“We won’t get in trouble?” Phil finally asked.
“Not unless you did something against the law.”
“We didn’t do nothing,” Danny complained.
“What happened, then?”
After a long pause, during which the food lay ignored before them, Phil finally said, “We didn’t think people would believe us. We weren’t all around the fire-that was just Danny and me. We didn’t even know Milo was in the tunnel.”
“We heard him, though,” Danny said, excited now that he could say what he knew.
“Yeah. He was making all kinds of weird noises-shouting and yelling-sounded like he was fighting somebody.”
“We were scared.”
Phil frowned. “We wondered what was goin’ on, so we shouted into the tunnel, you know? We didn’t know it was Milo. Didn’t recognize his voice or anything. ’Course, the echo didn’t help. After a while, the noise stopped, and we could hear somebody moving-”
“Yeah-shhhhh.”
“Right, like he was dragging himself along. We weren’t about to go in there-”
“Too scary.” Danny was alive with excitement by now.
“But that’s when Milo came out, crawling on his belly. His eyes were huge, and he had spit coming out of his mouth-tons of it-all thick and gooey. Scared the shit out of us.”
“Yeah.”
“He looked real sick, and just when we could tell who he was, he started spazzing out, flopping all over, banging himself against the walls… And spitting. That was the weirdest part-he kept spitting.”
“What did you do?” I asked, feeling the cold much more than I had a minute earlier, a long-dormant horror now thoroughly awake.
“We didn’t know what to do.”
“I ran,” Danny admitted candidly.
Phil made a face. “Yeah, well, I didn’t think he was going to hurt anybody-’cept maybe himself. I figured it was the DTs, you know? But I guess I knew it wasn’t, too. Anyway, he was sort of reaching out for me, so I offered him a drink-I had a can in my hand-and that’s when he just flipped out-”
“He was crazy,” Danny said.
“And then he died,” Phil added flatly. “Just collapsed, right in the middle of one of those… Things he was having.”
“So they weren’t really seizures?” I asked.
Phil shook his head. “I had a cousin who had seizures-fall on the ground and get all stiff and then fall asleep-pee all over himself. Milo wasn’t doing that. He was gasping and shouting and flopping around… Like when you get hit with freezing-cold water-you know how you dance around and breathe hard and slap yourself? It was kind of like that.”
“What did you do after he died?” I asked.
“We didn’t know what had happened,” Phil said. “First I thought we should just leave him there-let somebody else find him. But Danny said that was wrong. So we cleaned him up a little, invented the seizure story, and called you guys.” He paused for a moment. “Are we in trouble now?”
I thought he might be, but not in any way he could possibly imagine. “You’ve done nothing illegal, Phil.”
His face relaxed, and he looked down at the cardboard tray before him, poking among the fried potatoes.
“But,” I added, “I’d like you to do me a favor. Hang out here for a few more hours, okay? I want to make sure your landlord’s going to hold up his end of the deal, and I want to know where to find you. Okay?”
Both men shrugged simultaneously. “Sure,” Phil said and motioned toward the two trays. “We’re in good shape now, anyway.”
I left them and drove straight back to the office. Still wearing my coat, I reached for my phone.
Decades earlier, while in the Army in Asia, we were shown a cautionary training film about some of the perils of our new environment. It was a silent film, with no voice-over or music, featuring a middle-aged, bearded Indian man sitting on a straight-backed chair in a small, bare room. On a table beside him was a single glass of water.
For twenty minutes the camera watched as the man, his face contorted and his body twitching, made every effort to take hold of the glass. His eyes huge, rolling, and totally focused on the water, he seemed desperately thirsty-and yet utterly incapable of simply seizing the glass before him. Finally, in a spastic lunge, spilling most of the water, he succeeded, although he still couldn’t bring the glass to his lips.
Thick saliva poured from his mouth, impregnating his beard and dripping down his front. His body thrashed against the opposing forces tearing him apart as he fought to bring the now empty glass almost to his lips. Then, finally, mercifully for those of us watching the film, he suddenly stiffened and rolled off the chair, dead of hydrophobia.
Beverly Hillstrom answered on the second ring.
“Lieutenant. You’re in earlier than I expected. I was going to call you later. I have disappointing news on Mr. Douglas. I can find nothing to contradict the opinion originally rendered on his death certificate.”
“Doctor, I just interviewed the two men who found him. They invented the seizure story to make the whole thing go away, but from what they just told me, I think Milo died of rabies.”
Her answer was short and precise. “I’ll call you back.”
11
“Okay, everybody,” I began, “we might as well get started.” I held up a copy of that morning’s newspaper. “As you can see, the Reformer has nothing to say about Shawna Davis today. Perhaps we can thank Ben Chambers for that. But whatever the reason, it gives us a small breather, just when we may need it.”
We were all in the squad’s conference room-Kunkle, Tyler, Sammie, Ron, and I, along with Tony Brandt and Jack Derby.
I dropped the paper onto the table we were gathered around. “From our perspective, the crucial difference between what we know and what we’re admitting is the phenobarbital we found in Shawna Davis’s hair. That distinction makes her death a homicide, at least until proven otherwise. I’d like to keep that distinction under wraps for as long as we can.
“You’ve all read the internal reports. You know how we’ve traced Shawna’s movements up to a couple of weeks before she died. Last night, in response to a tip we received because of yesterday’s article, Sammie and I talked to Mary Wallis, who admitted knowing Shawna and to last seeing her in late May. Wallis denied any knowledge of the thousand dollars, claimed Shawna only dropped by for the day on her way out of town, and said she’d only just learned about Shawna’s death from yesterday’s news reports. Sammie and I think there’s a lot she’s not saying. Mary Wallis, therefore, has become a prime suspect. But not only,” I added with emphasis, “because of her being seen with Shawna in May. Wallis also abruptly dropped her opposition to the convention center project shortly thereafter, just as the groundbreaking was taking place-a crucial piece of good luck for the developers. That may be a coincidence, but it’s one we shouldn’t ignore.”
I noticed Sammie’s surprised look at this additional piece of the puzzle-something I hadn’t had time to brief her on before.
“Unfortunately,” and here I waved a hand in Jack Derby’s direction, “by soft-pedaling our findings about Shawna, we also become the only ones treating her death as a homicide. That gives us a break from the press, but it also forces us to tiptoe with the investigation, including our communications with the State’s Attorney’s office. In the past, we’ve made it a habit-a good one, I think-to use his staff pretty freely for legal advice on warrants, affidavits, and whatnot. In a situation like this one, however, where the homicide may have wider implications, both the chief and Mr. Derby have decided that we better use a single conduit to his office-a person who will either directly answer our questions or pass them on to Mr. Derby. That person,” and here I felt my face flushing slightly, “is going to be Gail Zigman.”
There was a slight but telling stirring around the table, reflecting the same discomfort I’d felt when Derby had told me of his decision. Gail was not a lawyer yet, not a deputy state’s attorney, and her contract with the office was only good for six months. The use of a single conduit for sensitive cases was reasonable and routine enough. Using the temporary clerk as such was unheard of.