Damaged (7 page)

“You’ll need a generator just to keep your three refrigerators running.”

“I’ve got three generators.”

“Then you better get gas today, Dad. Will you do that? Will you promise me you’ll get the gas cans filled today?”

“Sure, sure.”

“You won’t put it off?”

“I’ll go out before lunch. But you’re not gonna be here anyway. Where will they send you?”

“Probably Jacksonville. Someplace out of the path but close enough we can fly in immediately after. Remember, I told you. We came in right behind Katrina, so close I could see the swell of the backstorm. I imagine we’ll try to do the same this time.”

“Those boys sure have taken a liking to you.” He filled his coffee cup, standing beside her as she waited for the toaster to spit out her bagel.

“Yeah, we’re all a bunch of buddies.” She wanted to add that it was easy to be buddies after a few beers, but she’d never let her dad know that it was anything different.

“They have a small article in the
Journal
about that cooler you brought up yesterday.”

“Really?”

“Front page. Bottom right-hand corner. I set it aside for you.”

“Tell me what they said.” She slathered cream cheese on her toasted bagel and took a bite. Her dad read every inch of the daily
Pensacola News Journal
and could usually repeat almost verbatim the articles he took an interest in.

“Suspicious fishing cooler retrieved by the Coast Guard,” he told her, while tipping little splashes of cream into his coffee like he was rationing it. “It didn’t mention anything about the contents or even suggest foul play or that it had body parts inside.”

Liz almost choked on her bagel.

“Why do you think there were body parts?”

“It’s okay. I won’t say anything to anybody. The little guy, the one who had all the hot dogs and couldn’t hold his liquor—Tommy? He let it slip about the foot. He said there was other stuff, too, so I’m just assuming there might be the rest of a body.”

So much for all their training. Liz knew Wilson and Ellis were green, but this was ridiculous. The entire aircrew could get suspended for something like this.

“You know there was an article in last week’s
Journal
. Someplace up near Washington, D.C. A possible serial killer. One of those sick bastards who kept pieces of his victim. Maybe this is related.”

“Dad, I can’t talk about it. You know I can’t discuss this.”

“I’m just talking about the news.”

He struggled with a bagel for himself, trying to cut it in half with a bread knife. Liz gently took it from him, twisted it apart, and dropped both halves in the toaster.

“Okay, so tell me what you read about the serial killer.”

CHAPTER 10

NORTH SEVENTEENTH AVENUE UNDERPASS
PENSACOLA, FLORIDA

Billy Redding hit the jackpot. His battered shopping cart rattled with stacked aluminum cans. He crushed as many as he could until his hands were sore. The curse of small hands. In fact, Billy had convinced himself years ago that it had always been his worthless little hands that had prevented him from being successful in life. But maybe his luck was turning. Now with most of the cans crushed and almost flat, he could fit another two dozen into the cart.

Saturday nights always left a jackpot in the Wayside Park trash barrels. The trick, Billy had discovered, was to get here early enough on Sunday to beat the city’s cleanup crew. Cashing in this pile would take care of him for a week.

He headed back to the underpass to hide his stash. The short distance exhausted him. He was out of breath when he heard a car coming from behind him. Billy pushed back onto the curb to get out of the way. The car slowed. Billy kept moving uphill, panting in the morning humidity. His T-shirt stuck to his back like a second skin. He hated that and wore a long-sleeve button-down shirt over it,
thinking it would act as a layer of insulation or at least soak up the extra moisture. He didn’t mind being hot. He hated being wet. Bugs would get tangled in his beard whenever it got wet. That’s why he learned to stick close to the underpass. It provided shelter from the rain.

“Hey, Billy,” someone called out to him.

He wanted to pretend he didn’t hear them. He needed to keep going. But sometimes people stopped and gave him a couple of bucks. He glanced over his shoulder.

A police cruiser. Damn!

He stopped immediately. Secured the shopping cart with a rock under one of the back wheels. A big rock he carried strictly for that purpose.

As he got closer to the car Billy recognized the orange-haired cop. Sometimes they told him their names but he never remembered. He was always polite. As long as he was polite, they were polite back. So Billy just kept his head down and answered their questions, said “yes” a lot and called them “sir.” Once he even called a female cop “sir.” He was so embarrassed that he couldn’t stutter out an apology. She ended up giving him five bucks and said not to worry about it.

“There’s a hurricane coming this way, Billy,” the cop told him through the rolled-down window of the cruiser.

“Yes, sir.”

“When the time comes I’ll send someone here to pick you up. You’re going to need to go to a hurricane shelter. Do you understand, Billy? You won’t be able to stay out here.”

“Yes, sir. Will I be able to bring my shopping cart?”

“They’ll have food and everything else you’ll need at the shelter.”

Billy kept his head down and kicked at the curb. “It’s hard to find these.”

The cop was quiet and out of the corner of his eyes Billy could see him shaking his head.

