?”
“Nothing,” Desmond answered.
“I’m just thinking that maybe I should have told him a little bit more,” Jennifer said, continuing her thought.
Sid stared at his monitor, pretending he didn’t hear her. He was not about to change his position. Still, he intended to tread lightly with Jennifer. He’d left a voice mail for Dr. Baer with the information, but he had heard nothing back. He figured it might not be before Monday before he talked to the physician. At the same time, Sid wasn’t going to stop Jennifer if she decided to be more aggressive with the information they were turning up.
Jennifer answered her own suggestion. “Great idea, Mrs. Sullivan. You should definitely tell him more. He might just hold the key to JD’s identity.”
Sid looked up, and he and Desmond exchanged a look. Nat Rosen had called from the hospital. He had been delayed in a meeting and was going to skip coming down here today. Sid decided that was a good thing. Between Nat and Jennifer talking all the time—and now answering their own questions—he and Desmond would be in straightjackets in no time.
“Would you mind if I called from here, so you two could make sure I’m getting it right?”
Sid gave a noncommittal shrug. “Whatever you want to do.”
“She’s asleep,” Desmond said, looking at his monitor.
Sid got up and walked to the bed. JD had indeed fallen sleep.
“I think we should pack it in for today,” Desmond told him.
His partner was right. Sid started gently removing the electrodes. They didn’t want to push her too much, especially not at the beginning of the experiment. At the same time, Sid didn’t want to leave. He understood how Jennifer felt. JD was sleeping peacefully. He could just stand there and watch her.
The electrodes had left red welts on the skin of her forehead. “She might be allergic to the adhesive on these tapes. Let’s use the hypo-allergenic tape the next time.”
Desmond made a note of it in the files he still had open.
“Hello. Mr. Shaw?” Jennifer started speaking on the phone next to JD’s bed. “This is Jennifer Sullivan again. From…yes…of course, you remember. Being that today is Saturday, and I have two of the physicians seeing to the patient’s care here with…and the fact that you sounded like a trustworthy individual…I thought…”
Sid looked up at Jennifer. She pulled a chair next to the bed and sat down. She was listening intently to something Mark Shaw was saying on the phone. She looked around as she pulled a pen from her pocket and gestured for paper. Desmond handed her a pad. She stared scribbling something down. In a couple of minutes, there was a noticeable transformation in her face. She gave them a thumbs-up sign.
“Okay…let me first explain some of what you told me to the physicians here.”
She covered the mouthpiece. “He’s an ex-cop, just back from Iraq. He gave me the name of Chief of Police in York, Pennsylvania, where we can check his references. He still believes we should go through the local law enforcement to get help with the case, but he’s willing to help us if there’s any way he can.”
“Does he know anyone who’s been missing for six years?” Desmond asked.
Jennifer removed her hand from the mouthpiece of the phone. “You asked me before how long this patient has been here,” she told him. “Well, she’s been in this facility for six years. This is the first time we were able to get any information from her.”
Jennifer’s gaze rested on JD’s face. “Yes, you heard me correctly, it’s been six years. We call her JD…for Jane Doe.” She paused, listening. “Yes, that’s why we were excited about trying to get any information we could from this number.” Pause. “It really just happened and we haven’t called the police yet. We don’t even know if there’s an active file on her at this point.”
Listening to the conversation, Sid picked up a tube of anti-inflammatory cream and put dabs on it on where JD’s face had reacted to the adhesive.
“Connecticut. Yes, it’s a pretty good drive from Pennsylvania,” Jennifer said into the phone. “Picture? Email you a picture of her?” she looked at them.
“Do you have a digital camera at the facility?” Desmond asked.
Sid found himself becoming less enthused by the minute. He told himself he was being cautious. They still didn’t know much about this guy.
“Yes, give me your email address. We’ll send it off to you in a few minutes. Sure thing.”
She wrote down some more information and ended the call before looking at them. “So what do you think?”
Sid shook his head. “I think it’s a mistake,” he told her.
“Why do you think it’s a mistake?” she asked him.
“This is the first piece of information she’s given us. By the end of weekend, she might give us so much detail that we won’t need the help of some stranger like him.”
“A stranger who’s been giving us all kinds of references,” she reminded him.
“Still, why can’t we wait until Monday?”
“I learned long ago to jump at the chances we are given in life. Waiting is just about all we do around here. Patients are brought to this wing and this is where they stay…waiting until the end,” she said quietly. “Look at her. She’s been waiting for six years. Why don’t you tell her we’re not going to do anything about what she’s given us until Monday? You tell her to wait.”
Sid looked at JD. She seemed to be having a nightmare. A slight frown on her forehead deepened and her body jumped. Her eyes immediately opened. She looked at him.
