"Bloodstream" - читать интересную книгу автора (Gerritsen Tess)

14

"Why didn’t you tell me? Why did you keep it a secret?”

Lincoln crossed the room to shut his office door. Then he turned to face Claire.

“It was a long time ago. I didn’t see the point of dredging up old history.”

“But it’s the history of this town! Considering what’s happened in the last month, it strikes me as relevant.”

She placed the photocopied articles from the Tranquility Gazette on his desk.

“Look at this. In 1946, seven people were murdered and one girl from Boston was never found. Obviously violence is nothing new to this town.” She tapped the stack of papers. “Read the articles, Lincoln. Or do you already know the details?”

Slowly he sat down, staring at the pages. “Yes, I know most of the details,” he said softly. “I’ve heard the stories.”

“Who told you?”

“Jeff Wifiard. He was chief of police when I was first hired twenty-two years ago.”

“You hadn’t heard about it before then?”

“No. And I grew up here. I knew nothing about it until Chief Willard told me.

People just don’t talk about it.”

“They’d rather pretend it never happened.”

“There’s also our reputation to consider.” He looked up, at last meeting her gaze. “This is a resort town, Claire. People come here to escape the big city, escape crime. We’re not eager to reveal to the world that we’ve had our own problems. Our own murder epidemic.”

She sat down, her gaze now level with his. “Who knows about this?”

“The people who were here then. The older ones, now in their sixties and seventies. But not their children. Not my generation.”

She shook her head in amazement. “They kept it a secret all these years?”

“You understand why, don’t you? It’s not just the town they’re protecting. It’s their families. The kids who committed those crimes were all local. Their families still live here, and maybe they’re still ashamed. Still suffering the aftermath.”

“Like Warren Emerson.”

“Exactly. Look at the life he’s had. He lives alone, and has no friends. He’s never committed another crime, yet he’s shunned by everyone. Even by the kids, who have no idea why they’re supposed to steer clear of him. They just know from their grandparents that Emerson is a man to be avoided.” He looked down at the photocopied article. “So that’s the background on your patient. Warren Emerson is a murderer. But he wasn’t the only one.”

“You must have seen the parallels, Lincoln.”

“Okay, I admit there are some.”

“Too many to list.” She reached for the photocopied articles and flipped to the October issue. “In 1946, it started off with fights in the schools. Two kids were expelled. Then there were windows smashed in town, homes vandalized-again, adolescents were blamed. Finally, the last week of October, a fifteen-year-old boy hacks his parents to death. His younger sister pushes him out the window in self-defense.” She looked up at him. “It only gets worse from there. How do you explain it?”

“When violence occurs, Claire, it’s only human nature to ask why. But the truth is, we don’t always know why people kill each other?’

“Look at the sequence of events. Last time it started off with a quiet town.

Then here and there, kids start to misbehave. Hurt each other. In a matter of weeks, they’re killing people. The town’s in an uproar, everyone demanding that something be done. And suddenly-magically-it all just stops. And the town goes back to sleep again.” She fell silent, her gaze dropping to the headline. “Lincoln, there’s something else that’s strange about it. In the city, the most dangerous time of year is the summer, when the heat makes everyone’s temper flare. Crime always takes a nosedive when it gets cold. But in this town, it’s different. The violence starts in October, and peaks in November.” She looked up at him. “Both times, the killing started in the fall.”

The beeping of her pocket pager startled her. She glanced at the number on the display, and reached for Lincoln’s phone.

A CT technician answered her call. “We just finished the brain scan on your patient, Warren Emerson. Dr. Chapman’s on his way over to read it now.”

“You see anything?” asked Claire.

“It’s definitely abnormal.”

Dr. Chapman clipped the CT films to the X-ray viewing box and flipped on the switch. The light flickered on, illuminating the transverse cuts of Warren Emerson’s brain. “This is what I’m talking about,” he said. “Right here, extending into the left frontal lobe. You see it?”

Claire stepped closer. What he’d pointed out was a small, sphere like density located at the front of the brain, just behind the eyebrow. It appeared to be solid, not cystic. She glanced at the other cuts on view, but saw no other masses. If this was a tumor, then it appeared to be localized. “What do you think?” she asked. “A meningioma?”

