The Plague Doctor (20 page)

Chapter Forty

Ethan might not have had my lusty thoughts about Dr. Sedmonds, but he had trusted him implicitly. He had gone straight to Barry for help when he escaped from jail.

“Then you were there yesterday afternoon?” asked Cassie.

“Not yet. I hadn't made it to Rowan Springs. You have no idea how far twenty- five miles is when you're on foot. And it was fairly easy for me. I had spent so much time in the hills and valleys around here that I knew exactly how to travel across country. I knew all the shortcuts and how to avoid the police roadblocks. I got to the experiment farm a little after dark. At the time I thought it tremendous luck because Sedmonds was just getting ready to leave on his bicycle. He saw me coming and opened up the greenhouse. I was totally up front with him before I went inside. I told him I had escaped from the police and needed a place to hide. He seemed quite willing to let me in. Now I know why.”

“And why is that, Ethan?” I asked.

“Sedmonds is the brains behind everything. I thought it was poor old Doc Baxter. He's the reason I ran away from Teddyville in the first place. When they told me he was coming to give me a prerelease physical exam I panicked.”

“Why? What could the poor old thing do to you?”

“Shut him up, Cassie. Right Ethan?” I asked.

“That's right, Mrs. DeLeon. Shut my mouth, as you say here in the South.”

“Very funny! And as long as we're stuck in this cave together you might as well call me Paisley. Save the formalities for later.”

He laughed again, “Okay, Paisley. But you're right. There are at least a dozen ways he could have made sure I never left Teddyville alive. I did a lot of thinking during those eight days I spent in jail. I was pretty sure Baxter was responsible for all the abortions. I thought that was the answer to everything.” He ran a big hand thorough his hair and scratched his ear. “Boy, was I wrong!”

“You mean there's more to this?”

“You bet, Mrs.…er, Paisley.”

“What, Ethan?”

“Drugs, Cassie. A big-time drug operation under the guise of normal agricultural experimentation.”

I was flabbergasted.

“At the county extension farm? That's what Barry was up to? I thought he was a famous scientist—a something-or-other in fungus.”

“He is. His background is impeccable. Someone at the CDC even recommended him to me as a resource when I was planning my trip. He studied at Stanford and Texas A&M. He even did a stint as associate professor at The University of Mexico. I think that's where he got the idea.”

“Idea for what?” Cassie asked as she scooted closer to Ethan.

The temperature in the cave should have been even, but our wet clothing was lowering our body temperatures. I was tempted to scoot closer too, but I didn't.

“For growing a stronger, more prolific strain of certain mind-altering drugs.”

“Marijuana?” I was disgusted. “All of this running and killing and hiding is about a few joints?”

“Not exactly.”

“Then please explain it to me because I am righteously pissed!”

“Cannabis…” he began.

“In English if you don't mind,” I interrupted irritably.

“The flower of the female marijuana plant has a resin which is extremely potent. That's what hashish is made of. Barry was growing a special strain of the female plant in his greenhouse. He had a highly sophisticated grafting process going on, which I would expect from a scientist of his knowledge and expertise.”

I had to smile. Even after the man had tried his best to kill us all, Ethan still admired Barry's scientific mind.

“The hashish he was growing was like nothing we've ever seen before. It would be worth millions in the drug market. And he could have named his price for the process.”

“Is that what caused the abortions? Hashish?” I asked.

“No, Paisley, I'm sure it was Goldenrod, or rather the fungus growing on it. The spores from the plant rust spread the abortifacient from one patient that Baxter had inoculated to other pregnant patients in his office. A microscopic airborne spore is hard to spot, especially if you're not looking for it. Sedmonds might have suspected what was going on, but he didn't care. It could even have furthered his study in a bizarre kind of way. He's trying to make a name for himself by developing a natural universal fungicide. I think that's why he got into the drug business. He really needed the money. Funding for his kind of research is notoriously scarce. Barry's been operating on a shoestring for years. He hunts for most of the food he eats, and he doesn't even own a car. That's why I had to call you to help me get out of town.”

