He smiled. Whenever a woman asked if she could give him advice, he inevitably got it, wanted or not.
“You better take care,” she continued, without waiting for his permission.
“In what sense?”
“You don’t get it, do you?”
“How do you mean?”
“If you’re right about Bessie, Victor, and Dr. Garnet, you could be next.”
3:45 P.M.
New York City Hospital
Mark’s phone call and the news about Victor Feldt galvanized Earl, made him realize the extent this business might be a killing game. It sent his mind racing through possible scenarios – when he wasn’t writhing in pain.
If he’d been deliberately poisoned, and the bug was indeed E. coli 0157:H7, then the normal incubation before the onset of symptoms was three to nine days, but sometimes as short as two. It could have been slipped into his food or drink anytime since he arrived in New York last Saturday up to Tuesday evening.
The reception? Unlikely, since no one else was sick – unless someone hired a rogue waiter to do the job. The same went for the hotel. But why increase the chances of getting caught by bringing in an outsider who might later blab everything to the police? The smart thing would be to act alone.
So when?
In the bustle of the hospital cafeteria? Someone could have been close to him in line, slipped something into his food or drink. But that raised other questions. How would the person have transferred the organism to his food? The easiest way to transport it would have been in water. But he would have noticed if someone had soaked his plate – unless it was added to an already full cup or glass. Or was in such a small quantity he wouldn’t have detected it. Still, the pouring move would be tricky, since the person would likely have used a sort of container and acted when nobody was looking. With a lot of people around, somebody else might easily see. No that wasn’t it-
“Dr. Garnet?” Tanya Wozcek poked her head in the door, greeting him with a big smile. “How are you feeling?”
The pain only lapped at his innards for the moment, temporarily spent. “Okay, I guess.” As she approached his bedside, he tensed.
She eyed his IV bags and checked the rate of flow. “Everything still what you’d expect?”
“Pretty much. Except I’m more goddamned weak than ever.”
She frowned. “I peeked at your test results. Potassium, lytes, and hematocrit – they all seem fine.”
“Well, I sure don’t.”
She studied him, her overly intense gaze flicking to the IV bottle and back to him again. The movement made him uneasy, and a chill swept through him. What did he know about her, anyway? He’d taken her word about her devotion to Bessie McDonald. What if the opposite were true? As Bessie’s nurse, she’d have had an easy time secretly injecting her with anything, including a dose of short-acting insulin. And what better way to mislead him, loudly voicing her suspicions and concern? No, it didn’t make sense. She wouldn’t have had to voice anything to cover up what happened to Bessie. Yet Tanya had raised his own doubts about the coma. If she just kept quiet, most likely he would have dismissed it as an unfortunate but plausible outcome for a woman with a history of strokes, exactly the way everyone else had. Then again, that could all have been a clever way of winning his trust, so she could get close to him.
“Results can be wrong,” she said, her somber expression still disquieting. She reached for the tray of blood-taking equipment that Melanie had left by his bedside. “Let me check them again. I’ll submit the sample under my name, in case someone’s been tampering with your readings.”
She was as paranoid as he needed to be.
Still not entirely certain he trusted her, he gingerly held out his arm. Because he’d seized on a strategy that could bring everything to a head. Let whoever it was make a move. Odds were his would-be assassin had some mortal complication from his toxic E. coli infection planned for him. That meant sooner or later they’d come face-to-face. So get the showdown over with. The trick? To be ready.
Suspect everyone.
Stay alert.
And keep tucked into his bedclothes a handful of syringes. They had three-inch needles that he’d already stolen off the tray of blood-taking equipment. Weak as he was, he could drive them into an eye of the attacker.
Even Tanya’s.
She slid the gleaming tip of her needle into his vein, and he poised himself to spring at the first sign of her doing anything bizarre.
But the woman expertly finished the task, pressed a piece of cotton to the puncture site so it wouldn’t bleed, and smiled. Then she rushed toward the door. “I’m taking this to the lab myself,” she said. “I’ll be back at eleven, when my shift ends.”
Earl loosened his grip on the makeshift weapon but remained tense. He couldn’t stay awake forever; eventually he’d have to hire a security guard. Even then he’d only be delaying an adversary who had already gotten to him once without his knowing. It would also tip him or her off that he, Earl Garnet, was onto the fact he was a target. Unless Janet hired the people in the guise of a twenty-four-hour nursing service. Still, better to chance luring the killer in now, while this creep still believed Earl to be unprotected as well as unaware. Having already refused any more Demerol, he counted on pain to keep him from falling asleep, at least until morning. If by then nothing had happened, he’d ask Janet to bring on the watchdogs.
As he lay waiting, the afternoon light waned, and a thickening sludge of dirty brown smog nuzzled the window.
Chapter 16
That same Friday, November 23, 6:55 P.M.
Hampton Junction
Mark’s attempts to reach the doctors on Victor’s list had proved futile. All were gone for the day, and he’d ended up talking to machines or leaving messages with tired-sounding operators at their answering services.
The last thing he felt like doing was eating dinner at Nell’s.
On the other hand, Lucy was adamant they go. “If the woman knows anything about these places,” she said, folding up her spreadsheets of statistics and sticking them in her purse, “I want to talk with her.”
“She’s not going to look at a bunch of numbers.”
“They’re for me to use, like notes, to guide me in what questions to ask.”
“Such as?”
“I won’t know until she talks to me.” She slipped the strap of her purse over her shoulder and walked out the front door.
Mark followed her to the Jeep, once more with the uneasy feeling that she was leaving something out. He took a breath of the crisp air, trying to clear his head. Dealing with Victor all day had occupied his thoughts, but now they roamed freely through all the other unknowns that were piling up, as foreboding as thunderheads. He couldn’t shake his fear about Earl being in danger, so much so that he’d tried to phone Melanie again, figuring she could ensure a security guard would be at his door. But he’d only reached her answering service. Pulling out of the driveway, he started to call Nell on his cellular, then hesitated, his finger suspended over the number pad.
One way someone could have known that Victor had found something suspicious at Nucleus Laboratories might be a phone tap. Mark recalled that on the night of the break-in, he’d found the clock on his phone stand slightly out of position. Someone could have been trying to place a tap on the line. And how would the person who shot at him know when he’d be driving on the road from Nell’s? Maybe those damn clicks weren’t the usual problem with his line.