He nodded. “Most likely. See how smooth the edges are? Of course you’ll need tissue diagnosis to confirm it’s benign. It’s about two centimeters in diameter, and it seems to be thickly encapsulated. Walled off by fibrous tissue. I suspect it can be removed without any residual tumor left behind.”

“Could this be the cause of his seizures?”

“How long has he had them?”

“Since his late teens. Which would make it close to fifty years.”

Chapman glanced at her in surprise. “And this mass was never picked up?”

“No. Since he’s had the seizures most of his life, I think Pomeroy assumed it wasn’t worth pursuing.”

Chapman shook his head. “That makes me rethink my diagnosis. First of all, you rarely see meningiomas in young adults. Also, a meningioma would continue to grow. So either this isn’t the cause of his seizures, or this is not a meningioma.”

“What else could it be?”

“A glioma. A metastasis from some other primary.” He shrugged. “It could even be an old walled-off cyst.”

“This mass looks solid.”

“If this was from TB, for instance, or a parasite, the body would launch an inflammatory reaction. Surround it or bind it up with scar tissue. Have you checked his TB status?”

“He was PPD-negative ten years ago.”

“Well, in the end, it’s still a pathologic diagnosis. This patient needs a craniotomy and excision.”

“I guess this means we have to transfer him to Bangor.”

“We don’t do craniotomies in this hospital. Our docs usually refer neurosurgery cases to Clarence Rothstein, out at Eastern Maine Medical Center.”

“You’d recommend him?”

Chapman nodded and flicked off the light box. “He’s got very good hands.”

Steamed broccoli and rice and a pathetic little dab of cod. Louise Knowlton didn’t know if she could bear it any longer, watching her son slowly starve. He had lost two more pounds, and the strain showed in his grim expression, his flashes of irritability He was no longer her cheerful Barry.

Louise looked across the table at her husband and read the same thought in Mel’s eyes: It’s the diet. He’s behaving this way because of the diet.

Louise pointed to the platter of French fries that she and Mel had been sharing.

“Barry sweetie, you took so hungry! A few of those won’t matter”

Barry ignored her, and kept scraping his plate with the fork, eliciting teeth-shattering squeals against the china.

“Barry, stop that!”

He looked up. Not just a glance, but the coldest, flattest stare she had ever seen.

With trembling hands, Louise extended the platter of French fries. “Oh please, Barry,” she murmured. “Eat one. Eat them all. It will make you feel so much better if you just eat something.”

She gave a startled gasp as Barry shoved his chair back and abruptly stood up.

Without a word he walked away and slammed his bedroom door shut. A moment later they heard the incessant gunfire of the video game as their son blasted away hordes of virtual enemies.

“Did something happen in school today?” asked Mel. “Those kids picking on him again?”

Louise sighed. “I don’t know. I don’t know anything anymore.”

They sat listening to the accelerating blast of gunfire. To the cries and moans of virtual victims as they lay dying in some Super Nintendo hell.

Louise looked down at the pile of limp and soggy French fries and she shuddered.

For the first time in her life, she pushed her dinner away, unfinished.

Noah’s stereo was playing full blast when Claire arrived home. The headache that had been building all afternoon seemed to tighten around her cranium, digging its claws into her forehead. She hung up her coat and stood at the bottom of the steps, listening to the relentless pounding of drums, the chanting of lyrics.

She couldn’t understand a single word. How am I supposed to monitor my child’s music when I don’t even know what the songs are saying?

This could not go on. She couldn’t deal with the noise, not tonight. She called up the stairs: “Noah, turn it down!”

The music played on, unabating. Unbearable.

She climbed the steps, her irritation swelling to anger. Reaching his room, she found the door locked. She pounded on it and yelled: “Noah!”

It took a moment before the door swung open. The music rushed at her, engulfing her in a tidal wave of noise. Noah hulked in the doorway, his shirt and trousers so baggy they hung like tattered ceremonial robes.

“Turn it down!” she yelled.

He flipped the amplifier switch and the music abruptly went dead. Her ears were still ringing in the silence.