“Okay, about that, Ethan,” I inquired a bit tersely. “Why didn't you just ask to speak to Chief Joiner? Why couldn't you tell him what you've told us? Why involve my daughter?”

“I honestly didn't know who to trust, Mrs. DeLeon. I've only been in Rowan Springs for nine weeks, and so far I've discovered that one of the town's leading citizens is a murderer and another is a drug dealer. The only person I knew for sure that I could trust was Cassandra.”

“Okay,” I admitted, “I'll buy that. But I still have a lot of unanswered questions. For one thing, who in the hell is Porky Pig?”

“Who?” asked Ethan.

He was no actor, and the surprise was written all over his face.

“The dead guy under the cedar tree, or didn't you see him? I thought that's where you were supposed to meet Cassie?”

“I never got that far, Mom. I met Ethan on my way around the lake. We, eh, we said ‘hello,' and then I whistled for you, or rather Ethan did. I couldn't pucker.”

Ethan laughed heartily until a blushing Cassie poked him in the ribs with her elbow.

“Well, I couldn't. For whistling, anyway,” she grinned. “We didn't see any dead guy, but Ethan said he saw Barry walking away from the big cedar.”

“That's why I had to find Cassie before she went up the hill. I didn't know what Barry would do, and I couldn't take a chance.”

“And what about the poor old woman? Am I expendable? Is that why you whistled again, so I would walk into Barry's trap and draw his attention away for you to make good your escape?”

“Mom!” chided Cass indignantly. “First of all, Ethan only whistled once. I guess Barry heard and knew it was some kind of signal. He must have whistled again to see who would come running.”

“But…”

“Wait! And second of all, we were coming back to find you when I fell off the spillway.”

“Oh, Cassie…”

“Just one minute, Mom, I haven't finished. And third of all, how can you possibly think I would ever abandon you…” Her voice broke as she burst into tears.

“Cassie, darling! I'm sorry. Please forgive me.”

“She's right, Mrs. DeLeon. We were coming back to get you when Cassie fell. I climbed down to get her. By the time we had started to climb back up, we heard you running towards us with Barry right behind. I grabbed Cassie and we headed towards the meadow and the mouth of the cave. I found it two weeks ago when I was out here alone.”

He held out his wrists. In the dim green light I could see faint white lines where the deep scratches had been.

“I fell in the hole. I got scratched trying to get back out again. It's a lot harder when you're loaded down with equipment.”

“Speaking of scratches—what did you have to do with the Hayes girl?”

“Nothing,” he denied vehemently. “The only time I ever saw her was the night of the festival. She attached herself to me at the street party. She wanted to dance. The girl was very insistent. I could tell she was drunk, and I tried to get away without making a scene. I'm afraid I wasn't too successful. She was furious. She spat in my face and screamed that she would make me pay.”

“Well, that she did. I believe you, Ethan,” I assured him. “I don't think that comes as a surprise. I've been somewhat impatient with you during these last two weeks, but that has nothing to do with my belief in your innocence.”

I stopped a moment and listened.

“Does it seem noisy in here all of a sudden?”

Ethan turned and looked around at the hole we had fallen through like Alice. A slow but steady stream of water was trickling from the opening of the cave into the basin below.

“Oh, my God!” he exclaimed. “It's raining!”

“What's the big deal?” laughed Cassie. “It can't rain in here. And we couldn't get much wetter, anyway.”

Ethan turned a white and frightened face to us.

“You want to bet?” he asked. “We've got to get out of here while we still have a chance!”

“What the hell? What's going on, Ethan?”

His fear was infectious. I felt the hairs on the back of my neck coming to attention.

“This cave is the lowest one in a system of limestone caverns that runs from one end of the whole valley between Rowan Springs and Morgantown. It's part of a still greater system of caves in the state. The biggest one is Mammoth Cave which is about a hundred miles from here.”

“What's that got to do with us?”

I still didn't get the reason for his anxiety.

“All of the ground water from the valley above will flow down to this point. During a heavy rain this cave will fill up in a matter of minutes. We'll drown, that's what.”

“Why can't we just go back out the way we came?” shouted Cassie.

