Chrisman gave no response.
“Eve . . . you there?”
“I was just thinking about what you said. I don’t recall ever hearing about a flu epidemic like that in the state. When did you say it happened?”
“Don’t know exactly. The person whose blood I tested is in her early twenties. She was seventeen when it occurred, so it was around five or six years ago. It’s a very closed religious community. So maybe the news just didn’t travel very far.”
“Maybe. Are you going to be at that number for a while?”
“Not much longer.”
“Let me run this by someone I know. I’ll call you back in a few minutes.”
Before he could respond, she was gone.
Carl went back to the slide of Beth Corbin’s blood and looked at it again more carefully to see if there might be some other abnormalities in it in addition to the blistered reds. He was still at it two minutes later when the phone rang.
It was Chrisman.
“Carl, I just spoke to Dan Pettit, an epidemiologist whose particular interest is flu strains. He said there hasn’t been a strain in the state as lethal as the one you describe since the famous 1918 pandemic.”
Chapter 8
“NOT SINCE 1918?” Carl said. “The person who told me about it lived through it. It killed her parents. I would think someone who was there would have more reliable information than someone who didn’t.”
“That’s certainly a reasonable position,” Chrisman said. “But Dan Pettit has access to all the state health department records and all the death certificates. There’s no support in those documents beyond that 1918 pandemic for what you’ve told me.”
Beth appeared in the office doorway.
“Thanks, Eve. I’ll have to think this over. Talk to you later.” He hung up and looked at Beth.
“Was that the person you were going to call?” she asked.
Carl didn’t answer because he didn’t know what to make of what Eve Chrisman had said. There seemed to be only two explanations for Dan Pettit not knowing about the Artisan flu. Either someone had kept its existence out of the official records or it had never happened.
Carl had no idea why anyone would conspire to hide a flu epidemic. In fact, it seemed like it would be a difficult thing to do. If a large number of people in one community suddenly died, there would be a lot of outside interest in the cause, too much interest to permit the real reason to be hidden. That seemed to point toward the second explanation . . . it had never happened.
But there was no denying the abnormal red cells in Benjamin Rasco and Beth Corbin’s blood. Something had certainly caused that. Beth said it was the flu. If it was something else, it could mean she had lied to him.
“What’s wrong?” Beth asked, commenting on the length of time since she’d asked him who was on the phone.
“Yeah, that was the person I mentioned. She said there’s no record of a lethal flu epidemic anywhere in the state in the last eighty-five years.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Me neither.”
“I guess her records are faulty.”
Carl looked directly into Beth’s eyes. He held them for a couple of beats before saying, “There wouldn’t be any other explanation for the sterility and abnormal reds in Benjamin’s and your blood would there?”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“Did both your parents die in the epidemic?”
“I already told you they did. Remember, it was in the car after we first met.”
“What were their names?”
“Muriel and James Roark.”
Carl plucked a pen from a holder on the desk and jotted the names on the big calendar forming a desk pad. “Your husband’s parents too?”
Beth nodded. “Elizabeth and George Corbin.”
He noted those names as well.
“Why did you write those names down?” Beth asked.
Carl shrugged. “Just a habit.”
“Do you think I made up that epidemic?”
“I’m just trying to figure out why there’s no record of it.”
“People aren’t perfect. They make mistakes. Maybe the records were miscategorized, or never compiled.”
“That’s certainly possible.”
“I’m feeling a little tired. Would you take me back to my motel?”
“Are you upset at me?”
“As I said, just a bit worn out.”
The ride back to the Hampton Inn took place in a quiet car, giving credence to Carl’s suspicion that Beth was provoked at him. At the Inn, he pulled into the unloading lane by the entrance and cut the ignition. Before he could begin to get out, Beth had her door open.
“Thanks for dinner,” she said.
“Are we still on for tomorrow?”
“If you like.”
“Nine o’clock okay?”
“That’s fine.”
“Don’t eat anything here. We’ll get breakfast at a place I know that has great sausages.”
“If you need to call me for anything, I’m in room three twelve.”
Driving home, Carl didn’t know what to make of the evening he’d just had. He couldn’t see any reason why Beth Corbin would lie about Artisan having a lethal flu epidemic. If she was lying, she was really good at it, because she’d told the story earnestly.
By the time he reached his driveway and opened the big fire door with his remote, he was no longer thinking about the Artisan flu. Instead, he was reflecting with satisfaction on the fact that even if Beth had been irritated at him for his probing questions, she’d still been willing to give him a chance to redeem himself tomorrow. So she couldn’t have been too upset.
As the garage door rolled down behind him, Carl parked by the old fire truck. He hadn’t even made it from the garage to the living quarters before his mind went back to the Artisan flu, and he got an idea. He could go up to his computer and—
Just then he heard the doorbell.
