China Lake (27 page)

Lack of courage, I thought, had nothing to do with it. Jealousy did. Tabitha had whipped it up in big helpings—for Brian, Chenille, and who knew who else.

I walked back toward her. ‘‘Why does the hard-core group scare you so much?’’

‘‘Because they’ve stripped off the trappings of this world. They’ve sold their homes and possessions to prepare for the devil’s-night assault.’’

A chill had crept over the air and clung to me. ‘‘Preparing. To counterattack?’’

‘‘They’re going to stage a preemptive strike.’’

Jesse said, ‘‘Jesus.’’

‘‘When?’’ I said. ‘‘Where?’’

‘‘I don’t know.’’

‘‘You have to.’’

‘‘Operational details are need-to-know only. And janitors don’t need to know.’’

Jesse said, ‘‘When they sold their things . . . what did they do with the money?’’

The look on her face told him he should have known. ‘‘They bought weapons.’’

I closed my eyes.

She said, ‘‘They have a stockpile, enough to start a war.’’

His face was fierce. ‘‘You have to find out their plans.’’

‘‘I can’t do that.’’

He said, ‘‘I don’t believe you.’’

Her voice took on vigor. ‘‘I’ve been shut out. Can’t you see that? I’m destined for scut work. I’m going to be a foot soldier or worse. Cannon fodder, or an air tester. Seeing if I can breathe in an area without coming down with anthrax.’’

I took her arm. ‘‘Leave,’’ I said. ‘‘Leave the church. Tonight.’’

‘‘I can’t.’’

‘‘Sure you can.’’

‘‘Go back on the outside? No way. I’d be damned.’’

‘‘If you come with us, we can get you protection.’’

‘‘You mean from the police? You’re crazy. The police are part of the government network.’’

‘‘We’ll get you to a halfway house, or another church. . . ."

‘‘The Remnant will find me. Can’t you understand? There’s no way out. I’m trapped.’’

She buried her face in her hands, sobbing. I put my arm around her shoulder, feeling bereft.

On the way home Jesse phoned the police, leaving a message for a detective he knew. Back at his house we paid the babysitter and sat wearily at the kitchen table, worried and at loose ends.

He said, ‘‘If Tabitha’s on the outs with Chenille, the church could lose interest in Luke.’’

‘‘Let’s hope.’’

He could tell I didn’t believe it. His face, drawn with fatigue, fell further. I realized he had been trying to reassure me, and felt a rush of tenderness for him. I put my hand on his.

‘‘I’m sorry that Glory gave you the business.’’

‘‘Nobody’s as zealous as a reformed whore. Get yourself a crucifix lobotomy! Everything will look so simple afterward!’’ He laughed humorlessly. ‘‘Like it’s made her life a bowl of cherries.’’

‘‘You’re made of pretty strong stuff, you know it?’’

‘‘It’s my heathen heart. Solid stone.’’

I leaned over and kissed him.

I said, ‘‘But next time try not to argue with someone I’m pumping for information.’’

‘‘Ever hear of Good Cop, Bad Cop?’’

Cockiness, that little edge, was creeping back into his voice. I said, ‘‘Ever hear of fanning the flames? You just never met a bone you didn’t want to pick.’’

I got up from the table. The surf had come up, big rollers heaving onto the beach, boiling white in the moonlight. I checked my phone messages. The
News-Press
reporter, Sally Shimada, had called again.

Though it was almost eleven on a worknight, when I phoned back her beauty-contestant voice sounded perky. ‘‘Evan—wow. I was wondering if I’d ever hear from you.’’

I could hear the television in the background.
Sabrina, the Teenage Witch
, or perhaps
Animaniacs
. I told my brain to shut up.

She said, ‘‘I want to talk about your brother’s arrest. ’’ She sounded as if she were staring at a big hunk of prime rib, saying,
Is that for me? Can I have a sharp knife?

‘‘I’m off the record, Sally. Background only.’’

I told her about the Remnant attempting to abduct Luke outside China Lake, about Brian trying to protect his son, and about his innocence, his sterling character, his patriotism. I practically hummed ‘‘The Star-Spangled Banner.’’ I kept my back to Jesse, not wanting to see his expression.

She said, ‘‘I have information that this was a crime of passion. That your brother’s ex was in love with Peter Wyoming.’’

‘‘Who told you that? Wait—you’ve been talking to Detective McCracken.’’

