Part 13 (2/2)

Two miles in we found a clandestine methamphetamine lab.

By the time we arrived, the cooks were long gone, although the lab was still brewing product. We called the county sheriff's office and roped off the area until an environmental cleanup company could dispose of the chemicals.

We'd hosed and scrubbed our boots thoroughly, but the possibility remained that one or more of us had dragged some poison back to the station. Holly had not been there. Nor had I seen her in person afterward. But what if, asked Ben Arden, the symptoms of exposure to a meth lab were similar to our symptoms?

The deputy chief for Bellevue said he'd researched drug labs after the Bellevue department found two inside their city limits. While the health effects of the various chemical compounds used in manufacturing methamphetamines were onerous-including, in the short term, headaches, nausea, dizziness, decreased mental function, shortness of breath, and chest pain, which none of us had experienced back in May-the longer-term reactions included cancer, brain damage, miscarriages, heart problems, and even death. The chemicals involved could range from toluene, anhydrous ammonia, and ether to even phosgene gas.

I had to admit some of those symptoms were chronicled in Beebe's seven-day cycle. All in all, though, it appeared unlikely that the drug lab was the cause of our problems.

It was suggested that there were any number of scenarios in which our loved ones might be potential victims, that our causal agent might be chemical, bacterial, or viral, that Jackie's husband, McCain's wife, and Beebe's children were at risk and should be examined. It hadn't occurred to me until that moment, but it was possible I had placed Britney and Allyson in danger. Morgan Neumann might have it, or Morgan's mother, Helen.

Was it possible I'd tracked a virus into the house on my shoes, that Allyson and Britney, who liked to traipse around the house barefoot, had picked it up on the soles of their feet? Could it be that I was going to be brain-dead in June, that my daughters would follow in July?

The thought paralyzed me.

For many long minutes I found it difficult to follow the discussion, unable to move or speak.

The fire department had been my life, as well as the source of a great deal of good in our family. It had given us the money to pay our bills and put food on the table, a roof over our heads. Now I was forced to confront the possibility that it might also be the worst thing that ever happened to us.

By the time I'd regained my senses, the discussion was waning.

A study group was formed consisting of Steve Haston, myself, a captain from Eastside Fire and Rescue, Ms. Mulherin, Dr. Brashears, and one other to be named later. Our first committee meeting would be on Monday.

By Monday I would be strapped into a wheelchair.

They could wheel me in as exhibit number one.

I don't know what I had expected. These people all had jobs and lives to go back to. I didn't have anything but waxy hands, a headache, and the dilemma of how to tell my daughters they were going to be fatherless. It was clear I was on my own here. These people weren't going to save me.

Steve Haston closed the meeting with a lengthy speech, the longest of the day, and it was while he orated that I began to suspect he had preselected himself as the next head of the fire department. Why not? All the rest of us would be over at Alpine Estates sucking mush. This was all speculation on my part, but it was so like Haston, who seemed to reinvent himself every five to ten years. He'd been a cop. A musician in a string band. An accountant. A cuckold. A mayor. Why not fire chief?

The syndrome seemed to have given me a sixth sense. Yesterday I'd known what Stephanie Riggs was going to say several times before she said it and had actually completed a couple of sentences for her. This morning at Continental Freightways I knew exactly how to terrorize Cleve. Now I knew Haston was angling for the chief's job.

As the meeting disbanded, Brashears motioned that he wanted to talk to me in private. After the room emptied, he said, ”What day are you on?”

”You think anybody else noticed?”

”Not that I could tell.”

”Day three.”

”You seeing a doctor?”

”Yes.”

”You need anything at all, get in touch. I mean that.”

”I will.”

The thought that he was speaking to a dead man made Brashears look at the walls, the carpet, anything but me. Then, without another word, he left.

25. WHAT WE GOT HERE IS A NICKEL HOLDING UP A DOLLAR.

Outside on the sidewalk, Ms. Mulherin cornered me. She stood so close and was so short that she had to look almost straight up at me, her neck cranked back at an angle that reminded me of a worm on a hook. For a moment I thought she'd made the same observation Brashears had and was going to talk about it here on the sidewalk in front of G.o.d and everybody.

Ms. Mulherin said, ”Organophosphates. Have you thought about that?”

”I've been kind of-”

”Because they're everywhere. If you think about it. Parathion. Malathion. Pesticides are everywhere. And if you think about it, organophosphates are readily translocated in living organisms. Have you thought about this?”

”I'm sure that's more in line with your expertise than mine.”

”Yes, well, uh-huh. Hmmm. I'm sure you know generally with organophosphates you see symptoms within two hours. Difficulty swallowing, loss of appet.i.te, nausea, vomiting, abdominal cramps, and even diarrhea. Was any of this reported?” She had a face that had seen too much sun, lines around her eyes, even around her ears. Her lips were almost nonexistent, as if she were trying to suck a straw some jokester had put a pea in. ”You think I could visit your fire station with some of my grad students? We might be able to pick up traces of-”

”Be my guest. Show up whenever you like.”

”Maybe at the end of the week?”

”Fine by me.” She was going to write a paper on this. I could see it. She was going to gain prestige in the academic world standing on our dead bodies. To her, we were organisms to be studied, questioned, dissected, and eventually autopsied.

The King County Executive, who'd been glad-handing on the sidewalk with some of the other partic.i.p.ants, came over and interrupted Ms. Mulherin, as if interrupting was something he'd been commissioned to do by the county. He was a tall man, almost as tall as my six-three, though easily fifty or sixty pounds heavier, most of it in his belly.

”Look, Swope,” he said. ”A couple of the Eastside guys were talking, and they seem to think you folks probably got into some rat poison or something. Don't get me wrong. It's not that I'm not backing you. Because I am. It's just that I need to see more evidence before I can commit to anything. Right now I'm about as convinced there's an epidemic as I'm convinced cows can fly.” Mulherin gave him a dry look. ”You get some proof, come see me. We'll take it to the governor, you and I together.”

The combination of Mulherin's detached ghoulishness and this man's coldly reasoned incredulity lit a fuse in me.

”I get some proof,” I said, ”I'll take it to the news, and the first thing I'll tell them is you were stalling while the public health was at risk. That people turning into vegetables wasn't something you had time for.”

”Now, now, now. What I said was-”

”f.u.c.k what you said!”

I turned and walked away. n.o.body concealed what they were thinking better than a former devout follower of the Sixth Element of the Saints of Christ, so the burst of anger surprised me almost as much as it did him.

I'd cooled off by the time I found the girls in the rec room, knocking b.a.l.l.s around on the billiard table. Morgan was officiating good-naturedly. After a few words of encouragement, I went into the officers' room, where I dialed Holly's home number in Tacoma.

It rang eight times before I heard Holly on the answering machine.

The sound of her voice choked me up.

I left a brief message and dialed Tacoma General. After a few minutes, a woman informed me Dr. Riggs was no longer affiliated with the hospital.

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