The Volcano That Changed The World (5 page)

“
I think it best if you move out.” There, finally he said it. It wasn’t easy, but it was done. A brief sense of relief swept over him.

             
Sara Jo’s face registered her shock and then she began to cry. That, too, passed quickly, replaced by anger. She jumped off the couch, dropping her glass, and ran toward Mark. As he stood up, she began pounding on this chest with both fists, yelling, “You can’t break up with me! You can’t break up with me! I need you! How dare you!”

             
He did nothing to stop her, standing there absorbing every blow. Perhaps he deserved them. He found it interesting that the word “love” never was mentioned by her. The blows softened and she collapsed at his feet, sobbing uncontrollably.

She begged him to give her a second chance
; said that she was close to finding a job. Things would improve then.

Mark almost relented.
Maybe he had made a mistake. He did love her after all. But she made him unhappy, and wasn’t love supposed to work the other way?

In the end, he helped he
r pack a few of her things, called her father, and she left with a mixture of anger and tears, saying, “I hate you for this.”

The call to the dean was one of the most difficult calls he ever had to make. Dean Miller
was very upset at first but later appeared to understand. Remarkably, their friendship seemed to remain strong, and Mark never felt that the dean held a grudge against him.

Not
Sara Jo. She most certainly did hold a grudge. The breakup had been devastating for her. She did not want to see him, even sending friends to collect her remaining items from his house. He hadn’t seen her, talked to her, or heard from her for six months.

And
now, here she was, standing right in front of him, next to his hospital bed.

A voice inside his head said, “Hell must have frozen over.” He almost smiled, but then he remembered that it was he who almost froze over.

***

His headache was subsiding and his vision was clearing. He studied Sara Jo, saying nothing. She was as beautiful as he had remembered and her presence stirred his emotions, but thankfully, he had no residual feelings for her. She was in his past; at least that’s what he told himself.

“How are you, Mark?”
Her voice trembled and Mark noticed her body did as well.

He wanted to say, “Over
you thank you very much.” Luckily, his brain had thawed sufficiently that his mental checks and balances were restored, censoring his thoughts before they exited his mouth. Instead he said, “I’m fine I think—almost completely thawed out.”

S
he said sympathetically, “I heard about the problem in the ice core lab. How terrible!”

“Thanks,
” was all he could manage.

Something bumped the wall in the adjacent room, dis
tracting him. Looking around for the first time, Mark didn’t see any clocks, but light filtered in through a window to his left. “What time is it anyway? How long have I been sleeping? For that matter, what day is it?”

“Are you sure you’
re okay?” She sounded genuinely concerned.

“I think so; I feel
fine. Just a bit of a headache is all.” He tried to reassure himself.

“It’s
five p.m., Friday, May twenty-second. A security guard found you early this morning and you’ve been in the infirmary all day.”

Sara Jo stepped forward and touched his arm.
Her tenderness surprised him. He wasn’t sure how to react.

She said
, “My father reluctantly asked if I would come and convey his regards. He didn’t want to impose on me but had a day full of meetings including a dinner meeting and couldn’t get away. He hopes to see you tomorrow.”

Pausing momentarily, she continued, “Truth is, I wanted
to come anyway, to see if you were okay, and I told him so.”

“Thanks.”
Mark wondered why she wanted to see him. He felt a hint of their old connection when times were good.

Before he
could say more, there was a knock at his door. He looked up to see Shannon and Shadron Taylor.

At that point
, the connection was broken and Sara Jo excused herself. “I’m glad you’re recovering so well. I’ll let my father know. I should go now so you can be with your company.”

Then she added,
“Make sure you rest. Don’t rush the healing process like I know you are prone to do.” She touched his arm again, said goodbye, and turned.

“Thanks for coming, Sara Jo, and please give my regards to your father.”

As she exited the room, Mark could not help but observe her backside. He remembered the first time they met. She certainly had some admirable attributes. He thought about their relationship, if only…

Shannon and Shadron walked over to his bedside, bringing him back to the present. “How are you Dr. M?” Shannon asked with concern in his voice.

Mark smiled reas
suringly. “I feel like a thawed-out popsicle. It’s just my luck to almost freeze to death in Florida. That must be a first.”

Shannon chuckled,
and said, “You made the front page in the Panama City newspaper.”

Shaking his head, Mark said, “There’s something to add to my resume.”

“We missed you in class today. Do you think you’ll be back on Monday?” Shannon asked.

“I’ll know more when I talk with the doctor, but I think I should be there
,” Mark responded optimistically.

During this time,
Shadron, standing behind Shannon, remained quiet, but Mark noticed she appeared especially attractive, almost radiant.

Politely including her in the conversation, Mark asked, “How are you doing, Shadron?”

“I’m okay now. I didn’t feel well earlier this morning. I may be coming down with something and probably shouldn’t get too close.”

Following an awkward pause, Shannon said, “Well
, Dr. M, we just wanted to stop by and see how you were. We should leave and let you rest.”

“I appreciate you stopping by
, and if you talk to any of the other students, please let them know that I’m fine and should return to class soon.”

“I will,” Shannon promised.

Saying goodbye, they turned and left.

