Always Watching (26 page)

Chapter 21

My paranoia spiked when Zack told Johnny
he’d wait for us in the car.

“
Us?”

“
We’ve got to make a
statement about Danny’s murder, Helen.”

“
That’s got absolutely
nothing to do with me,” I said.  “I’m not a cop anymore. 
Remember?”

Crevan slithered out of the office before
the argument became spectacular.

“
You’re consulting –
officially – and you were present at the jail when he was
murdered.  You shot the FBI agent who killed him, Helen. 
Like it or not, you’re in the thick of this.  Now I’m not
making you speak to the press about what happened, but we all think
it would be a good idea if you’re seen working with us, that the
public understands that we sought your expertise because of the
number of child abduction cases you worked in the course of your
career.”

“
You’re spinning this so
we don’t look bad because an FBI agent died.”

“
Do you think that’s the
wrong approach?”

“
I think you don’t need to
be sarcastic about it.  He shouldn’t have died from that
shoulder wound, Johnny.  I realize I might be a little rusty
after a couple of months away from the action, but my aim was dead
on for the brachial nerve.  It should’ve hurt like hell, made
him drop his weapon and incapacitated him.  He shouldn’t have
died.”

“
Maya says she’s got
preliminary cause of death on Datello, Preston and the microbiology
report on Villanueva.”

“
That culture shouldn’t be
done for several more hours.”

“
Preliminary
.  Did you miss that
part?”  Johnny frowned and peered at me intently. 
“What’s with this mood all of a sudden?  Did I piss you off
again?”

“
Maya could call me
–”

“
I think she wants to
explain her results in person.  I don’t know, Doc.  She
sounded pretty psyched about whatever it is she’s got.  The
way you two speak the same language, I figured it wouldn’t hurt to
have you there to dumb all of this science stuff down for the rest
of us.  Winslow is clearly challenged in that
regard.”

“
Don’t insult my friend,”
I muttered.

“
I promise I’ll get you
back home as soon as possible.  How’s your stomach feeling
now?”

“
I’m not sick,” I
snapped.  “Just the sight of you men gorging on disgusting
food this morning made me nauseous.”

He held up two hands in supplication. 
“Sorry.  I only asked because I’m concerned, sweetheart.”

For the life of me, I couldn’t figure out
what he said that made me so irritated.  Maybe it was the fact
that he seemed to dislike the notion that I was fully justified in
my distrust over his chivalrous escort home for Melissa
Sherman.

“
I’m not dressed for a
press conference,” I muttered.  In fact, I was still wearing
my comfortable sweat suit cum pajamas.  I hadn’t showered yet
or put on makeup.  I’m sure my hair was a stunning example of
bed-head.

Johnny stepped close cautiously.  He
rubbed a lock of hair between thumb and index finger.  “You
look beautiful, Helen.  Put on a suit and you’re good to
go.”

The mirror told a different story.  Of
all my issues, the hair was easiest to salvage.  I pulled into
a tight bun at the nape of my neck.  Dark half moons bled
under both eyes.  I looked like my DNA was devolving into
something in the Procyon genus.  That aside, my color was
still tinged with a greenish hue.  One wrong culinary misstep
in my presence might result in more violent protest from a stomach
that seemed to be hell bent on producing more acid than ten people
require for digestion.

Johnny’s image appeared
behind me in the mirror.  He held up a gray suit – because
that color would
so
make me look healthy – and kissed my now bare shoulder. 
A jolt of electricity shot through my body.  I moaned, head
rolled back and to the side.  I bared my neck with the clear
intent of his lips wandering at will.

His soft chuckle tickled bumps all over my
skin.  “Now?” he murmured.

“
Bad timing.”

Johnny’s fingers gripped my waist. 
“Tell me.”

“
Your kisses make me
crazy,” I whispered.  “Don’t we have a little
time?”

He nibbled and nipped his way up the side of
my neck.  “We really don’t, but if I promise to make it up to
you later, will that suffice?”