The sound of the water pouring in the pool had increased so that I could hardly hear her. Ethan pointed to the rush of water now tumbling from the cave mouth. As we watched, it grew steadily into a small waterfall.

“IT WOULD WASH US RIGHT BACK OUT AGAIN, THAT”S WHY!” he shouted.

“WHAT ARE WE GOING TO DO?” screamed Cassie.

The water in the pool was rising rapidly. It was almost over the ledge we were sitting on. We stood up and huddled together. The water crawled slowly upwards and covered our feet and ankles. Ethan pulled our heads together so we could hear each other.

“We only have one hope,” he told us. “This cave is connected to all the others in the system. There must be an outlet in the bottom of the pool. If we dive down to the bottom when the cave is almost full, we'll be pushed out by the pressure of the water above. There's a pretty good chance we'll come out into another bigger cavern or maybe into an open spring somewhere in the valley.”

Cassie was trying to keep from crying, but she couldn't stop her lower lip from quivering uncontrollably. I knew if I hugged her she would dissolve into tears. As much as I wanted to hold her, I could not let myself. Instead, I whacked her on the rump as hard as I could. Her surprise and anger were instant and genuine. I had not spanked her since she was four years old.

“Mom! What…?”

“Get mad, Cassie! Get good and mad.”

I knew she could be an Amazon when she was angry.

“I'd rather see you drown here like a rat than marry this sorry son-of-a-bitch.”

That worked. She raised her head and opened her mouth to rip me to verbal shreds. Ethan saw what I was trying to do and smiled a big slow smile.

“Save it for later, Cassie!” he said. “No time now! The water's almost up to our hips. When it gets to Paisley's waist we'll take three deep breaths and hold the fourth. Then we hold hands and dive. I'll pull you down to where the opening should be. By that time, there ought to be enough pressure to force us into the next part of the system—wherever it is. I wish I had explored these caves before.” He gave us a wry smile. “There's no time like the present!”

As the water approached my waist, we held hands. Cassie gripped mine a little more firmly than necessary. Under other circumstances, I would have groaned in pain. But hey, I got what I wanted. She was standing tall and strong. A few broken carpals was a small price to pay.

“BREATHE NOW!” yelled Ethan. “OKAY! ON THE COUNT OF FOUR, WE GO!”

I had barely taken in my last big breath when Ethan jumped feet first off the ledge and pulled us down after him. The current pulled and turned us down and down towards the bottom of the pool. At first we moved slowly, like a runner in a bad dream. Then suddenly we were caught in the outer edge of a swiftly moving vortex. Cassie's grip on my hand slipped. My fingers were so numb from the pressure of hers squeezing mine that I couldn't hold on. As the spinning swirling current sped up, Cass and Ethan were swept away from me, and I was all alone. I tumbled head over heels in an upside-down tornado of pale green water. My other shoe was torn from my foot. My sweater and jeans followed as I turned and spun faster and faster like Dorothy and Toto, only I wasn't headed for Kansas.

I said my prayers. I prayed desperately that Cassie and Ethan would be safe. And I asked God to forgive me for all my sins. There was no time to enumerate them. I didn't have that long to live. Everything was getting dark. My body no longer had the strength to fight the current. I pulled my arms up and crossed them over my breasts. It was the last conscious act I made.

Epilogue

“Venus rising from the sea,” laughed Mother. “That's what Mavis Madden said she looked like.”

“My word,” expounded Horatio. “To see the lovely Paisley Sterling popping up in the middle of Big Spring Park in the altogether…What a sight to behold! Thank goodness that young man had a camera.”

“Hummpf! Yeah, we wouldn't want to deprive the world of any opportunity to humiliate and ridicule me. God forbid the picture should not have appeared on the front page of the weekly paper. And my so-called best friend, Pamela Winslow, made sure it was on CNN so the whole world could laugh at me.”

“Not to mention the entire congregation of the First Baptist Church, Mom. That was the funniest,” added Cassie.

“What in the hell were they doing having a Sunday School breakfast in the rain, anyway?”

“It wasn't raining when they started at sunrise, Paisley, dear. The storm came up very suddenly. No one was prepared for it.”