“What are you trying to do, make yourself deaf? And drive me totally nuts in the process?”

“You weren’t home.”

“I was home. I’ve been yelling, but you couldn’t hear me.”

“I’m hearing you now, okay?”

“In ten years you’re not going to hear a thing if you keep playing your music that loud. You’re not the only one who lives under this roof.”

“How can I forget when you keep reminding me?” He dropped like a stone into a chair and swiveled around to face his desk. Turning his back on her.

She stood watching him. Even though he was flipping the pages of a magazine, she knew by the muscles tensed in his shoulders that he wasn’t really reading. He was too aware of her, of her anger toward him.

She came into his room and wearily sat down on the bed. After a moment she said, “I’m sorry I yelled at you.”

“You do it all the time now.”

“Do I?”

“Yeah.” He flipped a page.

“I don’t mean to, Noah. I have so many things going wrong at once, I can’t seem to deal with them all.”

“Everything’s all screwed up since we moved here, Mom. Everything.” He slapped the magazine shut and dropped his head in his hands. His voice was barely a whisper. “I wish Dad was here.”

For a moment they were both silent. She heard his tears fall on the page of the magazine, heard his sharp intake of breath as he struggled for control.

She stood up and placed her hands on his shoulders. They were tense, all his muscles knotted with the effort not to cry. We are so much alike, she realized, both of us constantly fighting to rein in our emotions, to stay in control.

Peter had been the exuberant member of the family, the one who screamed with delight on roller coasters and roared with laughter in movie theaters. The one who sang in the shower and set off smoke alarms with his cooking. The one who had never hesitated to say “I love you.”

How sad you would be to see us now, Peter. Afraid to reach out to each other.

Still mourning, still crippled amp;y your death.

“I miss him too,” she whispered. She let her arms slip around her son and she rested her cheek in his hair, inhaling the boy-smell she loved so much. “1 miss him too.”

Downstairs, the doorbell rang.

Not now. Not now.

She held on, ignoring the sound, shutting out everything but the warmth of her son in her arms.

“Mom,” said Noah, shrugging her off. “Mom, someone’s at the door.” Reluctantly she released her hold on him and straightened. The moment, the opportunity, had passed, and she was staring once again at his rigid shoulders.

She went downstairs, angry at this new intrusion, at yet another demand tugging her away from her son. She opened the front door to find Lincoln standing in the bitterly cold wind, his gloved hand poised to ring the bell again. He had never stopped in at her house before, and she was both surprised and puzzled by his visit.

“I have to talk to you,” he said. “Can I come in?”

She had not yet lit a fire in the front parlor, and the room was cold and depressingly dark. Quickly she turned on all the lamps, but light was poor compensation for the chill.

“After you left my office,” he said, “I got to thinking about what you’d said.

That there’s a pattern to the violence in this town. That there’s some sort of connection between 1946 and this year.” He reached in his jacket and took out the sheaf of photocopied news articles she’d left him. “Guess what? The answer was staring right at us?’

“What answer?”

“Look at the first page. The October issue, 1946.”

“I’ve already read that article.”

“No, not the story about the murder. The article at the bottom. You probably didn’t notice it.”

She smoothed the page on her lap. The article he’d referred to was partly cut off; only the top half had been included in the photocopy.

The headline read: REPAIRS ON LOCUST RIVER BRIDGE COMPLETED.

“I don’t know what you’re getting at,” she said.

“We had to repair that same bridge this year. Remember?”

“Yes.”

“So why did we have to repair it?”

“Because it was broken?”

He ran his hand through his hair in frustration. “Geez, Claire. Think about it!

Why’d the bridge need repairs? Because it got washed away We had record rainfall this past spring, and it flooded the Locust River, washed out two homes, tore out a whole series of footbridges. I called the U.S. Geological Survey to confirm it. This year was the heaviest rainfall we’ve had in fifty-two years.”

She looked up, suddenly registering what he was trying to tell her. “Then the last time the rainfall was this heavy.

“Was the spring of 1946.”

She sat back, stunned by the coincidence. “Rainfall,” she murmured. “Moist soil.

Bacteria. Fungi.

“Mushrooms are fungi. What about those blue ones?”