“
How am I supposed to
concentrate on anything now that you’ve got me all worked
up?”

Johnny grinned against my neck.  “Who
knew it was so easy to get you desperate for me?  If I’d known
this months ago, there wouldn’t have been a separation at all,
sweetheart.”  He patted my backside in another tease that
wrung a belly-deep moan out of me.  “C’mon, baby.  Get
dressed.  The sooner we get this done, the quicker we can come
home and take care of you.”

The urge to stomp my feet and pout soured my
mood until I came out of the bathroom and Johnny threaded our
fingers together.

“
I love you,” he
said.

Bastard
.  He played me like a master tickling the ivories of
the grand piano in the living room.  Still, the promise of
what would come later kept my bitter frustration inside.  He
kept up the sensory stimulation all the way to Central
Division.  I wasn’t sure if my legs knew how to walk after all
that stroking of his thumb across the palm of my hand.

Maya was waiting for us in the lobby,
bouncing on the balls of her feet.  Excitement in her eyes
transformed into concern the second she saw me.  “Jesus Christ
and General Jackson, honey, but you really look like you should be
home in bed!”

“
Give it a rest. 
Johnny said you’ve got preliminary results on Preston’s
autopsy.”

“
Well,” she said, “I’ll go
over the easy info first.”  Maya’s eyes roved around the half
circle audience, me, Johnny, Zack and Crevan. 

“
Do you know how Preston
died from being shot in the knee and shoulder?” Johnny
asked

Maya grinned.  “It took some sleuthing
on my part.  I couldn’t figure out how that happened either,
because based on estimated blood loss, this guy didn’t gush enough
to even warrant a small transfusion.  It got me thinking about
clotting factors and such.  You’ll never guess what I
diagnosed.”

“
Please don’t make me try,
Maya.  Remember, I look like shit and need to go home and get
to bed.”  For sex, not rest.  She didn’t need to know
that.

“
Our Agent Preston was a
very poor specimen of physical health,” she said.  “His
arteries were pumping sludge.  He had the body mass index of a
committed couch potato.  As such, with all that sitting, he
was prone to thrombosis.”

“
Shit,” I
rasped.

“
English,” Johnny
said.

“
He had a blood clot,” I
explained briefly.  “Let me guess.  Right
leg.”

“
Bingo,” Maya
grinned.  “Totally unforeseeable consequence was that when you
shot him in the leg, the clot dislodged and went straight to his
lung.”

“
He died of a pulmonary
embolism.”

“
A whatsits?”

“
A blood clot in his lung,
Johnny” I clarified.  “I shot his damn leg, and it dislodged a
clot that might well have killed him anyway.  Son of a
bitch.”

“
Well, I thought you’d be
glad to know this guy was a ticking time bomb without your
intervention, Helen.  He was in serious need of a filter and
anticoagulation, not to mention, a healthier lifestyle.  So
the FBI can scream until the stars fall.  It won’t change the
facts.  He probably would’ve been dead inside a week without
treatment.”

“
And he had no idea that
this was a problem?” Johnny asked.

“
He probably experienced
some dull pain in his leg.  Think heart attack symptom in the
left arm, Johnny, only he felt it in his right leg.  It’s
usually not something that would give anyone too much pause without
the fact that the medical profession has hammered it home that you
pay attention to that kind of arm pain.”

“
And you’re sure the clot
came from his leg?” I asked.

“
Honey, his femoral vein
was very sludgy.  Let’s just say he could’ve thrown an ocean
of clots instead of the big one that killed him.”

“
You’ve got some sort of
inkling what specific bacteria caused Analynn Villanueva’s
pneumonia too?” I asked.  “What did you find?”

“
Vibrio
parahaemolyticus
 pneumonia.”

“
Parahaemolyticus? 
Wait a minute. 
Vibrio
?  Isn’t that what
causes
cholera
?”

“
You’re good
sweetheart.  It is in fact the pathogen that causes
cholera.”

“
But cholera causes
gastroenteritis, not pneumonia.  I’ve never heard of
parahaemolyticus before.  What is it?”