“Sure, Billy. We’ll figure something out. I’ll tell them you can bring your cart.”

Billy bagged some of the cans and put them in his safe spot, a deserted grassy hideaway several yards from the underpass. If he hurried back to the park, he might be able to grab more cans before the cleanup crew arrived. He couldn’t go to the recycling kiosk until tomorrow. It’d take a whole day.

His cart rattled even more now with only half the crushed cans to jump around. Billy liked the jingle-jangle. It reminded him of the sound of loose change in his daddy’s trouser pocket. “Ice-cream money,” he’d call it and the two of them would laugh at their secret code so Billy’s mama wouldn’t know they were really going out to buy and share a cheap bottle of vodka.

Billy had just gotten to the park when he heard another vehicle pull in behind him. He moved out of the way but the van stopped alongside him.

“Hey,” a man called out.

Billy kept going, glancing back at the van. The man wore dark sunglasses and rested his arm out the window. Billy noticed a patch on the shoulder. A uniform. Like a cop. Had they sent someone to get him already? He stopped and looked up into the clear-blue sky then turned toward the water of the bay. The waves churned over the ledge but it didn’t look like a hurricane was coming.

“You need to come with me,” the man said to him. “I know it looks like a nice day, but there’s a hurricane on the way.”

“Yes, sir. I know that.” Billy stayed on the curb. “They told me I could bring my shopping cart.”

The man stared at him. Billy decided he wouldn’t go if they didn’t let him take the shopping cart.

“Sure, I’ve got room.” The man climbed out of the van and slid open the side door, ready to help Billy. “You probably should climb in beside it and keep it from tipping.”

As Billy started to crawl inside, stepping over all the bags of ice, he tried to remember if any of the other cops wore khaki shorts and really nice deck shoes. That was his last thought as the rock cracked the back of his skull.

CHAPTER 11

NAVAL AIR STATION
PENSACOLA, FLORIDA

Benjamin Platt cut himself again as the tiny bathroom fixtures shook and clattered from the vibration. Overhead, the steady buzz of airplanes and helicopters taking off continued. There would be no break anytime soon, and Platt’s attempt at shaving was leaving him with enough nicks and scars that he considered growing a beard.

The latest weather reports had the eye of Hurricane Isaac heading straight for the Florida Panhandle even though the storm hadn’t entered the Gulf of Mexico yet. The base wasn’t taking any chances. The naval flight school had called in pilots, flight instructors, and even students to fly aircraft to safer ground. And this morning the admiral was adamant about moving the quarantined soldiers to safer ground as well.

Platt had escaped late last night to get a couple hours’ rest, though sleep didn’t come easily. He couldn’t get the image of the young soldier out of his mind. By the time Platt found Captain Ganz, the admiral had already called. Platt only witnessed the aftermath.

Ganz had been unnerved about losing yet another patient, but the admiral’s insistence on an evacuation of the makeshift isolation ward left the captain angry and frustrated. He was depending on Platt to find some answers and find them quickly.

Now as Platt headed over to the lab to participate in the autopsy, he felt a new weight on his shoulders. He hadn’t even had a chance to look at the blood samples. Ganz was in a hurry, not just to come up with answers before another soldier collapsed but also to beat the storm. Platt wanted to tell him to slow down. He wanted to tell him that sometimes these things took weeks, months to figure out. But he knew that was exactly why Ganz had requested his presence. The captain was placing all his bets on Platt discovering some hidden virus, some new deadly strain of bacteria. He expected a miracle. And from what Platt had seen in the short amount of time since his arrival, he knew—barring a miracle—there would be no immediate answers.

He kept thinking about the young soldier who died last night. They said he had vomited green liquid just before falling into a coma. By the time Platt saw him, he looked remarkably peaceful. A single groan escaped his lips while his body struggled to get enough oxygen. There had been no swelling around his incision. No fever, though it was apparent from the wet bedsheets that he had perspired immensely in the preceding hours. The pupils of his eyes were not dilated nor had the blood vessels burst. Only in the last hour had his heart rate slowed and his blood pressure plummeted. He never regained consciousness. Whatever had infected these young soldiers was deceitful, clever, and lethal.

CHAPTER 12

MONTGOMERY, ALABAMA

Gasoline exploded over the top of the can and splattered on Maggie’s shoes before she snapped the pump off.

“Damn it, Wurth. Tell me again why the deputy director of Homeland Security is filling gas cans to haul in his SUV. Aren’t you supposed to be arranging for trucks and caravans of trucks to deliver things to the hurricane victims?”

“What victims? This is my personal stash. Just put that last can next to the stack of bottled water.”

Maggie slipped off her shoes and threw them in the back with the supplies. The asphalt burned her feet before she got back to the passenger side of the SUV. She opened her window despite the scorching heat. The fumes were already giving her a headache, and by her own calculations they had another three hours on the road.

Wurth slid into the driver’s seat and handed her an ice-cold can of Diet Pepsi, his idea of a peace offering. She accepted.