Dead of Winter Page 13

  “What about that book he had in his safe? If Lowe got busted and someone got their hands on that book, wouldn’t that go a long way toward shutting down these human-trafficking rings?”

  “The FBI has infiltrated some of those groups by tracking people who bring girls here,” Hurley explains. “But Lowe’s clientele also includes some prostitution rings and the occasional lone woman who has heard about what he does via word of mouth. Women without insurance will come to him because he’s cheaper than any clinic or hospital. The price he quoted us is what he charges the professionals.” He lifts the first two fingers of each hand from the steering wheel and makes air quotes when he says the word. “Besides, according to the FBI, he’s good at what he does. His patients don’t experience much in the way of complications. Shut him down and they’ll end up going to some hack somewhere else.”

  “He does appear to have a nice setup there,” I admit. “But just because nothing bad has happened, so far, doesn’t mean it won’t.”

  “That’s true of any setting where abortions are performed, isn’t it?”

  He has a point. Resigned, I give up the argument. “Are you going to call this Kirby O’Keefe fellow?”

  “Not yet. I want to do some research first, see if we have anything on him. I suspect Lowe was right. O’Keefe is just a lackey, an errand boy. If we can get a bead on him and watch him without him knowing it, he may well lead us to someone higher up the food chain. And I think that’s where we’re going to have to go if we’re to have any hope of finding Liesel’s sister.”

  “So what’s next?”

  Hurley yawns widely. “Home and bed,” he says when he’s done. “I’ll give Richmond a call to update him, but I need to catch a few z’s. I can’t think straight when I get too tired. I’ll start fresh again in the morning.”

  This sounds ideal to me. I’m exhausted, and my idea of heaven right now is me stretched out in our comfy bed with Hurley curled up beside me and the warm glow of a fire coming from the fireplace. I’d love to be able to put this case out of mind temporarily, but I know it will be next to impossible. In fact, as Hurley pulls into our driveway and heads up the hill to the house, I find myself wondering if Kurt Paulsen ever has a good night’s sleep anymore.

  CHAPTER 13

  Despite our weariness, we don’t head to bed right away. Both Emily and Matthew are upstairs asleep. Hurley hasn’t had dinner, and after scoping out the fridge, he reheats the leftover pieces of pizza from earlier. I’m hungry, too, and after my turn scouring the fridge, I find a half-eaten container of tuna salad and fix myself a sandwich.

  Hurley has a copy of the file on the missing girls with him, and the two of us sit at the island counter looking it over for an hour or two before we finally turn out the lights and head upstairs. I fall asleep quickly, the emotional drains of the day sapping me both physically and mentally.

  I awaken a little later as a wave of nausea rolls over me. My guts cramp and roil uncomfortably, and bile rises in my throat. I fling back the covers and hurry into the bathroom, shutting the door behind me so I won’t wake Hurley. I barely manage to get the toilet seat up before my stomach squeezes painfully and I vomit up bitter bile. My body feels hot and cold at the same time, and now the cramping is in my lower gut. No sooner has my stomach emptied itself than I feel an urgent need coming from the other end. I whip around, yank my panties down, and sit in the nick of time. All I’m wearing is a T-shirt and panties—my usual nighttime attire—and the bathroom feels freezing. I reach over and grab a towel hanging on the rack, and drape it over my shoulders in an effort to get warm.

  After a time, the cramping subsides some and I get off the toilet and shuffle over to the sink. I brush the sour taste from my mouth, and then crawl back into bed. But my guts start to revolt again, and I hurry back to the toilet, once again positioning myself on the porcelain throne. I grab a nearby trash can, in case things decide to come out both ends again. Every time I think things have settled down, another wave of nausea hits me and I’m wracked with cramps and spasms. Eventually I stop upchucking—there is nothing left in my stomach to come up—but my lower half continues its attempts to empty me out.

  A glance at the clock next to my bed when I first awoke told me it was a little after two in the morning. By the time Hurley wakes and comes into the bathroom to find me pale, shaky, and utterly miserable, I’ve been sitting on the toilet for two hours straight. I can barely feel my legs, I have a permanent ring imprinted on my butt cheeks from the toilet seat, and I am weak as a kitten.