She shook her head. “Max had their identity confirmed. They’re not very toxic.

But heavy rains would encourage the growth of other fungi. In fact, it’s a fungus that caused mass occurrences of St. Vitus’ dance.”

“Is that a seizure?”

“The medical term for St. Vitus’ dance is chorea. It’s a writhing, dancelike movement of the limbs. Occasionally, there’ll be reports of mass occurrences. It may even have inspired the witchcraft accusations in Salem.”

“A medical condition?”

“Yes. After a cold, wet spring, rye crops can be infected by this fungus. People eat the rye, and they develop chorea.”

“Could we be dealing with a form of St. Vitus’ dance?”

“No, I’m just saying there are examples throughout history of human diseases linked to climate. Everything in nature is intimately bound together. We may think we control our environment, but we’re affected by so many organisms we can’t see.” She paused, thinking about Scotty Braxton’s negative cultures. So far nothing had grown out from either his blood or spinal fluid. Could there be a locus of infection she had missed? An organism so unusual, so unexpected, the lab would have discounted it as error?

“There must be a common factor among these children,” she said. “Exposure to the same contaminated food, for instance. All we have is this apparent association between rainfall and violence. It could be just coincidence.”

He sat in silence for a moment. She had often studied his face, admiring the strength she saw there, the calm self-confidence. Today she saw the intelligence in his eyes. He had taken two completely disparate bits of information and had recognized a pattern that she had not even noticed.

“Then what we need to find,” he said, “is the common factor.”

She nodded. “Could you get me into the Maine Youth Center? So I can talk to Taylor?”

“That could be a problem. You know Paul Darnell still blames you?’

“But Taylor’s not the only child affected. Paul can’t blame me for everything else that’s gone wrong in this town.”

“Not now, he can’t.” Lincoln rose to his feet. “We need answers before the town meeting. I’ll get you in to see the boy, Claire. One way or another.”

Standing at the parlor window, she watched him walk down the icy driveway to his truck. He moved with the balanced stride of a man who’d grown up in this unforgiving climate, each step planted squarely, the boot sole stamped down to catch the ice. He reached the truck, opened the door, and for some reason glanced back at her house.

Just for an instant, their gazes met.

And she thought, with a strange sense of wonder, How long have I been attracted to him? When did it start? I can’t remember. Now it was one more complication in her life.

As he drove away, she remained at the window, staring at a landscape bled of all color. Snow and ice and bare trees, all of it fading to black.

Upstairs, Noah’s music had started again.

She turned from the window and flicked off the parlor lamp. That’s when she suddenly remembered the promise she’d made to Warren Emerson, and she groaned.

The cat.

Night had fallen by the time she drove up the lower slope of Beech Hill and pulled into Emerson’s front yard. She parked next to the woodpile, a perfectly circular tower of stacked logs. She thought of the many hours it must have taken him to arrange his wood with such precision, each log placed with the same care one usually gave to constructing a stone wall. And then to pull it down again, bit by bit, as winter consumed his annual work of art.

She turned off her engine and looked up at the old farmhouse. No lights were on inside. She used a flashlight to guide herself up the icy front steps to the porch. Everything seemed to sag and she had the strange illusion that she was tilting sideways, sliding toward the edge, toward oblivion. Warren had told her the door would be unlocked, and it was. She stepped inside and turned on the lights.

The kitchen sprang into view with its worn linoleum and chipped appliances. A small gray cat stared up at her from the floor. They had startled each other, she and the cat, and for a few seconds they both froze.

Then the cat shot out of the room and vanished somewhere into the house.

“Here, kitty kitty! You want your dinner, don’t you? Mona?”

She had planned to take Mona to a kennel for boarding. Warren Emerson had already been transferred to Eastern Maine Medical Center for his craniotomy, and would remain hospitalized for at least a week. Claire didn’t relish the thought of driving here every day just to feed a cat. But it appeared the cat had different ideas.

