Birds of Prey : Previously Copub Sequel to the Hour of the Hunter (9780061739101) (31 page)

“No,” I said. “In my book, Dr. Featherman is breaking new ground as far as doctor-patient relations are concerned.”

Moments later, Christine put down her fork and pushed her plate aside, but she didn't get up and follow Marc to the symposium. Instead, she sat back in her chair and regarded me speculatively over a raised coffee cup. “What do you make of all this?” she asked.

“All what?”

“Look,” she said. “Let's not be coy. Marc told me enough about Leave It To God that I know I may be on the trail of the biggest story of my career. On the one hand, LITG sounds scary as hell and dangerous besides. It sounds as though they want to roll medical progress back to where it was in the Middle Ages. Forget about penicillin. Forget about the polio vaccine.

“But I can also see where else they may be coming from. What about all those invasive, code-blue lifesaving procedures that are inflicted on people who don't necessarily want to be saved? What about people who are put on life support and left in vegetative states when that's not what they wanted?

“There's a lot at work here, and I want to get to the bottom of it. I have every intention of writing this story, but before I do, I need some straight answers. It would be nice to hear what you have to say.”

A reporter with her nose on the scent of a story is about as single-minded as a homicide cop on the trail of a killer—and about as easily deflected.

“The truth is, I don't have anything to say,” I told her. “This isn't my case. It's not my place to comment one way or the other.”

“Marc told me there are FBI agents on board. He says they're here to protect him and Dr. Featherman as well. Is that true?”

Not in that order
, I thought. I said, “Miss Moran, I'm here as a passenger, just like everyone else aboard the
Starfire Breeze
. If you want information about an ongoing FBI investigation, you know the drill. You'll have to ask them.”

“Sure,” she said, with a short derisive laugh. “So they won't tell me anything, either? Do I really look that stupid?”

I was trying desperately to remember exactly how much I had told Marc Alley about Leave It To God. Having a half-baked story hit the wire services in the middle of the FBI's investigation would be a blow to whatever it was Rachel Dulles and Alex Freed were trying to do. Having the story appear would probably also land both of them in hot water.

“And what makes you so sure Harrison Featherman was the target?” Christine Moran continued. “After all, Margaret Featherman is the one who's dead. From what I read in those articles I took off the Internet this morning, maybe Margaret is the one who should have been on LITG's hit list. Marc might not agree, but compared to Margaret Featherman's research, Harrison's accomplishments look almost superficial. Isn't it possible the FBI is every bit as old-fashioned as Marc Alley claimed to be just now? Given two people with the same last name, naturally the feds assume that the man is the more important of the two, that he's more valuable.”

I felt sick to my stomach. If Christine knew about the list, obviously I had told Marc Alley far too much. “Miss Moran—”

“Call me Christine.”

“Christine, please. I'm not going to tell you anything. Just drop it.”

She stood up then. “I won't drop it,” she returned. “You can tell me to buzz off all you want. So can the FBI, but I'm going to follow this story wherever it leads.”

“If you go off half-cocked and publish the story prematurely, you're liable to jeopardize an entire investigation.”

“Too bad,” she snapped and marched away.

Shaking my head, I watched her go.
When it comes to women,
I told myself,
old Ladies' Man Beaumont is certainly batting a thousand.

I left the Lido Deck Buffet and headed for my stateroom. In the elevator, I punched the button for my own deck, Capri. Then reconsidering, I punched Dolphin as well. It was time to stop by and give Rachel Dulles a heads-up. Since the symposium was under way, I more than half expected Rachel and her partner would both be off looking out for the safety of one Harrison Featherman. I ignored the
DO NOT DISTURB
sign posted on the door to the stateroom in question. A muffled male voice responded to my knock.

“Who is it?”

“Beaumont,” I said. “J. P. Beaumont.”

The door opened a crack. Behind it stood a young man wearing a pair of blue-and-white-striped silk pajamas. I gave up wearing pajamas about the same time I gave up my BB gun, and those were flannel—not silk. My long-held position was that I would never wear pajamas, but then I wasn't having much luck with saying never. Besides, given my own roommate situation on board the
Starfire Breeze,
maybe PJs weren't a half-bad idea.