“You can say that again! My head is still spinning from that roller coaster ride through the cave.”

I pulled myself up to a more comfortable position.

Mother and Horatio Raleigh were seated side by side on the window seat in my bedroom. Cassie was sitting cross-legged at the bottom of my bed. Occasionally I saw two of each of them. I said so.

“Dr. Wallace says you have a mild concussion, dear,” explained Mother. “I'm sure you'll be fine in a few days.”

“Great! And I'm supposed to trust that quack with my precious brain?”

“Give the poor man a chance to redeem himself, my dear,” pleaded Horatio. “He convinced Andy Joiner that Mr. Hayes' death was accidental. The daughter finally admitted that he fell on his own gun in the act of chasing her. She was running away after a particularly severe beating. Miss Hayes has no idea why she put the blame on Ethan, but I do. He was a symbol of the world that had turned its back on her.” He shook his handsome white head in dismay. “Poor child.”

“Where is Ethan?” I asked. “I have a lot of questions remaining for that young man.”

“Mom, I told you. He's already gone back to Atlanta,” answered Cassie.

“Back?”

“Yes, I told you this morning.”

“I can't remember,” I worried.

“Short-term memory loss, my dear. Wallace warned us it might happen as a result of the concussion,” said Horatio. “It won't bother you for long.”

“Lord, I hope not! I have a book to write. By the way, how come I can remember all the bad stuff?”

“Winston said you might. He explained that amnesia is selective. There may be parts of your memory intact and big holes in the rest,” explained Mother.

“Well, humor me then and repeat some things you may have told me that I cannot for the life of me recall.”

“Shoot, Mom.”

“Who was Porky Pig, for one thing?”

“I'll take that one, my dear,” offered Horatio. “Alvin Vanover was the pharmacist, or actually, the son of the original pharmacist who shared the office with Edgar Baxter. He was something of a disappointment to his father. Young Alvin flunked out of several schools and generally played the prodigal son. When his father died, Alvin returned and took over the family business. The whole town was relieved because we depend on a good, reliable druggist. We thought we had one. None of us knew that he had a nice little black market drug business going on the side. For a price, he was perfectly willing to slip anyone an extra bottle of Valium, or almost anything.”

“I mention Valium because that's what got poor, lovely Julia Baxter on the road to addiction. Edgar knew she was depressed, but because she had quit begging him for drugs, he thought she was getting better. After her death, he was furious when he discovered that she had circumvented him. He vowed to get even with Vanover. Imagine how he must have felt when the allergist in Morgantown refused him, and he had to depend on his enemy for the Goldenrod extract. I think he must have gotten great satisfaction from burning down the building and putting Alvin out of business. The fire also eliminated the spores that were spreading the abortions. The plague was eliminated, but Edgar didn't know that.”

“Is that when Porky, er, Alvin hooked up with Barry? When he lost his business?”

“Ethan thinks it was earlier than that, Mom. He said Barry found out about Porky's sideline somehow, and he blackmailed him for his client list. The idea was that people willing to pay a fortune for Valium would fork over for marijuana and hashish, too. They both knew what Doc Baxter was doing. And they didn't care. Alvin was never very careful when he made up the extract for Baxter. When Barry warned him about the fungus, he ignored him and kept up his production. Doc Baxter went kind of crazy when all the babies started dying. He thought he had brought about a plague that would end the human race. He was ultimately responsible, of course, but it was the fungus that was spreading the abortions. Of course, as Ethan says, he wasn't working on all four cylinders in the first place.”

Horatio took over the narrative. “Edgar was past caring what people found out about him. Vanover, however, still had a vested interest in remaining a free man. He knew that Baxter had a patient who had received one dose of the extract only. He had to make sure she got the rest of the series. Otherwise he might get caught.”

“How's that, Cassie?”

“According to Ethan's medical theory, the extract goes straight to the fetus. If the baby dies and is aborted, there is no evidence. If the baby is carried to term, the extract can be found in the placenta and cord blood. He had to make sure that Mabel aborted.”

“Mabel!”

“That's right,” she continued. “Mabel was the patient that got away. Alvin tried to inject her that night you saw him in the hospital and later on when she went home.”

