Ill Wind Part 13

Chapter 27.

In her small cubicle, surrounded by identical cubicles in the offices of Surety Insurance, Heather Dixon wondered why the receptionist kept forwarding calls to her. She stared at the pile of insurance claims on her desk. Even though she had worked one claim after another without taking a break all day, the stack of papers waiting to be processed grew two inches every hour.

She was working harder than an administrator. Funny they weren't willing to pay her for it.

She punched a b.u.t.ton on the phone to pick up the call, then held the receiver between her shoulder and ear as she filed proof-of-loss forms. "Surety Insurance Company, may I help you?"

"I hope so," said the thin male voice on the line, "you're the eighth person I've been transferred to."

"Sorry, sir. We've been unusually busy, and-"

"I understand," the man said at the ragged end of patience, "and I'm normally a laid-back person. But if you will just take my information and promise it'll be straightened out, we can both be done in a flash. Deal?" He had a no-nonsense voice that might have been pleasant if he hadn't been pushed to the edge.

"Yes, sir. Let's see what we can do."

"I've given my name a dozen times. Could you please punch it up on your computer? I'm Spencer Lockwood, spelled just like it sounds. I was driving my rental car, a Mazda Protege, and it broke down near Death Valley, California." He rattled off the words as if he had memorized them. "I couldn't get a replacement from the rental car company, so I was forced to rent another one on my own. Now that I'm back in New Mexico, I'm calling to ask if the emergency road service on my own policy will cover the new rental, because the rental company refuses to pay."

"How can they turn down a request like that?" she asked, scowling. "Did they give you any reason?"

Lockwood said, "They told me I should have just waited a day or so-by the side of the road, presumably-and they would have had a new car delivered to me. Since I refused to wait for them, they claim they're not obligated."

Heather sighed, then yanked reddish-brown hair back behind her ears. It was one of her most unflattering ways of wearing it, but she was too harried to notice. The young college students manning the receptionist desks refused to deal with anything out of the ordinary, especially on a horrendously busy day like this. They input only the routine claims and let the computers b.u.mp the questionable ones higher in the system.

"You really should discuss this with your own agent," said Heather.

"My agent's been gone for a week, and I'd just as soon get this taken care of. I don't have time to chase down errors once they get lodged in your computer's brain."

Heather took down the pertinent data on a form. Lockwood was trying admirably to be nice, so she made an effort on his behalf. "All right, Mr. Lockwood. I'll do what I can. It'll take a week or so before you get confirmation of our discussion and Surety's decision, but I won't let it get lost in the shuffle. Promise."

"Thank you," Spencer said. "You deserve a promotion for this!" He laughed.

"Yes I do," she agreed, but she wasn't laughing.

She held onto Lockwood's form for a few moments, pondering where in the pile it should go. Suddenly, Albert "You can call me Al!" Sysco was there, rapping his palms on her desktop.

"So this is where the holdup is! Paperwork's piled on your desk, and you're sitting around daydreaming. Shake it, Heather!"

She wanted to take a baseball bat and "shake it" on his head. But she went back to work without voicing any of the retorts that popped into her head.

She sorted through the stack of papers. They would all need to be keyed into the computers before the claims could be processed, and Lockwood's form would have to be vetted by someone in authority, someone like Al Sysco. Heather glared at him as he stormed away, then she stamped APPROVED on Lockwood's claim.

Smiling, she filed it in the box of completed forms.

Chapter 28.

When Todd reached Alex Kramer's office in Oilstar's bioremediation facility, he found the door locked. Yellow phone-message slips were taped to his door, one on top of another until they made a stack. Todd flipped through them. A note from Iris was on top; the bottom one was dated three days earlier. Two days after the victory party. He frowned.

Most of the other offices seemed empty as well, as if Oilstar had declared an employee holiday. Mitch Stone's office also stood closed; a handwritten note was stuck with a red push-pin into the wall above his name plaque. "WORKING AT HOME. CAR TROUBLE."

Around the Bay Area, cars were breaking down right and left-the "bad gasoline" from the Oilstar refinery had hit far too many vehicles, and now fingers were pointing at other area refineries, as well. A few people suspected deliberate sabotage of the gasoline output.