  “Jesus, Mattie, are you okay?” Hurley says when he sees me.

  I shake my head miserably. “I think I have food poisoning,” I tell him. “Every time I try to get off the toilet, it hits me again. It’s like my colon is Mount Vesuvius and my butt cheeks are the hills of Pompeii.”

  “I’m sorry,” he says. “What can I do?”

  “You could grab me my bathrobe for starters,” I say, my teeth chattering. “I can’t seem to get warm.” He retreats into the bedroom and returns a moment later with my robe, which he helps me put on. I see him wrinkle his nose at the smell, but he says nothing. He kisses me on my forehead, and then strokes my head with his hand.

  “On the back of the top shelf on my side of the closet, there’s a metal box with a lock on it,” I tell him. “The key to it is in the medicine cabinet over there. Will you get it for me? I have some medications in it that I think might help.”

  Hurley nods, goes to the medicine cabinet, grabs the key, and once again retreats into the bedroom. The box I told him to get contains a variety of medications, including some that require a prescription. I have nausea pills, as well as an antidiarrheal, meds I saved from previous prescriptions and over-the-counter purchases for just such an emergency. I keep them locked up to make sure Matthew can’t get to them. He’s a nosy, curious little bugger—a trait I think he inherited from me—and this is the best way I could think of to keep him safe.

  Hurley returns a minute later, carrying the box. He opens it, probably a good thing since my hands are shaking, and gives it to me. I rummage through the various medications and find what I need. Meanwhile, Hurley goes over to the sink and gets me a glass of water.

  Once I have myself as medicated as I can be, I hand him the box. “Put it back on the closet shelf,” I tell him, “but leave it unlocked. I have a feeling I’m going to need it again.”

  “I can stay home this morning and work from my office here,” Hurley says, giving me a worried look.

  I shake my head. “Emily is staying home from school today because of the snowstorm. She can keep an eye on Matthew. You go on into the station and do what you need to do. I think I’ll be better in another couple of hours.”

  “You’re not planning on going into the office, are you?”

  “I don’t know,” I tell him, and he scowls at me. “I need to see how I feel, but I think the worst of it may have passed.”

  Hurley lets out a resigned sigh. He has learned that it’s not worth the effort of arguing a matter once I have my mind set. “I’ll have my cell phone with me at all times,” he says. “Call me if you need anything, okay?”

  “I will. Now go on. You’ll need to use the other bathroom to get ready. Sorry.”

  He moves around the bathroom, gathering up his toothbrush and some shaving supplies. When he’s done, he walks over and kisses me on top of my head again. “Promise you’ll call me if you need anything.”

  “I promise. But I’ll be fine. The nausea is better already. I’ve got Emily here to help me, and if worse comes to worst, Christopher will be in the office at noon. This is our overlap day.”

  Looking reluctant, Hurley leaves. As soon as I hear the bedroom door close, I pry myself loose of the toilet seat and walk over to the shower. I feel a little light-headed, but my legs are steady.

  A minute later, I’ve got the shower going as hot as I can stand it. I climb in, shut the door, and stand under the stream, feeling the warmth move through my bod
y. The combination of heat and washing refreshes me to some degree. And the fact that I’m able to take an entire shower and wash my hair without another attack of the runs is encouraging.

  Half an hour later, I’m dried off, wrapped in a flannel nightgown, and cozy beneath the covers of my bed. In a matter of seconds, I fall asleep.

  I awaken a bit later, once again stirred from my slumber by painful, warning rumblings in my lower belly. A glance at the clock and I see that I’ve managed to sleep for nearly two hours, a very encouraging sign. I make another trip to the porcelain throne, but this time, I can tell things are winding down. A few faint waves of nausea hit me, but they’re minor and fade quickly. I even feel the beginning pangs of hunger. It takes a lot to make me lose my appetite.