“Whaddya want?” Mr. Pajamas asked groggily.

“Mr. Nix?” I asked.

He nodded.

“I'm Beau Beaumont—a friend of your wife's.”

“Phyllis isn't here,” he said.

“That's all right. May I talk to you for a minute?”

I wasn't sure if Alex Freed would recognize my name. Or, if he did, I wouldn't have been surprised if he had told me to get lost. After all, Rachel had already terminated my tenuous connection to the case. Instead, Alex pushed open the door wide enough to admit me. I walked into a stateroom that was even smaller than the one that had housed Mike and Lucy Conyers. There was just barely room enough to maneuver around the outside edge of two twin beds. Instead of a love seat, this room held a single easy chair. Alex motioned me into that. When he did so, I noticed he was wearing his two Travel-Aid bracelets.

“Are those things helping?”

“Some,” he said. He was blond and well-built. To my amazement, he looked even younger than Todd Bowman.

“That's right,” he said. “Now I remember. You're the guy who told Phyllis about these gadgets. Thanks for the suggestion,” he added. “I really appreciate it. Wearing these things saved my life, but do you mind getting to the point? I just pulled an all-nighter and I need to grab some sleep. What is it you want?”

“Is Rachel around? I could probably tell her.”

Tired as he was, Alex Freed had been prepared to go on with the Kurt and Phyllis charade. He blinked when I used Agent Dulles' given name, then he shook his head. “She's covering the symposium,” he said. “Tell me.”

“I've just found out that a reporter on board, a woman who's here covering the neurology symposium, has made friends with Marc Alley. Now she's hot on the trail of what's been going on with LITG.”

“Great,” Alex Freed groaned. “That's exactly what we need. Somebody else mucking around in all this and screwing things up. What's her name?”

“Moran,” I replied. “Christine Moran.”

Alex went over to what was meant to be a dressing table. Instead of toiletries, it was covered with portable office equipment—a laptop computer, a tiny fax machine and printer, and a stack of papers. He sifted through the pile of papers until he found what he was looking for.

“Christine Abigail Moran. She's here on assignment for a magazine called
New World Health
. She was pretty much a last-minute addition to the cruise, so we haven't had time to pick up more than just basic information on her. What's her story?”

“She knows about the list.”

“How?”

“I told Marc. Rachel told me that if I thought it was necessary, I could go ahead and warn him, and so I did. It just didn't occur to me that I should swear him to secrecy.”

“Damn. And now I suppose this Moran woman is threatening to take the existence of the list public?” Alex Freed asked.

I nodded. “That's right. You can maybe work out some kind of deal with her—offer her first dibs on the story if she agrees to go along with you and not break it until you're ready for the story to go public.”

“Agent Dulles and I aren't authorized to make those kinds of deals.”

“You may not be, but somebody at the FBI is,” I said. “And you may want to get hold of that person so he or she can get cracking on this right away. Christine Moran is off on some wild women's rights tangent that claims Margaret Featherman to be a more likely target for Leave It To God than her ex-husband was. And, in view of what happened to Margaret, maybe Christine Moran is right about that. Did you see the actual list—the original one, I mean?”

“No. Why do you want to know?”

“I was wondering if it came complete with both first and last names.”

“I don't know about that for sure, but I don't believe it did. My understanding is that the agency worked with the American Medical Association to track down the most likely fits for each of the listed surnames. They sorted out the doctors doing the leading-edge stuff that they thought were the most logical targets for LITG.”

“Doctors, as in physicians, but not doctors as in Ph.D.s,” I said. “You do know what Margaret Featherman did, don't you?”

Once again Alex Freed shuffled through his stack of papers. I took that to mean the printout contained dossiers on each passenger and crew member on board the
Starfire Breeze
. I couldn't help wondering what it said about me.

“Margaret Catherine Featherman, Ph.D.,” Alex Freed read aloud. “Researcher for Genesis, a bio-tech firm in Seattle.”