I deflated. Sally wasn’t quite the naïf I had imagined, and I wished that I had told her my side of the story sooner. I started stalking around Jesse’s living room. He sat at the kitchen table, watching me.

I changed the subject. ‘‘I saw you at Wyoming’s funeral today. You impressed me, knowing that Chenille was quoting scripture out of context.’’

‘‘You think a good Buddhist girl can’t get her hands on a copy of the New Testament? Yeah, she was definitely twisting it to suit her message. Revelation eleven, go on and look it up. Delaney, that sounds Irish; you must have a Bible lying around somewhere. ’’

At Jesse’s house? Maybe to prop up an uneven table leg. But that was why I had brought the Gideon Bible from the China Lake hotel.

She said, ‘‘Revelation eleven talks about the tribulation, and says that a ‘faithful remnant’ of Christianity will be preserved from destruction. It also talks about two witnesses who testify to God’s truth. Now, my concordance says these are symbolic witnesses, that they might represent Moses and Elijah, or the early Christian martyrs, or—’’

‘‘I get the picture. Chenille was taking it literally.’’

‘‘And the witnesses’ resurrection—’’

‘‘Represents the triumph of the church, but she was also taking it literally.’’

She said, ‘‘Maybe I should get a photographer to stake out the cemetery, huh? Catch Pastor Pete’s revival.
That
would be a deadlock on a Pulitzer.’’

My eyes fell on chapter twelve. The Woman and the Dragon. Chenille had talked about a dragon when she confronted me at my book signing. She’d said she wouldn’t let the dragon devour Luke. . . .

‘‘Sally, look at chapter twelve.’’

‘‘Hang on.’’ I heard her flipping pages. ‘‘Revelation twelve. ‘Now a great sign appeared in heaven: a woman, adorned with the sun . . . She was with child and wailed aloud in pain as she labored to give birth. Then a second sign appeared in the sky, a huge red dragon which had seven heads and ten horns. . . . ’ ’’

I said, ‘‘This would be the devil, would it not?’’

"Yes." She continued reading. " ’. . . the dragon stood before the woman who was about to bear a child, that he might devour her child when she brought it forth.’ ’’

My head began pounding again. There was more, and I read along with Sally: ‘‘ ‘She brought forth a male child, one who is to rule all the nations with a rod of iron.’ ’’

A rod of iron
. I saw Pastor Pete’s gleaming eyes and clenched fist, remembered him proclaiming these words. My mind was spinning. What twisted mix of biblical literalism and dementia had led Chenille to connect this passage to Luke? Did she see him in a messianic role? Was he some sort of chosen one?

Sally said, ‘‘Does this mean something to you?’’

‘‘I don’t know.’’

She said nothing, hoping I would fill the silence, but I kept quiet. After a moment she said, ‘‘All right. Do you want to hear about Dr. Neil Jorgensen, MD, deceased?’’

‘‘Oh. You bet.’’

‘‘You’re not going to believe what I found out.’’

‘‘What?’’

‘‘What killed him.’’

She told me. I blinked, and held the phone away from my ear, staring at it as though it had just bitten me. Jesse spread his hands and gestured,
What?
Eyes wide, I walked toward him.

I said, ‘‘Would you repeat that?’’

Sally said, ‘‘Neil Jorgensen died of rabies.’’

Sally couldn’t stop talking. She may have botched her initial report about Jorgensen’s death, but now she had the bit in her teeth. She had interviewed the county coroner about Jorgensen’s autopsy, and had spoken to the pathology lab that had come up with the diagnosis.

‘‘Of course, the hospital didn’t suspect rabies, because of all Jorgensen’s other injuries. Rabies causes acute encephalitis, but Jorgensen’s head trauma masked it. Plus the disease is rare in the U.S."

I listened, puzzling over how Jorgensen could have contracted the disease. ‘‘Don’t you get rabies from an animal bite?’’

‘‘Usually. But it’s possible for people to get it if infectious material gets into, say, their mouth or a wound.’’

‘‘Infectious material. Such as . . .’’

‘‘Saliva.’’

‘‘How about blood, animal droppings . . . ?’’

‘‘No. The virus gets into you through saliva and spreads along the nerves to the spinal cord and the brain. You can’t get rabies from petting a rabid animal or from contact with its blood, urine, or feces.’’

‘‘But if Jorgensen was bitten by a rabid animal, why didn’t he seek treatment immediately? He was a doctor.’’