Aside from some nurse’s kindheartedness, she’d had no one to sit beside her, hold her hand, fight for the treatments she should get. Sid didn’t know where this sudden awareness in him of a patient’s needs was coming from. But it was there. He could feel it, and he understood what Jennifer was fighting for.
“Okay.”
“Okay what?” she asked.
“Okay, do what you need to do. Take her picture. Email it to this Mark Shaw.”
She stood on the other side of bed and stared at him for a long moment. Then she smiled.
“Don’t worry,” she said finally. “You can bring a barricade and a tent and set yourself up in the front lobby.”
“You mean, set my tent up next to yours,” Sid responded.
“Exactly.” She headed for the door. “I’ll be right back with the digital camera.”
CHAPTER 20
Nuclear Fusion Test Facility
At first glance, the facility handbook offered a lot less than Marion had hoped for. She was looking for a reference to the emergency exit, but could find nothing listed in the index. Great handbook. She double-checked the facility identification. Every page was labeled with NMURL, New Mexico Underground Research Lab. The publication seemed to be put together in a pretty haphazard manner. A lot of information was missing.
She thumbed through the index. There was no mention of an auxiliary power source that she could find, either.
The page containing a schematic of the laboratory layout at least offered something, she thought, looking closely at the page as she held the one penlight that she’d retrieved from the floor of
her quarters. Operating information regarding ventilation, power, water, and sanitation were also covered in depth. Other than that, however, there seemed to be more than she needed regarding the history and construction of the subterranean facility.
Studying the layout diagram for the entire facility, Marion couldn’t even see the generator she’d found in the room off the kitchen. She didn’t know it that was a good thing or a bad thing. Maybe there were pages missing. Maybe there was another power source.
She laid down the penlight on the open book and pressed her fingers to her eyes. Her head still had a dull ache, and her eyes were so tired.
“Toughen up,” she chided herself. “No time for that.”
Looking back down at the facility diagram, she decided her first stop had to be the maintenance closet. She needed a much more powerful source of light than what she was operating with. During the past few weeks down here, she’d poked her head into that room a number of times for cleaning supplies. She remembered seeing a box of oversized flashlights. She hoped the batteries were still good.
There were other things that she knew she had to see to immediately after that. Looking into the walk-in freezer in the kitchen for space was part of one grim task. The temperature in the facility seemed to have remained constant, but would only be a matter of time before the bodies of her coworkers began to decompose. Marion wondered if she was strong enough, mentally and physically, to drag them to the freezer.
Whether anyone was coming after her…ever…was something she didn’t want to think about.
The pounding in her head was coming back. She moved down the hall, trying to ignore the pain. Her throat was parched, and she couldn’t imagine trying to down any more pills without something to drink.
The maintenance closet was near the living quarters. Reaching it, Marion tried the door handle. It was locked.
“No…no,” she said aloud, pushing down the handle again.
The door wouldn’t open.
She shoved the handle down harder, but it didn’t budge. She kicked the door. She leaned a shoulder into it. The jarring sensation caused sudden lightheadedness.
Nothing. It wouldn’t give. The headache was suddenly back with a vengeance. She wanted to put her head on the floor and close her eyes.
She tried to remember if the room was locked the other times she’d come to get supplies. She didn’t think so. She remembered a conversation between Eileen and Eugene Lee about Andrew Bonn taking most of the extra toilet paper rolls back to his bunk only a couple of days ago.
Marion hadn’t paid much attention. They must have decided to lock up the supplies. She had no idea where she should look for the key. Perhaps Robert Eaton, the team leader, kept it.
She leaned against the door. Her heart was racing, and the light spilling from the penlight in her hand was shaking. Her body trembled. Her breath was choppy. She wondered if these were signs of a panic attack.
She put her back against the door and leaned over, putting her forehead between her knees. She tried to take deep breaths. She had to think of something else. Somewhere else. Anyplace but here. She remembered reading in a yoga book about the positive influence of maintaining one’s calm. She even recalled the line beneath an ancient Moghul miniature depicting a man looking into a stream from a bridge. Only when the water is still can you see through it.
Marion wished she’d read more. She chided herself for not taking a real yoga class. Serenity was a distant concept for her. She was a busy woman. She overbooked her schedule. She was proud of her ability to multi-task. Coming down here and working as an assistant to eight scientists was part of it. Dr. Lee knew she was one of the very few research assistants at UC Davis capable of doing the job.
Marion tried to empty her mind of this place, of the other people she’d been working with. She focused on her breathing. But it wasn’t enough. She tried to remember a saying she’d stumbled on while searching online for something completely different. It was one of the Dalai Lama’s meditation techniques. Something about breathing out the bad, breathing in the good, and holding it while the healing properties spread throughout the body. Breathing out, breathing in, holding. Breathing out, breathing in…and then suddenly, she was thinking of Mark Shaw.
