Eye of the Whale (29 page)

Eliana snatched the laces of the other sneaker and slowly formed them into rabbit ears, then twisted one around the other and finally pushed it through the rabbit hole.

Lieutenant James pulled the laces tight. “You did it.” She gave him a big hug, proud of her accomplishment.

Lieutenant James’s wife, Janet, was watching from the doorway to the kitchen with a smile. Her long red hair hung down over her pink robe, and her freckled skin and light blue eyes looked pretty, as they always did in the morning, even without makeup.

“Sorry about the call,” he said.

“Apollo?” she asked.

“Yeah, they want me to kill it if it’s not gone by tomorrow. I don’t understand what the rush is.”

Kayla looked up from her book. “Daddy, don’t kill the whale.” Lieutenant James realized that he should have been more careful about what he said in front of his daughters. He pursed his lips as he pulled on his black coat and Coast Guard cap. He was at the door when Kayla came running over. It was still dark and cold outside. “Please, Daddy, promise me you won’t kill the whale.”

Lieutenant James bent over and put his hands on his daughter’s shoulders. “I’m going to do everything I can to help this whale, but if it doesn’t want to leave or if it is sick, then we might have to put it to sleep.”

“No, Daddy, don’t.” Kayla was crying. She knew what putting it to sleep meant.

Eliana came to the door and held up her finger. “One more try, Daddy. Just one more little try.”

SIXTY-SEVEN

9:00
A.M.
Davis

E
LIZABETH DID NOT SUBSCRIBE
to the
Sacramento Times,
but there it was on the doorstep. Someone had unfolded it and laid it out for her to see. She felt dizzy and sick to her stomach as she read the front-page headline:
A WHALE OF A TALE: FAILED GRADUATE STUDENT NO WHALE WHISPERER.

Elizabeth’s hands were shaking as she picked up the paper. She dreaded reading what the article said, but she could not stop herself. It would be worse not knowing what her neighbors and friends were being told about her.

“Since the whale’s arrival in the San Francisco Bay and its journey up the Sacramento River, former graduate student Elizabeth McKay has been telling the media that the entrapped whale has a story to tell.” The article went on to say that Lieutenant Isaac James had given Elizabeth “unprecedented access to the entrapped whale” and that he had disregarded the recommendations of many more senior scientists who were advising him that the whale was sick and should be euthanized “out of compassion.” It explained that she had recently been kicked out of her graduate program. Skilling was quoted as saying, “I spoke with Ms. McKay many times about the fanciful nature of her research, that it was based on unsubstantiated findings.” The article even suggested that she was possibly mentally unstable.

E
LIZABETH DROVE ACROSS
the causeway toward the medical center, the steering wheel of the old station wagon vibrating. She squeezed her hands around the hard plastic, hoping it might stop the wheel—and her—from shaking. The beauty of the floodplain and wildlife sanctuary spread out on either side of the causeway, soothing Elizabeth’s anxious mind. In comparison to the picture and the newspaper article, the argument with Frank about Teo seemed trivial. She had tried to call, but his cell phone kept going to voice mail. It would be better to see him, to tell him in person, to hold him. God, she needed his arms to comfort her.

As she drove, she could not stop thinking about the photo with its burned-out eyes. How far would the whalers go? When she’d seen the picture, she had immediately checked the freezer to see if the whale package was still there. It was not. In its place was a brief note Teo had scribbled: “Package to the whalers. Hoping it helps you and the whales.”

Snowy egrets and a great blue heron stood elegantly in the distance, and a red-tailed hawk flew over the car. The smell of brine and fish made her wince. Had she forgotten to wash her wetsuit? Elizabeth looked in her rearview mirror and saw the messy backseat of the station wagon. Her wetsuit and fins were stacked on top of equipment, files, books, clothes, and other chaos that she’d never had a chance to clear out. She was a bit of a packrat; Frank had always complained about her unwillingness to let go of anything that might someday be useful. As she rolled down her window, the wind felt good on her face and helped with the smell.

Elizabeth’s cell phone rang. She looked at the caller ID.
Restricted.
She flipped open the phone and held it to her ear as she continued driving with her other hand.