People rarely came to his door unexpected. When they did, it was almost always an intrusion of some sort. So he thought about just ignoring them and going upstairs. But in the end, he walked down to the front door and looked through the peephole. On his front porch he was shocked to see Patrick Meggs.
He opened the door.
“Dr. Martin, I’m sorry to bother you, but a resident of Artisan has gone missing, and we thought she might have caught a ride back to town with you this afternoon.”
“Why the concern?”
“She’s ill and needs to be cared for.”
With everything he’d learned about Meggs since meeting him, Carl was far too suspicious to tell him anything about Beth. So he said, “I came back alone.”
“I’m sorry to hear that, because finding her now is going to be a lot harder.”
“Wish I could have been more help.”
“Me too.”
As Meggs turned to leave, Carl asked, “Why would a woman who needed medical care run away from it?”
Meggs paused on the steps and looked back. “Fear of facing the truth perhaps. It’s hard to know what’s in another person’s mind. Now I really have to go.”
Carl watched Meggs cross the street and go to his car, which appeared to have another person in it. Then Carl shut the door and went to a window where he could watch the car from behind the drapes without being seen.
“HE KNOWS WHERE she is,” Meggs said, sliding into the driver’s seat.
“She with him now?” Mahler said, his eyes glittering at the thought he might soon be called on to earn his generous monthly retainer.
“I don’t think so.”
“How much you suppose she’s told him?”
“If he’d just given her a rid
e to town, he wouldn’t be protecting her. So I think he’s become more of a danger than he was.”
Mahler reached for the door handle.
“Not now. I told you we have to find Corbin first. There’s a good possibility he’ll warn her we’re close by. He’s probably watching us now, so we have to move the car. I’ll make a U-turn and drop you off on the other side of the street where he has no sight line from his house. Then you watch from there to see if he leaves. I’ll keep the car hidden and wait for you to call me on your cell.”
SEEING MEGGS make a U-turn and disappear from sight, Carl headed for his computer and did an Internet search for the number of the Hampton Inn where Beth Corbin was staying. After he found the number, he punched it into the phone and waited for an answer.
“Room three twelve, please.”
She answered on the second ring.
“This is Carl. I just had a visit from Patrick Meggs. He wanted to know if I’d seen you.”
Apprehension evident in her voice, she replied, “What did you tell him?”
“That I hadn’t. I didn’t want to say anything without your permission.”
“You did the right thing. He would have wanted me to go back to Artisan. I’m not going.”
“He said you were ill and needed medical care.”
There was a pause, then she said, “That’s not true.”
“Then why would he want you back?”
“I can’t explain that.”
“Because you don’t know or don’t want to tell me?”
“I’d like to be completely open with you, but I can’t. Please don’t ask me why. It’s just impossible.”
This would have been a good time to extricate himself from the situation, but Carl was so attracted to her, he kept talking. “I couldn’t see well enough to give you a description, but there was someone in the car with Meggs.”
“It was probably Father Hanson.”
“They can’t force you back to Artisan if you don’t want to go.”
“I’m not so sure of that.”
“Beth, did you do something illegal?”
“No. That’s the truth.”
“Meggs and whoever’s with him may start checking motels.”
“I didn’t register with my real name.”
“I don’t remember you doing that.”
“You were in the bathroom.”
“They could find you by describing you to the desk clerk.”
“What should I do?”
“Pack your bag but stay in your room. I’ll be there in a few minutes.” Carl hung up and went back to the Internet for another phone number.
ERNST MAHLER took a drag on his Marlboro, inhaled, then blew the smoke into the night air through his nostrils, which gently throbbed with a comforting warmth. He liked US cigarettes but thought American beer tasted like piss. Like their beer, most American men were weak and easily bested in a confrontation, especially if pain was involved. But occasionally, he had encountered one who was mentally and physically hardened and immune to pain. But he would bet this Carl Martin was not such a man. After all, he was a doctor, living a coddled life, which Mahler was sure knew no lack of physical comforts. Still, it was best not to underestimate your adversary. So, while Mahler believed he would have no trouble when the time came, he wished he could at least get a look at Martin well before he had to kill him.
Chapter 9
MAHLER HAD BEEN watching the front of Carl’s house for fourteen minutes and had begun to believe Meggs was wrong in thinking Carl would leave and go to the Corbin woman. But he’d learned that patience in these matters was often rewarded, so he remained at his post and resisted the urge to call Meggs and tell him he’d misread the situation.
In the parking lot serving the apartment building across the street, he saw a man approach a black BMW and furtively glance around him. The man touched the car and pulled his hand back, obviously testing to see if the car was fitted with a contact-activated burglar alarm. Learning that it wasn’t, the guy whipped out a slim jim and slid it into the driver’s door alongside the window.
Mahler checked his watch to see how long it was going to take the guy to get the car started. As he watched the scene across the street unfold, a cab momentarily blocked his view as it passed in front of him in the far lane, then made a left turn and went down Erin, the side street beside Carl’s house.