Frustrated, Todd got the division secretary to waddle down the hall and open Alex's office for him. Todd followed her, as if he could herd her into greater speed. "He called in sick a few days ago," she said. "Haven't seen him since."

Todd stared into a dark empty room. Concern gnawed at him. What if some radical protester like that Torgens guy decided to go after the scientist responsible for the Prometheus microbe?

Inside, the desk was neat, all the papers filed, as if Alex knew he wasn't coming back. A part of him expected to see sheets draped over the furniture. "You haven't heard from him since, when, Tuesday?"

The secretary shrugged. "I don't know, Mr. Severyn-we've got so many people out with the traffic snarls and breakdowns that I can't keep track. I'm not their mother, you know."

"Never mind." He opened his wallet and dug out Alex's unlisted phone number as he walked into the office. Picking up the desk phone, he asked out of the corner of his mouth, "What number do I use to dial out? Seven?"

"Eight."

He punched the number while the secretary watched him suspiciously.

Alex's phone rang, but no one answered; even the answering machine was disconnected. That was odd. Alex had not looked well after their wild horse ride. What if he was alone at home, too sick to answer the phone?

"You're sure he didn't call? Wouldn't somebody call in sick if they weren't going to come in for work?"

She sighed, poking her lower lip out at him. A thin smear of lipstick had deposited itself on her teeth. "Usually, but a lot of these scientists live in a different universe. We had one guy who never managed to b.u.t.ton his shirts right, and another one who had to be reminded to take lunch every day. They're on flex time. They work late into the night sometimes, and other times they don't come in at all. Especially with Dr. Kramer's . . . uh, personal problems, we don't see a lot of him."

Todd listened to ten hollow rings before hanging up. Remembering the victory celebration, he recalled the closed room filled with treasured pictures of lost family members. Alex Kramer lived alone. No one else would worry about him if Todd didn't check. Besides, he'd promised Iris to see what he could find out. "I think I'm going to drive over there."

Grabbing his cowboy hat, he clomped out of the office, leaving the secretary to lock up behind him.

Out in the parking lot, his own truck started right up. He breathed a sigh of relief, then wound his way out of the cluttered, narrow roads inside the refinery, out the gates past the usual batch of yelling protesters, then headed for the San Rafael bridge that would take him to Marin county.

Todd had no problem until he got on the freeway. Weaving past stalled vehicles-more than he had ever seen before-he found that the far left lane was open. Traffic crawled along, but at least it moved. He felt his stomach rumble with anxiety and impatience, worried about Alex but also growing more dismayed as he pa.s.sed a van hauling a motorboat stalled off to the side of the road, then a motorcycle, then a Toyota, finally a tow-truck itself abandoned in the breakdown lane. He turned his head, suddenly filled with confused fear.

When Todd finally made his way through the hilly backroads, he was relieved to see Alex's four-wheel drive pickup in the gravel drive. The brown Chevy sat parked next to Alex's ranch house, which looked closed-up and abandoned. Alex must be home-but why hadn't he answered the phone? Could he be out riding one of the horses?

Todd's truck bounced in the driveway as he pulled up. Swinging down from the cab, he ambled to the door, trying to look calm but growing more uneasy with each step. He rang the doorbell. Nothing. He rang again and shouted, "Hey, Alex, you in there?" Impatient, he tried the doork.n.o.b, then pounded on the door-still no answer. The gra.s.sy hills and nearby forest smothered all sound.

Muttering, he walked around back, his boots crunching in the dry gra.s.s. He heard neighing as he approached and smelled the bright, fresh odor of the stables. The two horses trotted to the fence as he approached. Todd held out a hand as the palomino, Ren, nuzzled him, looking for a sugar cube or a carrot. He noticed that the back corral gate was wide open, but the horses had remained next to the stable.

Todd scanned the back yard, then went to close the gate. The horses followed him like lonely puppies. "Hey, Alex!"

When no one answered, he ran a hand along Ren's neck. The crisp animal smell made him long for Wyoming. "Sorry, buddy. I'll get you some sugar later." He swung over the wooden fence and walked across the corral. The horses followed, even to the point of nudging Todd with wet noses. He half expected to see Alex come out of the stable, but the place was vacant. Worse yet, the feeding trough was empty. Ren whinnied.