“Hello, Elizabeth, I see you’ve been making headlines.” The voice was a woman’s, and it sounded menacingly sweet.

“Who is this?”

“One of your secret admirers.”

“Very funny.”

“We can ruin your career—or at least what’s left of it.”

“What do you want from me?”

“We want you to stop being the self-appointed spokesperson for the whale.”

“Why?”

“It doesn’t matter why. We just want you to stop talking about things that you don’t know anything about and scaring people unnecessarily.”

“How did you get my number?”

“We know a lot about you, Elizabeth.”

“You can’t stop me from telling people the truth.”

“Oh, yes, we can.” The calmness of the voice sent chills up Elizabeth’s spine. “Let’s just say we have legal and
extra
legal means to keep you quiet. If you know what is good for you and your baby, you’ll do as I say.”

“How do you know about my baby?”

“You’re not listening, Elizabeth. I told you that we know a lot about you.”

“How dare you!”

“If you don’t believe what I say, Elizabeth, just look behind you…”

Elizabeth’s eyes flared up toward the rearview mirror. There was no car behind her.

“In the backseat,” the voice added.

Elizabeth’s heart was pounding against her rib cage. Was there someone in the car? She saw nothing but the pile of her debris.

As if reading her thoughts again, the woman’s voice whispered, “Under the wetsuit.”

Elizabeth glanced at the red brake lights of the truck in front of her and then quickly reached into the backseat, knocking her wetsuit to the floor. Underneath she saw a baby’s car seat. In it was a blue baby’s outfit. As she looked closer, she saw something sticking out of the collar. It was the silver head and vacant black eye of a large dead fish. She screamed and stepped on the gas instinctively. Her eyes shot back to the road, but it was too late. She was going to crash into the truck in front of her.

Elizabeth yanked the wheel to the right to avoid the truck and cut across the access lane, hurtling toward the railing of the causeway and the floodplain below.

SIXTY-EIGHT

T
HE STATION WAGON
hurtled toward the concrete guardrail. The front wheel well hit first, and the car screeched along the barrier, shooting sparks in every direction. Within seconds, the full weight of the heavy car collided broadside. The car tipped up on its side as it rode on two wheels, preparing to fall over the low guardrail.

Elizabeth looked down at the water in the floodplain below her, seeing the car’s reflection. She yanked the wheel to the left, but the momentum carried her fifty meters down the guardrail, sparks still flying, metal grinding, as the car finally bucked and stopped with a groan.

The old car had no air bags, and there was nothing cushioning her body as it absorbed the shock of the crash. From what she could tell, she had not hit her head and was not badly injured. Shaking and numb, she got out of the car to look for damage. The side of the car was bashed in, and the right front wheel well was punched into a permanent scream. But the tire was intact and still looked drivable.

A car stopped behind her, and a man got out. “Are you all right?”

“Yeah, thanks.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah, I’m fine. I’m fine. Thank you.”

The man looked at her suspiciously, perhaps wondering if she was in shock. He wasn’t the only one who was wondering if she was in her right mind. Risking her and her baby’s life
was
crazy.

It began to drizzle as Elizabeth got back into the station wagon.
Maybe I am in shock,
she thought as she stared blankly, watching the drops tapping against her windshield. She shifted the car into drive and headed back to the slough to see Apollo. To say goodbye.

“H
OW COULD YOU
run a public relations hatchet job like that?” Bruce Wood asked, although it was more of an accusation than a question. He was standing in the doorway of his editor’s office, his black eyes narrowed in anger. For all he knew, the whale researcher
was
crazy, but this was unprofessional and exactly the kind of garbage that was ruining journalism.

The piles of paper on the desk almost hid the editor’s rosacea-reddened face. His unkempt gray hair was brushed across his balding head. “When my best investigative journalist decides to cover garden parties and school bonds, I have to turn to the wires.”

“The wires? The public relations wire, maybe.”

“Subscriptions are down. Advertising revenue is dropping. The staff is shrinking. I need to print something, don’t I?”