Her frustration mounted as she went from room to room in search of the uncooperative Mona, turning on lights as she went. Like so many other farmhouses of its era, this one had been built to house a large family, and it consisted of many small rooms, made even more claustrophobic by the clutter. She saw piles of old newspapers and magazines, bundled grocery sacks, crates filled with empty bottles. In the hallway she had to turn sideways to navigate a narrow tunnel between stacked books. Such hoarding was usually a sign of mental illness, but Warren had organized his clutter in a logical fashion, the books segregated from the magazines, the brown paper bags all folded and bound together with twine.

Perhaps this was merely Yankee frugality carried to an extreme.

It provided plenty of cover for a fugitive cat.

She’d made a complete circuit of the downstairs without spotting Mona. The cat must be hiding in one of the upstairs rooms.

She started up the steps, then halted, her hands suddenly sweating. Deja vu, she thought. I have lived this before. A strange house, a strange staircase.

Something terrible waiting for me in the attic.

But this was not Scotty Braxton’s house, and the only thing lurking upstairs was a frightened animal.

She forced herself to continue climbing as she called out, “Here, kitty!” if only to prop up her faltering courage. There were four doors on the second floor, but only one was open. If the cat had fled upstairs, she had to be in that room.

Claire stepped through the doorway and turned on the light.

Her gaze was drawn at once to the black and white photographs- dozens of them hanging on the wall or propped up on the dresser and nightstand. A gallery of Warren Emerson’s memories. She crossed the room and stared at three faces smiling back at her from one of the photos, a middle-aged couple with a young boy. The woman was round-faced and plain, her hat tilted at a comically drunken pitch. The man beside her seemed to be sharing in the joke; his eyes were bright with laughter. They each rested one hand on the shoulders of the boy standing between them, physically claiming him as their own, their shared possession.

And the boy with the cowlick and the missing front teeth-this must be young Warren, basking in the glow of his parents’ attention.

Her gaze moved to the other photographs and she saw the same faces again and again, different seasons, different places. Here a shot of the mother proudly holding up a pie. There a shot of father and son on a riverbank with their fishing poles. Finally, a school photo of a young girl, apparently Warren’s sweetheart, for at the bottom someone had drawn in a heart containing the words Warren and Iris forever. Through tears, Claire stared at the nightstand, at a glass of water resting there, half full.

At the bed, where gray hairs had been shed on the pillow. Warren’s bed.

Every morning he would wake up alone in this room, to the sight of his parents’ photos. And every night, the last image he’d register was of their faces, smiling at him.

She was crying now, for the child he once was. A lonely little boy trapped in an old man’s body.

She went back downstairs to the kitchen.

There was no sense chasing after a cat that didn’t want to be captured. She would simply leave food in the dish, and come back another time. Opening the pantry door, she found herself staring at dozens of cans of cat food stacked on the shelves. There was scarcely anything in the kitchen for a man to eat, but pampered Mona was certainly well-supplied.

Today she’ll be expecting tuna.

Tuna it would be. She emptied the can into the cat dish and placed it on the floor next to the bowl of water. She filled another bowl with dried cat food, enough to last several days. She cleaned out the litter-box. Then she turned off the lights and walked out.

Sitting in her car, she glanced one last time at the house. For most of his life, Warren Emerson had lived within those walls, without human companionship, without love. He would probably die in that house alone, with only a cat to witness his exit.

She wiped the tears from her eyes. Then she turned the car around and drove down the dark road for home.

That night Lincoln called her.

“I spoke to Wanda Darnell,” he said. “I told her there may be a biological reason for her son’s actions. That other children in town have been affected, and we’re trying to track down the cause.”

“How did she react?”

“I think she’s relieved. It means there’s something external to blame. Not the family. Not her.”

“I understand that perfectly”

“She’s given permission for you to interview her son.”

“When?”

“Tomorrow. At the Maine Youth Center.”

A long row of beds lined the wall of the silent dormitory room. The morning sun shone in through windows above, one bright square of light spilling down on the boy’s thin shoulders. He sat on the bed with his legs tucked up against his chest. His head was bowed. This was not the same boy she had seen four weeks ago, cursing and thrashing. This was a child who’d been beaten down, hopes and dreams trampled, only his physical shell remaining.

He did not look up as Claire approached, her footsteps echoing on the worn planks. She stopped beside his bed. “Hello, Taylor. Do you feel like talking to me?”