  I make a test run with a glass of water, the ice-cold fluid a welcome balm to my dry, irritated throat. I’m not sure if it’s going to stay down, and wait with some trepidation. But not only does it stay down, my body is telling me to give it more. Just to be safe, I go back to the bedroom, grab the medicine box from the closet shelf, and repeat the dose of the antidiarrheal medicine. Then I venture downstairs to the kitchen.

  * * *

  I find a sleepy-eyed Emily and a bright-eyed Matthew both seated at the table in our kitchen nook.

  Emily looks surprised to see me. “You’re not supposed to be down here,” she says. “Dad said you looked like death warmed over and would probably spend the day in bed.”

  “I thought I might at one point, but I’m feeling better now. In fact, I want to try to eat a little something.”

  Emily hops out of her chair. “Sit down,” she says. “I’ll fix you whatever you want.”

  “Thank you, Em,” I say with genuine gratitude. My legs are still a little shaky so I’m happy to take the seat, though I have to step over Hoover to get to it. “Maybe just a piece of toast with a little bit of strawberry jelly, and a cup of tea. If I do okay with that, I might try to graduate myself to a cup of coffee.”

  Matthew, who up until now has stayed unusually quiet, looks at me with innocent, wide-eyed concern. “Mammy sick?” he says.

  “A little,” I say with a smile. “But it’s getting better.”

  It is getting better. The tea Emily makes for me feels warm and soothing as I drink it, and the toast settles my stomach. There are still some ominous rumblings lower down in my gut, but for the moment, Mount Vesuvius doesn’t seem inclined to erupt. I feel good enough, in fact, I decide to go into work. The urgent need to find Liesel’s sister, Lily, is uppermost in my mind. That, and the horrible, dead expression on Kurt Paulsen’s face. I know that if I try to stay home the case will haunt me all day long.

  I go upstairs and dress, slipping a couple of doses of the medicine into the pockets of my slacks. Though I’m reasonably confident the cause of my GI upset was the tuna I ate last night, I decide not to kiss Matthew good-bye, just in case it turns out to be something viral. I blow him a kiss instead, do the same to Emily, and head out to the garage.

  It’s cold enough in the garage to make me gasp, so it comes as no surprise that the hearse gasps a little, too, when I try to start it. I let it warm up for a minute or so with the garage door open before pulling out, and check out the weather on my cell phone while I wait. The threatened storm is still on its way, due to arrive this afternoon, with predictions for somewhere around a foot of snow, galelike winds, large drifts, and a teeth-chattering high temperature of twelve degrees. With the wind chill calculated in, that twelve will feel more like minus twenty.

  I’m barely down my driveway, about to pull onto the main road, when my cell phone rings. It’s Izzy, and I curse before answering, thinking that it must be a death call.

  “What’s up, Izzy?”

  “My car won’t start,” he says irritably. “I would take Dom’s car, but he has some kind of theater thing going on this afternoon, so I don’t want to leave him stranded. He can drive me in, but it means bundling Juliana up and loading her into the car, and I thought maybe you could at least give me a ride into the office if you’re not there already.”

  “Your timing is perfect,” I tell him. “I’m just turning onto the county highway now. I’ll be at your house in ten minutes.”

  “You’re a lifesaver.”

  “Used to be,” I reply. “But thanks to you, I now get to figure out the life enders.”

  * * *

  I disconnect the call and pull out onto the highway. Picking up Izzy requires a slight detour from my normal commute, and I end up driving past the entrance to the driveway of my old house, the one I used to share with my ex-husband, David, although the house we lived in no longer exists. It burned to the ground a couple of years ago, not long after I moved out. Fortunately, the house was well insured, and the settlement helped to provide me with a nice cash payment in the divorce. The settlement also provided David with a new wife, as he started dating and eventually married Patty Volker, our insurance agent.

  As I pass the driveway, I see a car waiting to pull out onto the road. Behind the wheel is Patty. She waves at me and smiles as I go by—thanks to the hearse, I’m sure she knew it was me when I was still several hundred feet away—and I return the gesture with a wave and smile of my own. Even in the short amount of time it takes me to pass, my limited view of her, and the distance between us, I can easily see the changes that have taken place in her recently. She is pregnant—due to deliver any day—and has the round, slightly puffy, almost moon-shaped face of a woman on the verge of motherhood.