They were so different, the two of them. She knew it from the moment he sat down on the floor next to her at the airport. She hadn’t been very nice to him, arguing her points on oil, on military recruitment, even her disenchantment with the system of justice in America today. She’d probably come across more strongly than she really felt about all of those things, but by then he’d told her that he was a cop, and Marion was probably a little tired of sitting around in that airport.
He explained to her about the world he’d seen in Iraq. The people, the tribal feuds, the sectarian violence. He told her about people who had forgotten what living peacefully was about. He knew his history. He told her about the region and not once did he try to paint a rosy picture of any of it. There were good people, and there were those who intended to profit from the misfortunes of others. It was obvious on every level and on every side of the conflict. The complexity of human nature was what set people apart…not ethnicity or nationality.
Marion’s steam over politics fizzled out soon enough. She found herself enjoying her time with Mark Shaw, and it didn’t matter if they were talking about politics or if he was making fun of her for her lack of interest in classes that provided practical skills. He’d really laughed at the fact that she lived in California but had never learned to swim. What was the purpose of living there, he’d asked, when you couldn’t go surfing? They’d also spent a good amount of time arguing over which fast food restaurants had the shortest lines.
She’d never known herself to have so many opinions. She didn’t know she could talk so much, or become so animated.
She’d never been attracted so much to anyone so quickly.
The pull she’d felt toward him had brought with it a wave of openness she rarely felt. She’d told him about her childhood growing up in Deer Lodge, Montana. He’d told her stories of being raised near the Amish Country. Marion shared memories of her family, something that she never did.
They’d both been actually sorry when the weather cleared enough for the airport to open again. They’d each left with the promise of calling the other at some point down the road.
Why hadn’t it happened? she wondered.
Marion lifted her head and looked at the faint ray of light left by the penlight. She realized that she was sitting. Her breathing was back to normal. The headache had eased somewhat. A bud of hope was forming in her. She pushed herself to her feet and pointed the light along the wall. A glass cabinet with an axe and a fire hose was a few feet down the corridor.
She walked to it. The cabinet was locked. Without hesitating, Marion slammed the corner of the notebook into it. Shards of glass showered onto the floor. She reached inside for the ax, took it out, and walked back to the maintenance closet.
“Mark, you’d be proud of me,” she said aloud into the silence before bringing the axe down like a hammer on the brushed nickel door knob.
CHAPTER 21
York, Pennsylvania
Mark generally went home to his apartment above the garage only to sleep. Today, he made an exception. He was anxious. He needed to be by a computer and check his email.
He pulled into the driveway and got out of his pickup. The air was fresh and crisp outside. A perfect fall day.
“Everything okay, Mark?” Ryan asked.
The husband and wife who were renting the main house were outside, raking the yard. From what Mark could see, Dora was pretty far along in her pregnancy, but nothing seemed to slow her down. He knew this was their first child and they were both very excited about it. Mark told his parents, anytime he talked to them on the phone, that the renters took as good a care of the house and yard as they had when they were still living here. In fact, Ryan had mentioned a couple of times that if and when Mark’s pare
nts decided to sell the house, they’d be interested. The problem was that for right now they couldn’t afford it.
The two were eyeing him curiously. They knew he rarely came home during the day. He waved them off.
“Everything’s fine,” he told them. “I’m expecting some email, so I figured I’d come home and check on it.” Cable TV and Internet service were two amenities that he’d run out to his garage apartment as soon as he’d gotten home from Iraq.
“We’re having some friends over tonight. Why don’t you come over?” Dora asked.
Mark figured these two had joined the ‘let’s feed Mark’ team.
“We want to get all of our socializing with adults in before the baby comes,” Ryan added.
“You’ll probably know some of the people,” Dora said.
“Thanks, but…” He couldn’t think of an excuse. He appreciated the offer, but somehow the wires in his head were all twisted up. He couldn’t remember what he had planned for the day, or for tonight. There was only one thing that he could think of. That email.
Mark pointed to the garage and the stairs on the side. “I have some work to do now…but I might poke my head in later. Please don’t wait for me, though.”
He made some comment about Dora taking it easy and headed up the stairs, taking them two at the time.
Maybe his life was too boring. Maybe it was the lack of having a day-to-day routine. Mark couldn’t remember being this wound up about anything since he’d arrived back in York.
Going into the apartment, he left the door open and walked straight to the computer.
Waiting for it to boot up, he went to the fridge. Four beers and a quart of orange juice he couldn’t remember buying were the only things on the shelves. He shut the fridge door and looked back to the living space. He wasn’t regressing, he told himself. His bed was made, and there were no piles of dirty laundry lying around. The apartment looked neat. He just always ate out. No harm in that.