Normally, Mahler would have strolled to the corner and watched the cab until it reached its destination or turned onto a side street that took it out of sight. But earlier, when Meggs had circled the block, Mahler had noted there was no gate in the stucco wall around Carl’s back yard. So there was no reason to think the doctor would be leaving that way. Mahler therefore ignored the cab and engaged in a little mind game in which he bet himself the guy stealing the BMW could not get it underway quicker than Mahler could.
And so he made the one mistake that in some cases could get him killed . . . he’d underestimated his target, because just around the corner, at the back wall of Carl’s garden, the cab pulled to a stop. Carl then stepped out of the shadows next to his garden wall and jumped into the back seat.
“You weren’t supposed to come down Market,” Carl said. “I gave instructions for you to arrive from the South using back streets.”
The ID card hanging from the front seat said the dark-skinned cabby’s name was Ibrahim something unpronounceable. He looked over his shoulder. “We got many employees who don’t speak English so good as me. Mix-ups occur. It’s . . . how you say . . . unavoidable. Now . . . where we go?”
“The Hampton Inn on Carlyle. But don’t pull up to the front entrance. Go around to the one on the east. Okay?”
The cabby gave him a thumbs-up and stepped on the gas, throwing Carl back against his seat.
The trip to the Hampton Inn was an adventure in which the cabby spent much of the ride across the centerline in the wrong lane. But he did pay attention to Carl’s instructions about avoiding the Inn’s front entrance.
“Pull into that empty space,” Carl said, leaning forward so the cabby could see where he was pointing. “And keep the engine running.”
When they were parked, Carl got out his cell phone and called Beth’s room.
“This is Carl. I’m at the east door in a yellow cab. You’ve already paid for your first night, so just leave.”
In under two minutes, Beth came out the side door with her bag. She hurried to the cab and got in. “Where’s your car?” she asked.
He motioned for Beth to lean closer then he whispered in her ear. “I’m not sure Meggs believed me when I told him I hadn’t seen you. I had the feeling he and whoever was with him might be watching the front of my house, waiting for me to do just what I’m doing.” He hadn’t been this close to her before and his head swam with the smell of her.
“What do we do now?” she whispered back, her breath tickling his ear.
Leaning away from her he said to the cabby, “Take us back where you picked me up and do not go down Market.”
“No worries,” the cabby said, throwing the vehicle in reverse.
ERNST MAHLER HAD won his bet with himself. The car thief had taken four and a half minutes to get the BMW’s door open and the engine started. Mahler could have done it in half that time. Experienced as he was at surveillance, it began to bother him that his position did not allow him to see the rear of the doctor’s house. And he’d already spent too much time loitering on the corner.
He looked across Market Street, where, directly opposite the side street that ran along the doctor’s house was an Italian restaurant with a small patio in front containing a half dozen round tables with red, green, and white-striped umbrellas over them. He waited for a break in the traffic, then jogged across the street and took a seat at one of the tables with his back to the res
taurant.
Perfect. From this spot, He could now watch both the front of the doctor’s house and Erin Street.
THE CAB CARRYING Carl and Beth careened onto Delano and shot toward Erin, two blocks away.
“Slow down,” Carl said. “We’d like to get there without any broken bones or head wounds.”
Ibrahim laughed. “You Americans . . . You always make the joke.” Then, if anything, he went faster.
Chapter 10
AT THE ITALIAN restaurant, Mahler’s cell phone rang. “Mahler.”
“Where are you?” Meggs said.
“Outdoor table at the restaurant across from where you dropped me.”
“We’ve watched him long enough. He’s not going out. We might as well start checking motels.”
“Don’t be so impatient. A good hunter must wait for the hunted to relax and lose all fear before believing the trap will not work.”
“Good advice . . . if you have time to waste. Which we don’t.”
Meggs’s car roared up and squealed to a stop in front of the restaurant. The window on the passenger side rolled down. “Let’s go,” Meggs shouted.
Regretting that he had to work with such an amateur, Mahler folded his phone, pushed his chair back, and headed for the car.
JUST AS MEGGS laid on the gas and pulled away, Carl and Beth’s cab squealed onto Erin and hurtled toward Carl’s backyard, where a few seconds later, it jerked to a stop.
“See?” Ibrahim said, looking over his shoulder, the teeth in his grin impossibly white against his dark skin. “Like I told you, no worries, no injuries.”
Before getting out, Carl scanned the surroundings, looking for any signs someone he didn’t know might be watching. Seeing nothing suspicious, he held a twenty out to the cabby. When he reached for it, Carl pulled it back. “When you leave, please turn around in that drive and go back the way we came, okay?”
“You got it cowman,” Ibrahim replied. “I mean cowboy.”
Carl gave him the bill and reached for the door. After helping Beth out, Carl pulled her behind the garden wall so they couldn’t be seen from Market Street.
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