  I pull into the driveway to Izzy’s house, located several hundred feet farther down the road, and watch in the rearview mirror as Patty drives by. I hope she and David will be happy, because I genuinely like Patty. But I also know things are a little tense for them right now, for some reasons Patty is aware of, and some I suspect she isn’t.

  My ex, David, who is currently the only general surgeon in town—though recruitment efforts are about to pay off with the addition of a woman general surgeon—has been navigating a rocky road through life lately. Hurley and I investigated a series of deaths several months ago that turned out to be connected to one another, and to some deaths that happened thirty years ago, deaths that involved my father. Over a period of time and with the help of an eager young news reporter, a group of pharmaceutical company executives were recently exposed, indicted, arrested, and prosecuted for hiding complications associated with certain drugs they were pushing. A number of physicians, legislators, judges, and other government personnel were swept up in the mess, too. David, more or less unknowingly—I’ve given him the benefit of the doubt here—received some well-disguised kickbacks for prescribing one of these drugs, a weight-loss medication that had the potential for some serious and often fatal side effects. One of his patients died because of it, and when I learned about the cover-up, its history, and David’s involvement—which I realized also involved me at one point, since I traveled with him twice on trips that might have been hidden bribes—I convinced David to go to the authorities, throw himself on their mercy, and offer to be their whistleblower.

  He wasn’t keen on the idea at first, but when I caught him making a little too nice with his new office nurse, I basically shamed and then blackmailed him into doing it by threatening to reveal his latest dalliance to Patty. He reluctantly complied, and the resultant fallout had been nothing short of spectacular, in a bad way. The investigation rapidly made it from the local news into the national and international news, and the net cast by the authorities was a wide one. The guppies involved, people like David and some of his associates—other doctors who presumably participated in these kickback schemes without fully understanding the ramifications—were tiny bites low down on the food chain. They were punished with minor reprimands that consisted of hand slaps and fines, with the hope that these bottom-feeders would then lead to some of the bigger fish in the pond.

  The investigation rocked the medical world, and there were, and still are, some very unhappy and suspicious swimm
ers in that cesspool of a pond. There was an assumption that someone, somewhere, started the ball rolling by stepping up as a whistleblower, and while the identity of that person is as yet unknown—at least as far as I know—the acrimony expressed by those swept up in the net was, and still is, nothing short of incendiary. Speculation has been constant, and a lot of people have stuck their suspicious noses into Sorenson’s medical business because of the deaths that happened here, and some of the local people who were indicted.

  I’ve spoken briefly with David a few times since it all came out, and he’s as nervous as a blind man navigating a floor covered with thumbtacks, worried that he’ll be outed. I’d feel sorry for him if it weren’t for the whole cheating-on-his-new-wife thing. I thought he’d learned a lesson when he cheated on me, but, apparently, that old adage about the leopard and his spots is true. At least he’s making an effort once again, or appears to be doing so. He fired the nurse involved and hired a new one named Myna, who has all the charm, warmth, and personality of a T. rex. No one knows for sure how old Myna is, but her face has more creases in it than a crumpled piece of paper, the staffers call her Methuselah behind her back, and I overheard someone say her driver’s license was written in hieroglyphics.

  I don’t know if Patty knows about the office-nurse affair, but I figure Myna will eliminate some temptation for David. Of course, temptation can be found anywhere—particularly if one is as much of a hound dog as David seems to be—and given David’s track record thus far, I wouldn’t be surprised if he strays again. He swears he’s turned over a new leaf, and I hope it’s true for Patty’s sake, but I fear it’s Eve’s fig leaf he’s turned over so he can get to what’s underneath.

  * * *

  I honk my horn once I’ve pulled up behind the garage to Izzy’s house and he hurries out a moment later, his head hunkered down inside his coat against the cold. He whips open the passenger door and drops into the seat, bringing a blast of frigid air with him. Then he practically falls out of the car while reaching for the door handle so he can pull it closed. It finally shuts with a solid whump and Izzy shivers so hard that I can feel it through the bench seat.