They had only been gone a few minutes when a middle-aged man with dark black hair appeared at his door. The man, looking very official, wore a grey business suit, white shirt, and solid green tie.

Stretching out his hand, he introduced himself.
“I’m Detective Carter, Matt Carter, with the Tallahassee Police Department.” He had an accent but it wasn’t southern.

The detective shook Mark’s right hand, the one without the IV.

Taken slightly aback, Mark asked, “What can I do for you, Detective?”

In a no-nonsense manner, he said,
“Are you feeling up to answering a few questions?”

“I think so. Why?”

“I’m here to discuss last night’s incident on campus at the Antarctic Research Facility. What were you doing in the laboratory so late?”

“
I was working late verifying a breakthrough I had made earlier in the day. Why do you ask?”

Detective Carter ignored Mark’s question
. He kept staring at him. “Have we met before?”

“Not that I recall. Why?”

“You look familiar.” Shaking off his memory search for where he had previously seen Malloy, he continued his interrogation. “What time did you visit the lab?”

Mark thought a moment. “
You know, I happen to remember. It was a little before two a.m. when I went into the lab. I had just written an email and noticed the time on my computer.”

The detective wrote
on a small spiral tablet. Looking up, he asked, “Do you remember what happened?”

“
Yes. I found what I was looking for pretty quickly—in about five minutes—and I was about to exit the lab when the door malfunctioned and I was trapped inside.”

He added somewhat sheepishly, “I thought I would
only be in the lab for a few minutes and I didn’t follow protocol and wear proper clothing. At that time of night, once locked inside, there was no way I was able to contact anyone.”

Thinking a moment, Mark explained,
“A better communication system is planned when we have the budget. I could have used that last night.”

The detective
again took notes on his small notepad. When he finished, he looked Mark straight in the eyes. “Dr. Malloy, that door didn’t malfunction.”

Mark was confused. “What do you mean?
I couldn’t get it open. If it didn’t malfunction, why didn’t the door open?”

             
“Dr. Malloy, someone tampered with the door. It looks like the keypad was pried away from the wall and the wires were cut, locking the door in place so you couldn’t exit. A depression in the dry wall next to the keypad is consistent with a screwdriver being used for leverage, so anyone with a screwdriver and wire cutters could have sabotaged the door.”

             
“Sabotage!” The strange sounds Mark had heard coming from the door suddenly made more sense. “I did hear noises outside the door but didn’t understand them at the time. But who would want to sab—”

“
You heard something? What did you hear?” Carter quickly followed up.

“
What sounded like a loud pop, a bang followed by a couple of clicks,” Mark recalled, his heart pounding.

C
arter scribbled hastily on his notepad.

             
Looking up, he said, “Dr. Malloy, it appears that someone tried to kill you and if it hadn’t been for the security guard, they may have succeeded. I’m here to investigate this as an attempted murder. Your question of ‘who’ is exactly what we need to find out.”

             
Mark was stunned. He had difficulty absorbing what he was hearing. Why would anyone want to kill him? Now he wanted to know what happened after he lost consciousness. “How did the security guard find me?”

             
Detective Carter referred to his notes. “He was making his normal rounds first thing early this morning and spotted the disabled door. The keypad was off the wall and wires were hanging out. He hit an emergency override, opened the door, and found you on the floor.”

Carter flipped
pages in his notepad and continued. “The guard pulled you out and called the emergency medical techs. My understanding from the doctor is that he found you just in time. Your body temperature had dropped to about eighty-five degrees. Most people die if their body temperature drops below eighty degrees. You’ve been here ever since, receiving warm fluids intravenously to thaw you out.”

Carter looked up at Mark, “Because this was an attempted murder, the campus police contacted the city police department.”

“An attempted murder,” repeated Mark as he felt his head begin throbbing once again. He closed his eyes tightly trying to make the pain subside.

“Are you okay?”

“Yes, I think so,” Mark said softly, opening his eyes.

             
The detective flipped to a blank page and looked back at Mark. “I know it’s difficult, but can you think of anyone who might want to kill you?”

             
Mark considered the question. He had never thought about it before. His mind was blank. Why does anybody want to kill anybody? Why would anyone want to kill me? “No, I don’t think so—I can’t even think who—or why—”

             
“Dr. Malloy, has anyone recently threatened you?”

             
Suddenly Mark thought of his strange encounter with Bolton. It couldn’t be—Bolton was an angry man, but
murder
? “There is another professor,” he said dutifully. “But his threat was to keep me from receiving tenure, not to kill me.”

             
“Who is this professor?” Carter asked.

             
“Professor Sam Bolton.”

             
Carter scribbled. “Does he know the code to the door?”

             
“But if a screw driver was used to sabotage the door, why is knowing the code important?”

             
“Dr. Malloy, whoever sabotaged the inner door used the code to enter the outer door to the lab. So please answer my question.”

             
“I’m sorry. You’re right. I’m not thinking straight right now. Yes, Dr. Bolton knows the code, but many geology professors and their students know that code.” Mark considered this. Anyone of these professors or students could have entered the outer chamber, then using a screwdriver and wire cutters, sabotaged the door to the inner chamber.

             
“We’ll need a list of everyone with that code.”