‘‘I don’t know,’’ she said. ‘‘The coroner is stumped.’’

‘‘Could he have come in contact with the virus in his medical practice?’’

‘‘Theoretically, I suppose . . .’’

I heard the sound of paper flipping. Sally must have been reading from interview or research notes.

‘‘Nonbite exposure would mean getting contaminated with live virus, or with infectious material such as brain tissue. But according to my data, that’s a remote possibility except for laboratory workers. And Jorgensen was a plastic surgeon, not a pathologist.’’

I said, ‘‘What data is that?’’

‘‘From CDC—the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in Atlanta. That’s where the coroner sent Jorgensen’s tissue samples to be analyzed, to confirm the diagnosis.’’

Ah, those nasty germ doctors whom Chenille expected to poison us any day. Sally went on. ‘‘And a bunch of people who came in contact with him have to get PEP.’’

She was really getting into this. I said, ‘‘What’s PEP?’’

‘‘Postexposure prophylaxis. The emergency room doctors and nurses, lab technicians, firefighterparamedics—everyone who was exposed to Jorgensen has to take the rabies vaccine.’’

My brain froze. ‘‘Sally, I was exposed to Jorgensen.’’

‘‘What?’’

‘‘That night, before he got hit by the truck. I fell through the plate-glass window with him, and I got cut.’’

‘‘You can’t get rabies from that kind of casual contact.’’

I felt my throat constricting. ‘‘You don’t understand. When he came into the church he grabbed me. He was crying and spitting, and you said that saliva—’’

‘‘Oh, my gosh.’’

Jesse came over to me, his face troubled, mouthing,
what
? I found a piece of scratch paper and wrote
CDC
on it, and pointed to his laptop computer.

Sally said, ‘‘Maybe you should get in touch with your doctor, Evan.’’

Rabies kills up to seventy thousand people worldwide every year. Dog bites cause most cases in the developing world, but American victims usually contract the disease when bitten by a wild animal. In one gruesome instance eight people died after receiving infected corneal transplants. Rabies affects all mammals, and the outcome is almost always fatal.

That was the CDC Web site, sugarcoating things.

The World Health Organization site was no better. Nor the Pasteur Institute’s. They were all epidemiological fright wigs, scaring the piss out of me.

Rabies incubates in the central nervous system, generally for three to twelve weeks, and during that time the infected animal—or person—shows no sign of illness. Eventually, however, the virus reaches the brain and erupts into pain, paralysis, insanity, and death. Just six people are known to have survived the disease.

You get better odds with Ebola. I didn’t sleep.

At dawn I called my doctor’s office, telling her service, yes, page her, get her out of aerobics class or off the toilet and have her call me, and on second thought have her meet me at her office in half an hour. I was there in twenty minutes, waiting on the steps with the sun on my face, surrounded by orderly, bright flower beds, imagining how I’d look when I started foaming at the mouth.

Soon the doctor came up the walk carrying a coffee mug, with the
News-Press
tucked under her arm. She was a stylish woman in her fifties named Lourdes Abbott who had a no-nonsense manner and a perpetual furrow between her eyebrows.

‘‘Come on in.’’ Inside, she started flipping on lights. ‘‘I’ve already talked to the Public Health people about this. They’ll be contacting you for an interview.’’ She tossed the paper on her desk. The rabies story was prominent. She pointed me to a chair. ‘‘Talk.’’

I told her about Jorgensen screaming and spitting in the direction of my face. She drank from her mug.

She said, ‘‘Do you remember being hit with saliva?’’

‘‘I’m not sure. I didn’t have to wipe it off, but . . . I don’t know.’’

Her furrow deepened. ‘‘Show me where you were cut.’’

I held out my hands, where scabs were now faded, and parted my hair to indicate nicks on my scalp.

She said, ‘‘How did you take care of these cuts afterward?’’

‘‘My boyfriend washed them out at home about half an hour later.’’

‘‘Soap and water?’’

‘‘Yes. Then antiseptic and Band-Aids. And I showered and washed my hair.’’

‘‘Why do you keep scratching at your back and abdomen like that?’’

She declined to comment on the wasp stings. She just wrote everything down, and then stared at the page.

She said, ‘‘I think the risk to you is low. In fact, I question whether you’ve even been exposed. However, you had broken skin, and Dr. Jorgensen had confirmed rabies. It’s a gray area, but call me risk averse. I’m going to recommend that you get vaccinated. ’’