Wood remembered Elizabeth’s comments about pollution. Maybe there was a story here after all. Someone was clearly trying to discredit her. “I’m going to find out who’s behind that wire story and why they have it in for that graduate student. Then maybe I’ll have some real news for you.”

SIXTY-NINE

Sacramento

F
RANK CLOSED
his cell phone. He couldn’t reach Elizabeth on hers but had left her a message, which she was either not hearing or unwilling to return.

Tom walked up to the nurses’ station, distracting Frank from his worry about Elizabeth. “Frank, sorry about security. I told them to hurry up.” Tom glanced to the side.

“Thanks,” Frank said, but he wasn’t buying it. How could it take a month to reset some access codes? The Epidemiological Research Unit was finding something that they didn’t want others to know. Frank knew from playing poker with Tom that he was a terrible bluffer. His eyes always looked to the side when he was lying.

Tom turned to fill out a prescription. His card key was in the pocket of his white coat. Frank clasped his hand on Tom’s shoulder affectionately. “I want to thank you for your and Jenny’s help during this trying time for me and Elizabeth.”

“It’s nothing,” Tom said, seeming a little uncomfortable with the physical intimacy.

“No, really, Tom, it’s meant a lot to me.” As he looked into Tom’s eyes and held his shoulder, Frank used his other hand to pluck Tom’s card key from his pocket.

“Anytime,” Tom said.

Frank started down the hall. “Hey, wait a minute,” he heard Tom
say. Frank froze and then slowly turned around. “You forgot your coffee.”

Frank sighed and smiled. “You can have it.”

Tom tipped the Styrofoam cup to his lips and drank it in one gulp like a shot, then lifted it in the air as if toasting Frank. “The coffee hasn’t gotten any better.”

“Some things never do,” Frank said, hurrying down the hall.

He looked both ways to see if anyone was coming. The hall was empty. He slid Tom’s card key into the reader and heard the door unlock. Frank slipped inside quickly and closed the door.

On Tom’s desk was a picture of his family in front of their large vacation home in Hawaii. Tom, Jenny, and their two boys beamed with almost unnatural wholesomeness and all-American good looks. Obstetricians weren’t buying big vacation homes in Hawaii—plastic surgeons or dermatologists, maybe, but not obstetricians. Tom must have either come from money or been moonlighting.

There was another photo on the desk of Tom’s softball team. Tom and Jenny had been nothing but kind to him, and Frank felt guilty about suspecting his friend. But something was suspicious. When he had asked security about his key, they said he had not been authorized to get a new one.

Frank pressed the power button on the computer, and the monitor flashed to life. An external hard drive resting on the desk hummed as its light turned red and then green. Frank swiped Tom’s card key on another reader next to the computer, but then it asked for his password.

Frank sat back in his chair.
How am I ever going to figure out his password?
He was not particularly good at code cracking—that was always Elizabeth’s skill. Her mind was always good at puzzles. His was not.
Come on, think. Children? Everyone uses their children’s names.
Frank typed in the names of Tom’s two boys, but neither worked. He slumped in the chair, defeated. He stared at the picture of Tom’s soft
ball team. He knew Tom was a passionate—his wife said obsessive—softball player. Some doctors lived for golf. Tom lived for softball.
What’s the name of his team? The Hawks? No, no…the Eagles!

Six little black circles appeared in the dialogue box as Frank typed “Eagles.”

He was in.

Frank looked up the birth defects statistics that the research unit was collecting for the regional health registry. The summary page listed two stats.

“Prematurity as a percentage of all births: 12.3%.”

“Birth defects as a percentage of births: 3.5%.”

Frank sighed with a combination of relief and frustration. He knew these numbers were consistent with the national averages, and he was relieved that there was no great epidemic of prematurity or birth defects. But his gut told him these statistics were wrong. He had witnessed more than his share of abnormal births.

He clicked on the icon for the database of birth defects and began to navigate through the records. Under the child’s name each electronic record had the diagnosis and a picture of the condition. There was everything from a slightly cleft palate to spina bifida, and this was just in the first two letters of the alphabet. He started in on the C’s. Frank stopped.
Where’s the Bradley baby?
He recalled the missing hand and the heart defect of the baby he had delivered a month before.
Did I skip over it?