"Hold on," said Todd. He slipped into the barn and returned with a rustling armload of hay, which he dumped into the trough. The dry, weedy scent clung to his shirt. Todd found the smell pleasant. The horses pushed toward the food and ignored him. As they munched, Todd rubbed the sweaty back of his neck.

Obviously the horses had not been fed for a day or two. No one had seen Alex since the party. Something terrible must have happened to make him neglect his horses. From what Todd had noticed on their ride, Alex doted on the animals.

Something must have happened to him.

Despite their empty smiles and bubbly "Have a nice day!" comments, Todd thought Californians were particularly callous to their neighbors. They never checked on each other or watched each other's homes, barely managing to wave when they went to get the mail. If some tragedy had happened to Alex, the other residents would turn a blind eye until somebody else took care of the problem.

Well, Todd wasn't from California, and in Wyoming people watched out for each other.

Todd strode to the rear of the house, around flower beds gone to weeds. A picnic table out back sat streaked with caked dust, and the blue-and-white overhead umbrella had been rolled down for some time. At the back door, he pulled open the screen and rattled the k.n.o.b on the white-painted door, but the back door was locked solid with a deadbolt.

He didn't give much thought to calling for help. Who was Todd to file a missing persons report anyway? He had spoken to Alex after the celebration, gone on a brief horse ride with him, but he could not claim to be a long-time friend. Did Alex have have any long-time friends? The police would tell Todd to wait a few days, check back, maybe something would turn up. any long-time friends? The police would tell Todd to wait a few days, check back, maybe something would turn up.

But Todd kept imagining Alex unconscious or dead on the floor inside his house. He would rather pay for some broken gla.s.s than leave the microbiologist inside.

Besides, he could always apologize later.

Todd spotted the smallest window he could crawl through, the laundry room by the mud room in the rear hall. He jiggled the window frame. It was locked, but loose.

He jogged back to his truck for the tool kit, rummaging and clanking around until he found a large wooden-handled screwdriver. Returning to the back window, working quickly but carefully, he jimmied the frame open without breaking the pane. He supposed that living in the country gave Alex a sense of security, enough that he wouldn't have sophisticated locks. On their ranch in Wyoming, Todd's parents rarely bothered to lock their doors.

Crawling through the window, he found himself in the clean hall back by a washer and dryer; he smelled the old perfume of laundry detergent, but saw no clothes in the plastic baskets piled on top of the dryer.

"Alex?" He hurried through the house, looking from side to side. All the lights were off, the curtains drawn, leaving the place in gloom. He kept expecting to find Alex crumpled on the floor, perhaps bleeding. Moving from room to room, he hastened his search. Nothing.

Alex's truck was here, the doors were locked, the horses had been left unfed for days, but they were both here . . . . Alex did not seem the type just to wander off.

Todd stood in the large living room next to the wet bar and looked out the bay windows in back. He debated saddling up one of the horses to go search the riding paths. What if Alex had gone out after dark, after Todd left, troubled by the horse ride and the conversation, the resurrected memories? In the dimness, Alex could have stumbled and broken his neck, or fallen into a ravine, or had a heart attack.

But the house seemed to be holding secrets, shadows hiding around corners. The air felt cool and sluggish around him, as if it had not been disturbed for some time.

A faint, gritty odor made him look at the fireplace, to see a rumpled pile of papers and ashes, a solid stack of lab notebooks with burned edges. The crisped, bubbled outline of a blue-and-gold Oilstar logo adorned one of the cardboard covers. He brushed aside the black metal mesh screen. Black flakes of ash curled up from the consumed papers.

A gnawing sensation grew at the pit of his stomach. On the phone Iris had told him she suspected something terribly wrong with the spread of Prometheus, but she wanted to talk to Alex before she raised any alarm. Why would Alex burn a pile of old notebooks, when he could just throw them away?

Unless he didn't want anybody to find them.

"Alex?" Todd called again, then swallowed a lump in his throat. His stomach fluttered, then sank as he grew more certain he would not find the microbiologist. At least not alive.

He walked down the narrow hall to the bedrooms, past the bathroom which smelled mildewy from old soap and clean guest towels. The floorboards creaked under his cowboy boots as he continued to the back rooms. The bed in the master bedroom was made, but the bedspread rumpled and the pillow c.o.c.ked sideways, as if Alex had lain on it for a while before getting up and going somewhere else.