“
It’s a lactose-positive,
gram negative bacillus found in seawater.”

“
She was alive when she
went into the water?  Wait a minute – I thought she died of
pneumonia.”

“
Oh she did.  My bet
is that this little girl had some moxie, Helen.  Let me
explain. Back in the late 1970’s a man was found face down in the
water off the coast of Galveston Island.  He was successfully
resuscitated and seemed to be recovering well until he spiked a
high temperature.  Treatment was initiated but ultimately
failed.  Guess what his cause of death was?”

“
Vibrio
parahaemolyticus
pneumonia.”

“
When you’re good you’re
good, and yes, I’m that good.”  Maya’s inappropriate glibness
never failed to make an appearance.

“
She tried to escape and
aspirated water into her lungs, developed pneumonia and
died.”

“
Yep.  Time of death
was roughly three to six hours before we found her on shore. 
She was probably febrile like crazy at the time of death, so it
could increase the time a bit.  However she was nowhere near
rigor when we found her.  Three to six is a good
estimate.  Her liver temp was barely below normal – hers was
36.4 degrees Celsius.  Normal is 37 degrees Celsius. 
We’ve got a couple of factors here that probably slowed rigor – her
high internal body temperature coupled with the cold water in
Darkwater Bay.  Cold atmospheric temperature tends to slow the
onset of rigor mortis, and a febrile condition can retard it or
make it barely detectable at all.  Three to six hours,
Helen.  I’m confident.”

“
I trust you
implicitly.  Did you send Billy or Hector out to the bay for
samples?”

“
It’s gonna take two days
to grow them, but here’s the thing, Helen.  I already
searched, and Riley Storm’s incompetence notwithstanding, there has
never been a reported case of
Vibrio
parahaemolyticus
pneumonia reported in
Darkwater Bay.  I just got off the phone with the health
department before I called you.  I don’t think our little bay
is where she got infected.”

“
We’ve gotta rule it out
anyway.  It’s a great lead, Maya.  It tells me two
important things.  One, I should be looking for an area where
this bug is known in seawater.  Two, she arrived in 
Darkwater Bay on a ship.”

Maya’s eyes raked over me critically. 
“So that’s the crux of my big news.  I expect some forthright
answers from you, princess.”

“
Don’t call me
–”

“
Princess,” she
grinned.  “Yeah, you’ve used that line before.  Did the
soda crackers and ginger ale help settle your stomach?  Johnny
mentioned that you’ve been barfing up your shoelaces all
week.  What gives, and if you continue to refuse to see a
doctor who diagnoses living patients, does that mean you’ll be
coming back to me?”

I felt Johnny wilt next to me.

“
Was this some sort of
secret conversation?” she asked when I impaled him with a
glare.  “God, honey, it’s not like I can’t tell by looking at
you that the gills are greener than a three-day-old dead
fish.”

“
Thank you
so
much, Maya.” 
For some hysterically irrational reason, my eyes started burning,
and before I realized what it meant, the world blurred behind a
curtain of  heavy dew.

“
Oh honey,” Maya’s sarcasm
quickly fled to make room for contrition.  “I was only teasing
you.  I didn’t mean to make you –”

Before the rest of her apology registered,
Johnny folded me into his chest and started murmuring soothing
nonsense.  I felt the subtext playing between this man I love
and my best friend.  I was too mortified to dissect it or give
a damn.  Two thoughts raced around my head.  One, I
wanted to crawl inside Johnny and hide until I felt like me
again.  Whoever me was these days.  And two, there was no
way in hell I could stand up on a podium in front of the press
congregated outside Central Division and present a united front
between OSI and Darkwater Bay PD.

I couldn’t see the eyes moving away, but the
sensation of being shredded to bits by them abated.

“
Hey,” Johnny
murmured.  “It’s all right, Helen.  You haven’t felt well
all week.  This case has been emotionally wrenching. 
You’re not getting enough rest.  Plus, that stupid fight we
–”