“You may be interested to know that the
Seattle Times
calls her a ‘key researcher in a ground-breaking genetic treatment,' ” I supplied. “Maybe you'd like to see how Margaret Featherman's disappearance is being reported back home in Seattle.” I handed him my envelope stuffed with Ralph Ames' faxed material. As Alex Freed scanned through the articles, his initial frown deepened. At last he finished reading and handed the faxes back to me.

“It's a big story,” I told him. “If Christine Moran breaks this part of it before you're ready, the FBI's whole investigation—not only here but all over the country—is going to blow sky-high.”

Alex nodded. “I can see that. If you'll excuse me, Mr. Beaumont. I'd better get on the horn to our supervisor and see what she wants us to do about this.”

“Right,” I said, backing toward the door. “Don't let me stand in your way. But while you're at it, you might pass word along to Todd Bowman that Naomi Pepper's daughter, Melissa, is employed at a Kinko's in downtown Seattle.”

“What's that supposed to mean?” Alex asked.

“Just give him the information,” I said. “He'll know what to do with it.”

I showed myself out. Back at my stateroom, I held my ear to the door, trying to determine from the outside whether or not Naomi Pepper was there, but I heard no sounds at all coming from inside. When I let myself in, the room had been cleaned, but no one was home—a situation for which I was supremely grateful. My toe was hurting like hell. The first thing I did was help myself to a couple of Advil, then I sat down and peeled off my loafers, sighing with relief once my toe had some breathing room.

One glance at the telephone told me there were messages waiting. Taking up pen and paper, I prepared to write them down. It turned out the first message wasn't for me at all. It was for Naomi.

“Mother, do not call me at work again,” an angry young woman hissed in my ear. “You have absolutely no right. I'm remembering all those times you bitched me out for telling lies. How dare you call me a liar! The hell with you, and the hell with Harrison and Margaret Featherman! I don't give a shit about what happened to her, or what happens to you, either!” End of message. So much for mother-daughter relations.

I sat for a long time with my finger poised indecisively over the phone pad while an operator's voice droning in my ear instructed me to press 3 for delete or 7 for save. Melissa Pepper's message clearly was intended for her mother. By rights, I shouldn't even have heard it, but now that I had, there was a decision to make. Did I want to inflict the insult of Missy's angry words and tone of voice on her mother? Would it be less hurtful for Naomi to hear what it said secondhand from me, or would she be better off listening to it herself? In the end, I decided it was best to press 7 for save. The message would be there waiting for Naomi whenever she returned to the room and whether or not she wanted to hear it.

The next message was a hang-up. I heard someone breathing for a few seconds, but in the end, nothing was said. Not much of a question there. I erased that one without giving it another thought.

The third message was from Beverly Jenssen.

“Jonas,” she said with a slightly hesitant quaver in her voice. “I'm so sorry about what happened this morning. I shouldn't have been so cranky. And I'm sorry to have to bother you again so soon, but would you please come down and see us as soon as you can? I'm worried about Lars.”

Without hitting save or delete, I slammed down the phone. I shoved my now-throbbing foot back into my loafers and raced out the door. I didn't bother with the elevator. Instead, I hobbled down two flights of stairs, wincing all the way.
Why didn't I switch to tennies?
I wondered.

When Beverly answered my frantic knock, she put a silencing finger to her lips. “Shhhhh,” she said, letting me into the room. “I finally managed to get him out of bed. He's in the bathroom now, taking a shower.”

“What's the matter?” I asked. “Is Lars sick?” Looking at my grandmother, it was difficult not to be derailed by the bloom of purple bruise that covered half her cheek.

“I don't know if he's sick or not,” she said worriedly. “But I can tell you, he's never been this way before.”

“What way?” I asked.

She thought for a minute before answering. “Old,” she said finally. “Lars never acted old before, but this morning he didn't want to get out of bed. He said he didn't feel like it. He wouldn't go up to breakfast, either, and he wouldn't let me order anything for him from Room Service—not even one of those little pots of coffee, and you know how much Lars likes his coffee. He's acting like he doesn't care if he lives or dies, Jonas. That scares me to death.”