The boy lifted one shoulder, barely a shrug, but at least it was the semblance of an invitation.

She reached for a chair, her gaze falling briefly on the small pine desk next to his bed. It was a badly abused piece of furniture, its surface gouged with four-letter words and the initials of countless young residents. She wondered if Taylor had already carved his mark into this permanent record of despair.

She slid the chair to his bed and sat down. “Whatever we talk about today, Taylor, is just between us, okay?” He gave a shrug, as if it hardly mattered.

“Tell me about what happened, that day in school. Why did you do it?”

He turned his cheek against his knees, as though suddenly too exhausted to hold up his head. “I don’t know why”

“Do you remember that day?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Everything?”

He swallowed hard, but didn’t say anything. His face suddenly rippled with anguish and he closed his eyes, squeezing them so tight his whole face seemed to collapse on itself. He took a deep breath and what should have been a howl of pain came out only as a high, thin keening.

“I don’t know. I don’t know why I did it.”

“You brought a gun to school that day”

“To prove I had one. They didn’t believe me. They said I was making it up.”

“Who didn’t believe you?”

“J.D. and Eddie. They’re always bragging that their dad lets them shoot his guns.” jack Reid’s sons again. Wanda Darnell had said they were a bad influence, and she’d been right.

“So you brought the gun to school," said Claire. “Did you plan to use it?”

He shook his head. “I just had it in my backpack. But then I got a D on my test.

And Mrs. Horatio-she started yelling at me about that stupid frog.” He began to rock, hugging his knees, every breath catching in a sob. “I wanted to kill them all. It was like I couldn’t stop myself I wanted to make them all pay” He stopped rocking and went very still, his eyes unfocused, gazing at nothing. “I’m not mad at them anymore. But now it’s too late.”

“It may not be your fault, Taylor.”

“Everyone knows I did it?’

“But you just told me you weren’t in control.”

“It’s still my fault.

“Taylor, look at me. I don’t know if anyone’s told you about your friend, Scotty Braxton.”

Slowly the boy’s gaze lifted to hers.

“The same thing happened to him. And now his mother is dead.”

She saw, by his look of shock, that he had not been told the news.

“No one can explain why he snapped. Why he attacked her. You’re not the only one it’s happened to.”

“My dad says it’s because you took away my medicine.”

“Scotty wasn’t taking any medicine.” She paused, searching his eyes. “Or was he?”

“No.”

“This is very important. You have to tell me the truth, Taylor. Did either of you boys take any drugs?”

“I am telling the truth.”

He looked at her, his gaze unflinching. And she believed him.

“What about Scotty?” he asked. “Is Scotty coming here?”

Tears suddenly stung her eyes. She said, softly: “I’m sorry, Taylor. I know you two were good friends…

“The best. We’re best friends.”

“He was in the hospital. And something happened. We tried to help him, but there was-there was nothing-”

“He’s dead. Isn’t he?”

His direct question was a plea for an honest answer. She admitted, quietly:

“Yes. I’m afraid so.”

He dropped his face against his knees, and the words spilled out between sobs.

“Scotty never did anything wrong! He was such a wuss. That’s what J.D. always called him, the dumb wuss. I never stood up for him. I should’ve said something, but I never did..

“Taylor. Taylor, I need to ask you another question.”

“I was afraid to.”

“You and Scotty were together a lot. Where did you two spend your time?”

He didn’t answer; he just kept rocking on the bed.

“I really need to know this, Taylor. Where did you two hang out?” He took in a shaky breath. “With-with the other kids.” “Where?”

“I don’t know! All over.”

“In the woods? At someone’s house?”

He stopped rocking, and for a moment she thought he hadn’t heard the last question. Then he raised his head and looked at her. “The lake.’

Locust Lake. It was the center of all activity in Tranquility, the place for picnics and swim races, for boaters and fishermen. Without it, there would be no summer visitors, no flow of money. The town itself would not exist.

It all has something to do with the lake, she thought suddenly. Water and rainfall. Floods and bacteria.

The night the water glowed.

“Taylor,” she said, “did you and Scotty both swim in the lake?” He nodded.

“Every day.”