On the nightstand, next to a clear gla.s.s half full of water, lay a bulky old Smith & Wesson double-action revolver. Todd recognized it as one of the older models, 1930 or 1940, but it had been recently cleaned. He could smell the cold, hard metallic aroma of the firearm.

Todd went cautiously to the bedside and picked up the weapon, wrapping his palm around the handle-grip. The Smith & Wesson felt slick, but Todd realized it was his own sweat. He sniffed the barrel, but smelled no acrid gunpowder that would tell him it had been fired recently. He couldn't understand why Alex had taken the gun out, then left it lying around the house. Had he lost his nerve over something? Todd wet his lips.

When he turned back to the hall, Todd saw that the door to the other bedroom stood shut, as if closed against prying eyes. Todd gripped the cold doork.n.o.b and hesitated.

"Alex? Are you in there?" he said, then knocked lightly.

After a moment of silence, Todd took a deep breath, then pushed the door open slowly, expecting it to creak, afraid something might jump out at him.

The miniblinds had been drawn, leaving the m.u.f.fled room awash in watery gray light. Before Todd's eyes could adjust, he smelled a dry, sour smell of wrongness, the lingering pit-of-the-stomach twist of death, the stench of dried flesh.

Alex sat on a padded kitchen chair in the middle of the room, slumped and motionless, as if gravity had slowly sagged him.

"Alex!" Todd said, then snapped out of his sluggish shock. He slapped the wall twice before he found the light switch. Sharp yellow illumination sent the shadows and murkiness fleeing. "Awww, jeez, Alex!"

Todd took two steps forward and stopped. Alex Kramer rested in a rubbery position, as if his joints had turned liquid for a moment, then frozen into place with rigor mortis. His skin had the grayish, mottled appearance of someone who had been dead for a day or so.

His head had c.o.c.ked forward on his neck, resting his chin and his neat peppery-gray beard against the base of his throat. His eyes were squeezed shut, surrounded with the cobwebs of wrinkles.

He wore comfortable clothes, faded jeans, a work shirt, no shoes and grayish-white socks. In his lap he clutched his eyegla.s.ses folded in one hand. The other hand gripped a picture frame, turned face down against his jeans.

Todd stepped forward, clumsy like an intruder, but driven. He reached out for the picture frame, but then the pointed toe of his boot kicked something that rattled hollowly on the floor under the chair.

He bent over and picked up three dark-orange prescription pill bottles. Todd didn't recognize the names of the drugs, but they sounded like high-strength pain killers. Under a strip of bright cellophane tape, the date on one prescription label had expired five years before.

The pieces fell into place, rattling like bones in an empty cup. Todd pictured Alex taking out the revolver in the master bedroom, lying restless on the bed, agonizing over his decision to kill himself, and then eventually choosing another way, a method that was not so violent. But ultimately just as effective.

Todd stood on creaking knees, blinked his stinging eyes several times, and touched the picture frame in Alex's lap. He lifted, then pried the photograph free of the dead man's grip. It showed a handsome woman, cla.s.sy-looking, with short hair and subtle, careful makeup. She wore a secret smile that seemed to slide right past Todd, as if she had directed it at someone else.

"Why the heck did you have to do this, Alex?" Todd whispered, squeezing the brim of his cowboy hat in his left hand. "Nothing could have been that bad."

On the walls in the memorial bedroom, the other photographs, certificates, doc.u.ments, seemed to hum with background noise, ghosts and memories, frozen moments that Alex had trapped in this room and had refused to set free. And now he had burned all his notes on Prometheus, then gone to join his family.

Todd stood up, his head spinning but his body unable to move. Finally, with one last glance at Alex, he went to find a phone so he could call the police, Oilstar, and Iris Shikozu.

Chapter 29.

Iris Shikozu felt like she was stuck on the t.i.tanic t.i.tanic, knowing it was doomed to sink but unable to do anything.

Aside from the muted chugging of the vacuum pumps and the air conditioner in her lab, she heard no students out in the hall, no clicking of shoes as people walked by, not even the distant sound of a professor droning on in a lecture room. She hadn't even bothered to turn on the stereo not since Todd had told her that he was going to Alex Kramer's house. She wished he would call, if for no other reason than to confirm what she had uncovered about Prometheus and the transportation breakdowns.