“Is she okay?”

“Don't worry, Mom. She's fine and so is the baby.”

“Okay, I think I got all that straight. But why did Barry kill Porky? I thought they were partners in crime. They seemed like such a nice couple.”

“My dear, Paisley, it's so good to see your sense of humor returning.”

Horatio patted me gingerly on the knee as he explained, “Dr. Sedmonds decided that Alvin Vanover was a liability. Sedmonds had his eye on fame in the scientific community. He was quite capable of discarding the hashish trade when he had achieved enough recognition to bring in grants from reputable universities. He needed few creature comforts, but he had an overpowering ambition. He knew that Vanover would never agree to close down their highly lucrative commercial enterprise. So he ‘offed' him, as they say in the flicks.”

“And why carry his body to the big cedar tree and dump him? That's one sight I really would like to forget.”

“Ethan told Barry that he was going to meet me there, that's why, Mom. He was going to pin the murder on Ethan, then kill him to ‘protect me.' But when Ethan discovered the hashish growing in the greenhouse, he took Barry's bicycle and got there first. He managed to head me off, but you…”

“Hummfp! I remember all that! But why shoot him with an arrow? That's a bit off the wall isn't it?”

“Exactly,” she laughed. “Before Ethan learned Barry's big bad secret, they spent some time together. Ethan admired the hunting bow Barry had hanging on the wall in his office. They compared hunting stories. That gave Barry the idea. He knew he could count on someone coming forward afterwards to give evidence that Ethan had hunted in Africa with a bow and arrow.”

“Speaking of someone—what about Ethan's mother? Did he ever contact her to explain this mess?”

“Mommy, can we discuss this in private?” whispered Cassie.

“Er, ahem, Anna, my dear, I find that I am yearning for another piece of that delicious French apple tart. Do you think we might…?”

“Come Horatio, let's leave our ducklings alone for a while.”

Mother leaned over and kissed my slightly banged-up forehead. She smiled down at me.

“Don't talk too long, dear. You must get some rest. You've been through quite an ordeal.”

I waited until they left and turned to my daughter, who appeared to be totally unscathed, thank God.

“Speaking of ordeal, what happened to you and Ethan in the cave?”

“Ethan protected me, Mom. He kept me from getting as banged up as you are. And he also managed to pull me out in the spring above the park. We were just climbing down the hill when we saw you make your rather spectacular appearance.”

“Oh, God,” I groaned. “Naked as a jaybird in front of the whole town!”

“Just the same, Mom. I was never so glad to see anyone in my whole life.”

She untangled her long legs and crawled up to give me a hug.

“You're all so calm and collected,” I marveled. “I take it that means Dr. Bartholomew Sedmonds is safely behind bars?”

“Teddyville has a new inmate. Andy Joiner caught him trying to get away in Porky's car. He isn't a very good driver,” she laughed.

“Okay, what's this about Ethan's mother? What did she do?”

“That's just it!” complained Cass. “Ethan never gave her a chance to do anything. That's why I turned him down.”

“Turned him down?”

“Yes, I turned down his proposal of marriage.”

“When did he have time…?”

“That last computer disc Miss Lolly found was a letter to me. He was outlining all the reasons why we could live happily ever after.”

Her voice broke and she buried her lovely face in my shoulder.

I let her cry for awhile. I could tell she had almost cried herself out. This was just the tail end of her heartbreak. When her shoulders stopped shaking, I asked her the question that was foremost on my mind.

“Why did you turn him down, Cassie?”

“Family!” she hiccoughed loudly. “He has no concept of family. He's a loner. He would expect me to be as self-contained as he is. I could never do that. I could never shut you out of my life, out of my problems, like he did his mother. I wouldn't want my children to grow up that way. My family is the most important thing in the world to me. It has to be that way for my kids, too.”

“Oh.” I couldn't think of anything else to say. Once again my daughter had overwhelmed me.

“Enough about me,” she sniffed. “Are you really feeling better? By the way, Pam called to make sure you were all right. She said to remind you that Leonard's book is long overdue.”

“Leonard? Who's Leonard?”